Brown Nosing and the Destruction of an Organization

Where is the line between enthusiasm and brownnosing? It is like the quality of a great painting. It is difficult to define but we all know it when we see it. A big part of the impression comes from what we think of the individual’s personality. People that are not well-liked are construed to have ulterior motives just because we don’t like them. It is fuel for the fire. But what is it that tips the balance? Is it one act or a series of smaller things?

Most people who develop the reputation, at least in my observational experience, set a pattern but it is usually one event that seals the deal. There is a common measure of what is expected in a co-worker. All jobs have some inherent unpleasant things which need to be done. That is the nature of work. People expect that. Most people want to get the job done and go home where the enjoyment is located. The brownnoser is different. An extra duty, particularly a “face time” event, where it is generally considered a pain to participate, finds the brownnoser overwhelmingly excited to be able to attend. That is one of the recognizable differentiating factors which identify the individual. Another identifying factor is the desire of those individuals to stop at any moment and tell anyone at great length how valuable the brownnoser’s efforts are and how the organization would be doomed without those efforts. Other co-workers contributions are recognized but one gets the sense of a grudging acceptance and feigned over-enthusiasm rather than real enthusiasm.

In order to make themselves part of the “in-crowd”, the brownnoser always speaks to others in a “just between us people in the know” attitude in order to give the impression that they are part of the inner circle. This usually involves dropping names of the powerful in the organization. This sucker-fish approach to riding on the coattails of power is an attempt to leverage the brownnoser into a position of more power in the organization. In Washington, DC, the saying is “The appearance of power is power”. That is because if someone thinks you are powerful, they will treat you with the proper deference, and therefore you are powerful because you get what you want. The brownnoser uses name-dropping to associate themselves with the powerful in order to appear to be part of that group.

The error in this approach with a smart boss is that the experienced intelligent boss also recognizes brown-nosing for what it is. Unfortunately, however, brownnosing often works. I remember an engineering job years ago where a peer that was universally regarded as a weak performer by his entire group of peers, with good reason, was rated number one in potential, by management, primarily on the basis of his organizing golf tournaments, which had nothing to do with his job. That is a recipe for poor morale and disgruntled employees. A number of excellent engineers left the organization because of that situation.

Communism was ultimately doomed to failure because it flew in the face of human nature. If there is no incentive to work harder, why would anyone do it? The brownnoser does the same thing to an organization. If the brownnoser succeeds preferentially, the other employees stop performing because they recognize their legitimate efforts are in vain. Their only defense is to begin brown-nosing as well and you end up with an organization consisting of two factions: the competing brownnosers and the disgruntled employees doing the minimum to maintain their jobs, similar to the ruling class and the masses in a Communist country. Unfortunately, most of us have been in an organization like that at some point. The only way to maintain your drive is to find another place to work. In fact, the most likely people to leave are the best performers because they are in the best position to get better jobs. You cannot work for long for people you don’t respect and those who unwittingly respond to the brownnoser are not respected. Therefore, to maintain the quality of an organization, managers must recognize the brownnoser and not allow their actions to reap favoritism. Only by avoiding that mistake will productivity and morale be sustained.

Task Force Uniform and the New Blue BDUs

Here is an old one that I wrote just after I was surveyed by the Navy about the new blue Battle Dress Uniform (BDU)

I have already addressed some of these issues but we were discussing them once again and I thought I would reorganize the thoughts, specifically about the new blue battle dress uniform (BDU). I have some questions for Task Force Uniform.

First: This uniform can only be worn on naval installations and aboard ship. Sailors cannot stop for gas, groceries or any other routine stop between work and home. If the uniform has to be worn only among other naval personnel, who are the people in a camouflage uniform hiding from? Aboard a ship or on a naval installation should be the safest environment in which naval personnel will ever be located. Why is it necessary to wear camouflage?

Second: Assuming everyone is wearing this camouflage uniform on board a ship. Does it make any sense at all to be wearing a blue camouflage uniform when a sailor falls overboard? It is hard enough to find someone in the ocean without the added disadvantage of having the person in the water in a purposely difficult to see uniform.

Third: In rapid evolutions (man overboard or general quarters), why come up with a uniform that takes longer to don than the current uniforms? Having worn BDUs in many deployments, they are a hassle to wear correctly with trousers bloused. People will argue that blousing isn’t necessary in a hurry. The counter argument is then why put in place a uniform which ever requires blousing on a ship?

Fourth: Another justification for the BDUs which has been offered is that it will make sailors feel more like “warriors”. This has to be the most condescending, insulting comment ever. Is anyone actually implying that Sailors in blue jeans and white T-shirts who fought throughout World War II were wimps? Are submarine Sailors in coveralls that perform so admirably upon submarines not warriors? It is a good thing that Task Force Uniform finally came up with a uniform which will make SeALs feel like warriors. This is the worst made up excuse for a uniform ever.

Fifth: If a Sailor deploys in a joint arena with the Army or the Marine Corps, will a Sailor be able to wear this new BDU uniform? Of course not, it is BLUE. If it makes you feel like a warrior, why is it inappropriate? The Sailor will wear either the Army colors or Marine Corps colors to blend in. So now we have a battle dress uniform which can only be worn in battles at sea. It isn’t used in land battles. That is ridiculous.

Sixth: The Army and the Air Force allow their members to stop for routine necessities in their BDU uniforms. Assuming that there is a legitimate reason for the uniform (which I haven’t found), why would Task Force Uniform agree to one that is so hideous that no one can be seen in public wearing it? If the Army and Air Force uniforms are acceptable, why not change to Navy versions of similar ones? Someone commented that the leadership wanted time to have people get used to wearing it. Once again, it is incredibly insulting to imply that experienced Sailors cannot figure out how to wear a new or changed uniform and follow instructions.

Task Force Uniform has really screwed the pooch on this one. Someone in authority needed to squash this thing. This is analogous to the ill-fated enlisted uniform of the mid 1970s which temporarily replaced the classic blue jumper uniform. One of two things will happen with this new blue uniform, either it will go away after a long enough trial period to allow the people who came up with it to save face (and the manufacturer to make a lot of money), or the policies will change and the uniform will have similar limitations to the Army and Air Force. In the mean time,

And...... I predicted even back then, it is being replaced with a newer, more sensible BDU uniform. It has gone the way of the Service khaki jacket, the PT uniform that could not be laundered on ships because it would melt, the black and khaki "Eisenhower" jackets, and the "chief-style" junior enlisted uniforms.

Why James Wolfe's criminal case is a big deal

For anyone not following closely, here is some further information on why the newly announced James Wolfe criminal charges are a BIG DEAL: This will destroy the entire house of cards that Robert Mueller is investigating. Apparently, the ENTIRE "Trump collusion" story was initially based on a story leaked by Wolfe (head of security at the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, at the time) to reporter Ali Watkins (his girlfriend at the time), and subsequently published in the NY Times, that Carter Page had met with a Russian spy.

What the story did not say (purposely or not, not yet known) was that Page was, in fact, approached by a Russian operative posing as a banker and that the FBI had interviewed Page about the meeting to find out what the guy wanted, and to warn him. Page cooperated and then stayed away from the operative. Page was not acting in concert with the operative and was, in fact, a target. That is why there is no indication that Carter Page is, or ever was, in trouble for anything that is being investigated. The published story inferred that a Trump campaign advisor was purposely meeting with Russian spies, which is total nonsense. In retrospect, it appears that Wolfe may have duped Watkins (or she was in on it.......has not been ascertained, at this point). When Watkins was being interviewed on MSNBC about the story, she stated that Page had been completely open to her questions. That is because he really had nothing to hide.

The FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign were partially based on this false story and partially on opposition research from the Clinton campaign, manufactured by Fusion GPS and paid for by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton Campaign.

Therefore, the entire "Trump collusion" investigation was initiated on two fictitious stories from two anti-Trump sources that have no basis in truth. The anti-Trump people in the Obama Department of Justice and FBI were more than happy to run with the story because it served their political purposes. Additionally, they were so sure that Hillary Clinton would win the election that they never worried about getting caught doing the unethical, and likely illegal, things that they were doing.

As they say, elections have consequences. They are all now being busted for what they did and the truth continues to come out. The next shoe to drop may be an actual objective look at the felonies committed by Secretary Clinton and her aides concerning classified material. Andrew McCabe is already looking for immunity to turn in evidence on his former superiors. For Rep Schiff and Sen Warner, who kept pushing the story, you two were pushing the gas pedal on a vehicle without a steering wheel. It is not ending up where you wanted it to go.

The recent changes at the Consumer Financial Protection Board

The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau was a political power grab which was pushed very hard by ultra-liberal Senator Elizabeth Warren. It was set up to advance liberal financial policies and was intentionally set up to not be accountable to just about anyone. That way, they could do whatever they wanted to do and no one could stop them.

However, a glitch in their plan occurred. When the prior head of the agency, Richard Cordray, left his position to run for Governor of Ohio, it left a vacancy, which all of the liberal supporters thought would automatically go to Assistant Director Leandra English, another staunch liberal policy person. Au contraire......... The President appoints the leadership of that organization, which wasn't a problem for them when President Obama was still in office. He is no longer in office. Instead of promoting English to the position, President Trump appointed Mick Mulvaney as the head of the bureau. That makes sense, since Mulvaney is in control of the White House portion of the federal budget negotiations and is one of the best-informed financial people in Washington, DC. In response, Leandra English was sending out emails and instructions to the agency using the title "acting director" even though she was not. It was an attempted coup. English even sued to get the job, which is sort of ridiculous. The courts have subsequently ruled, on two occasions, that the position is to be filled by the President, alone. At one point, the administration supported getting rid of the agency in its entirety. Instead, they decided to change it to make it useful.

The CFPB has a 25-member advisory board, which was also stockpiled with liberals by the Obama administration (to be expected and makes perfect sense because it was a liberal administration). Since the board members were trying to sabotage all of the changes that Mulvaney was putting in place at the bureau, today, the entire 25-member advisory board was fired because of their actions. Look for pieces of Senator Warren's head on your walls soon because it will surely explode.

Freedom of the Press... or Espionage?

The recent charges against the Senate Intelligence Committee security staffer for leaking to a New York Times reporter bring up some philosophical issues. Having a free press is certainly important to exposing malfeasance by government officials, and anyone else for that matter. If the government controls the press, there is no way for the average citizen to get any information except government propaganda. Some would say that the internet allows more exchange of information but a huge portion of the information available on the internet is fictitious and agenda-driven.

The one side is that the press needs to be free to expose corruption. On the other hand, the fact that you are a journalist is not a license to print or electronically publish anything that you want to publish. Recently, we have seen journalists publishing illegally-obtained classified material. That is quite a tight rope to walk. If the government is hiding nefarious activities by classifying things that should not be hidden, the journalist is performing a great public service. On the other hand, if a journalist publishes information that is not appropriate, intelligence operatives and foreign helpers get killed or weapons systems get compromised, endangering the nation.

In theory, journalists are supposed to be smart enough to decide which is which. We now know that most are not. That is why, in the past, their were vastly experienced editors at major newspapers and radio/television outlets that made those kinds of decisions, after very careful consideration.

The other presumption was always that the journalists had the best interests of the nation at heart. That is also no longer true. When classified material is published solely for the purposes of a political agenda, the journalists are no longer objective journalists, they are communication officers for a particular political group. One great historical example of this is when Newsweek spiked the Michael Isikoff story about President Clinton having an affair with a White House intern, solely for political reasons. It was only when The Drudge Report published a story about Newsweek killing the article that the whole story came out. Since the majority of the media outlets in the country are liberal-leaning, there have been a lot more "leaks" recently in an attempt to embarrass the current administration. That is to be expected since they disagree with the current policies.

A New York Times reporter had her phone records looked at to determine who was leaking the information. That is how they caught the Intelligence committee staffer. That is a mixed bag. On the one hand, we don't want the government to have free reign to examine everyone's phone records whenever they want. On the other hand, we want to catch people performing illegal activities, which potentially endanger people, for their own political agenda.

This is a tough issue to resolve no what which side you support. If everyone was smart and had the best of intentions, it wouldn't be an issue.