By William Corden
The DEI initiative spread like a virus through all western democratic governments, right on down to the receptionists at the front desk. Unsurprisingly it got its foothold in the civil service and steamrollered along until private businesses were considered racist if they didn’t follow.
It’s a long time ago now but I remember one particular instance where a girl with absolutely no managerial ability somehow became the poster child for the government’s enlightened policies. She went from a lowly clerk to the position of Chief Director of our Province’s OHS with the space of 6 months.
(Occupational Health and Safety),all because she had a sponsor who used the DEI movement to its full power.
Of course she was shredded in the first couple of months , everything she touched turned into a disaster and they had to bring in somebody competent to do the job for her….. but they didn’t fire her, they just waited until the ship had been righted and moved her on, with effusive praise, to her next sinking vessel.
It was OK to criticize her if you were outside the organization but God help you if you criticized from within… you were toast.
And this is where the problem filters down throughout organizations these days.
The line staff are scared to utter a word against the hierarchy for fear of losing their jobs.
No sense in reporting a deficiency in operations if it’s seen as a shot against the boss. Best keep your mouth shut and take home your generous paycheck. So you simply cannot get anyone off their ass to do something at the municipal level of Government these days… impossible!
Why take any initiative with a new project or take the bull by the horns on intractable problems? You’ll only get blamed if things go wrong.
So the big shots (especially in Government) tread water in delicate political times. Do nothing and you’ll be safe, make a bold move and you’re gone.
I have to say that I myself would be reluctant to joint the fray if some violent incident were to break out in front of me, unless I had a weapon (which I don’t want!)
Quite often the hero becomes the accused in this upside down world.
It is irretrievably broken when a person one day is a hockey Mom in Alaska and the next day, without any training, could be Vice President of the U.S.
In the UK, the Deputy Prime Minister was a social worker handing out dole checks to welfare clients just a year or two before she was appointed.
In our own Province here in B.C some years back, a woman was made Premier only weeks after she was running a trailer park.
See if anyone with no experience gets a heavy duty job in places like China or Malaysia or, the best place of all for meritocracy, Singapore.
Ain’t gonna happen
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The collapse of systems—whether social, economic, ecological, or technological—often feels sudden, but it’s usually the result of long-term stresses, unacknowledged feedback loops, and flawed design.