Where there is smoke, there is fire

Once upon a time I held a position where I ran a crew of around 30 people. For the most part, it ran smoothly.

I liked to manage from a “big picture” point-of-view wherein my employees knew their jobs, knew what I expected and, with minimal direction, they were able to get the work done. When needed, I stepped in to fine-tune or re-train when something wasn’t getting done right. Once corrected, I went back to letting them get it done. I liked working this way because it gave me more time to do what I loved best; getting down in the pits and working alongside my crew. It was where I had started and where I still loved to be more than anywhere else. In this way, we operated more like a big family than any other department within the company. And our performance record proved we were doing it right.

Then “Danny” came along (not his real name). I interviewed Danny and the guy pulled off one of the best interviews I had ever conducted. My No. 2 was equally impressed with his confidence, knowledge and views on what defined professionalism. Felt great to hire the guy and introduce him to the rest of the team. For the first few weeks, things seemed fine. But soon, little-by-little, the complaints starting coming in. At first they were kind of vague. Nothing specific, but something about him was rubbing the other guys the wrong way. They complained he was cocky, arrogant, wouldn’t listen and no matter how many times he was showed how to do something the way we wanted it done, he had his “own” way that he insisted was better.

It wasn’t long before the complaints escalated into genuine problems — reports of condescending lectures from the “new guy” to the rest of the crew. Then the people who were complaining would notice that some of their equipment would develop problems and they were convinced it was sabotage. Money came up missing, which had never been a problem before. My crew starting believing it was retaliation for complaining. It seemed like, suddenly, I was bombarded with problems that all seemed to center around Danny. And the really bothersome aspect was that it was getting worse at an accelerated rate.

Oh sure, I talked to him several times about it. Put on my best “this is serious” face when I did. (I was famous for that). Problem was, I was never able to specifically tie him directly to any of the problems. A few times I frustrated some of my best guys because I would doubt or second-guess what was going on and had to talk to them just to make sure they weren’t “looking too hard” or exaggerating.

Finally it just got to be too much, and after a particularly bad incident, I said, “Enough is enough!” and with my No. 2 and No. 3 managers present, I fired him. I’m a fair guy, have always detested having to discharge people and had always had hard evidence of a serious wrongdoing when I did it. But not this time.

Danny was furious about being fired, but I held my ground and basically had to tell him, “Danny, where there’s smoke there’s fire. And you always seem to be surrounded by smoke. I don’t care anymore about trying to play detective and find the evidence, the who-did-what, why, when, where and to whom. There is such a thing as circumstantial evidence and you practically wallow in it. So goodbye. These gentlemen will escort you as you gather your things and depart.”

Almost overnight, my team was back to its former glory. Morale went back up and our numbers right along with it. And what do you know? Not too long after I discharged Danny, the hard evidence started popping up regarding some of the things he had been doing. Only mistake I had made was not getting rid of him earlier.

So what’s the point of the story? Just this; Danny is in my mind almost every day as I read the news. Awhile back we had the Bin Laden raid leak that even Feinstein had to concede appeared to have generated in the White House. The media dutifully reported it as briefly as possible, just doing its duty to keep the “Chosen One” sitting pretty and soon it was forgotten. The administration’s response? “Wasn’t me.”

Wasn’t much longer after that and we had “The Fast and Furious,” wherein our own Department of Justice was caught intentionally allowing illegally purchased firearms to be transported across the border. One of them was used to kill one of our own Border Patrol agents. And again, a shrug of the shoulders and, “wasn’t me.” Then there was Benghazi. Then the IRS being used to harass people who don’t see eye-to-eye with the current administration’s politics.

And still we keep hearing “wasn’t me, wasn’t me, wasn’t me.”

See what I’m getting at? Sure seems to be more and more smoke. Oh sure, I see the counter-arguments that go something like, “There’s nothing really wrong. They’re all just trumped up by Republicans for political purposes.”

Are Republicans using these scandals for political purposes? Duh, of course they are. Unfortunately, that doesn’t change the facts. If somebody is looking to bring me down and I’m stupid enough to give him the ammunition to do it, well? And I’ve noticed more and more during the past few weeks that my liberal friends are getting a little more uncomfortable, less confident in defending this administration. It’s getting harder and harder to do so.

What’s funny is these are the same people who a few years ago were all too eager to instantly blame Bush for anything and everything. Toilet clogged? “Bush’s fault!” But fast-forward to 2013 and watch them scratch their heads, sigh and struggle a little bit as they try to defend one issue, then another, then another and, oops, another.

Where there’s smoke, there’s fire. And from where I sit, it looks like we’ve got a major forest fire on our hands.

Ben Compton is a Palmer resident and publishes his column as “Compton’s Corner,” the same title used by his grandmother, Phyllis Compton, a longtime Frontiersman columnist.