Getting the job

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Suppose you apply for a big job.  A very important job.  . 

You get your resume together. You make yourself sound indispensable to the new employer.  You file an application and several days later the company HR director calls you in for a talk.  You  are not surprised to learn you’re not the only applicant. The competition is going to be pretty stiff. But you go in and meet the HR person who thinks you’re worth a talk with one of the office managers of this big company.  The HR person warns you this person is kind of tough so you ask some friends to speak up on your behalf. They and you are persuasive enough that the office manager sets up a meeting with the Division Director.  But the office manager tells you to lose the sport coat, get a suit and a new tie, and shine your shoes.  The competition gets tougher the higher you go and you want to make sure you stand out enough to be memorable to the Division Director.   

The Division Director takes a good look at you, listens to you state your case, and confers with assistants who have watched the interview. The group likes you but suggests a few tweaks you can make in your presentation and your personal appearance.  Maybe they suggest a few additional details would help your resume in your next step. 

By now the company’s date for filling this job is getting closer and you are one of a few surviving candidates.  The Vice-President of the company is going to meet with all of the finalists and will recommend one to the company President and CEO.  To increase the pressure on the finalists, each of them is interviewed as the others watch. The VP has to catch a plane so every extra minute the other candidates take making themselves more impressive means you have less time before the VP leaves to catch the plane.  Five minutes before she has to grab her briefcase and bolt out the door, she turns to you.  You have only five minutes to sum up everything that justifies your application and your abilities.  Five minutes to prove you deserve to be the one who walks into the office of the President and stands at his desk as the newest important employee of the company.      

Today is that five minutes for the Missouri legislature.

Today is the last chance for hundreds of bills to make a good enough impression to be sent to the the Governor’s desk, potentially as the newest important laws for Missouri.  It’s the last five minutes of the long process and all of the company VPs go out the door at 6 p.m.

That being said—(revised)

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As the 1997 legislative session turned toward its last couple of weeks, some of us at the Senate press table began to talk about some things we had been hearing for the previous four months that had reached the point of irritation.  Our lawmakers, as we ourselves sometimes do, get into slovenly habits with the English language and they begin to speak with crutches.   So we started listing words or phrases that we had heard  time after time, day after day, from people who seemed to lack the kind of verbal adroitness that we think our public figures should have.  I retired to our studio in the press room complex and wrote this:

A COMPENDIUM OF LEGISLATIVE CLICHES

Or

Throwing out a box of slippery apples that ain’t broke

After sliding down a slippery slope in Pandora’s box with a can of worms, having thrown the baby out with the bath water while comparing apples to oranges, we arrived at a train wreck on a level playing field, our nose under the tent flap and our foot in the door, and told the emergency medical technician examining our leg, “If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.”

Bob Priddy

Missouri Senate

April 29, 1997

We dug out that compendium the other day because we decided to compare the legislative clichés of 16 years ago with those that we have heard again and again this year.   We were struck by how different the clichés of the late 1990s were. In fact, we haven’t heard some of these used this year, certainly not often enough to reach the point of irritation that they did then.  We are older now.  Perhaps they were spoken while we were dozing.

After we first published this list late last night or early this morning (we thank the Majority Night Owl for the Missouri Senate) a friend suggested some additions that will make the collection more complete.  We have chosen the best ones and added them for the sake of history and for those who will be sixteen years from now students of legislative clichés.

A COMPENDIUM OF LEGISLATIVE CLICHES, 2013

Or

The Reality is I have heartburn

At the end of the day, this is a simple bill, a solution looking for a problem, with a belt and suspenders amendment to the physical note that avoids picking winners and losers while we kick the can down the road. That said, the truth is, it is an effort to incent more discussions offline in which I can entertain your questions about another tool in the toobox. It might cause some heartburn; I get that. I sincerely believe we can get it to the finish line, or perhaps, across the goal line but I don’t want to belabor your bill.

Wonder what phrases will be fingernails on a blackboard in 2029.

Notes from the front lines

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Semi-blog things.

Some people who can do something about it are finally paying attention to the Capitol.   The Governor is suggesting $50 million dollars be spent in the next fiscal year to fix up the basement which is in terrible shape–not the part where he and legislators of certain status park, but hidden areas where there are distressing leaks.   The money also would go for new windows.  The place has a lot of them.  And many of them leak.  It’s been about four decades since the original windows were replaced.  It’s time to seal the building again against the elements. 

The building, its facilities, and its priceless art will need millions of dollars more in renovation, restoration, and repairs.  Perhaps events held from time to time to observe centennials in the progress of its construction–such as an event last week remembering the groundbreaking in May of 1913– will lead to continued commitments to return this building to the glories its designers and builders dreamed for it to be.

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Incidentally, this reporter is one of the few people remaining who has touched both ceilings of the House and of the Senate. It’s not exactly something to be carved into a tombstone.  But it does mean that I have been higher in the House and Senate than almost every Representative and Senator who have served in this building—even during some night sessions after long dinners with lobbyists. 

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We were in the elevator with Senator Will Kraus the other day.  He had me where he wanted me.  One of the blogs about seersucker Wednesdays had maligned his saddle shoes.   ”They’re blue, ” he said, “not black.”   

 Which, of course, makes him even more stylish, with shoes that match the colors of his milk and sugar suit.   Our apologies to Senator Kraus’ shoes.  We did not knowingly or with malice aforethought in any way intend to indicate the shoes did not match the coat. 

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Speaking of Senator Kraus.  When we started to write these notes, it was 10:15 p.m. on Tuesday night, May 7, and the Democrats were trying to talk down Sen. Kraus’ tax cut bill.  About 45 minutes earlier we walked over to him as he was sitting on a bench at the side of the chamber while Senator Jamilla Nasheed prattled on, and told him, “If this keeps going for another two and a half hours, you’ll be out of uniform.”     Two and a half hours would mean it would be Wednesday and we know what that means in the senate.

 But the advice was erroneous.  The clock and the calendar might think it is Wednesday, but if the Senate is still doing Tuesday’s business, Tuesday can last far more than 24 hours.   I remember one day that lasted about 32.  Senator Richard has been pretty good this year in setting the schedule for the senate. He maxes out at about 14.  

                                             ——————–

Speaking of what happens on Wednesday, Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder was in the chair that Tuesday when a Senator demanded to know his position on the clothing some of the fashion trend-setters of the Senate wear on Wednesday.  Kinder opined that in his part of state–Cape Girardeau–wearing of that kind of clothing was commonplace–BUT NEVER BEFORE MEMORIAL DAY!

The legislature will be gone by then and what’s the sense of wearing seersucker if you miss a chance to flaunt it?

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In the days when Missouri was an agrarian state, the legislature met from November into early March.  Every other year.  sessions began after the fall harvest and quit in time for planting season.  A check of old journals shows lawmakers sometimes met on Christmas.   We stepped outside the building early one evening last week.  The sun was gently setting in the west.  The grass was the lush dark green of Spring.  A light breeze was blowing.  It was quiet. It was delicious. 

It was a reminder that 6 p.m. May 17th can’t come soon enough. And it was a reminder that some of the old-timers had some pretty good ideas.