[I worked under federal grant for a rural health program from 1991-93.]
Getting nagged from Washington from the rural health office there. They want to see something, a layout, a mock-up, a blueline, some copy, whatever…. FAXed to them soonest. This is the second time they called—first they called me, I said, “yeh, yeh…,” now they called the director, Jack Geller. They said to him, “Jeff wants it like this, Jeff wants it like that, Jeff….” And who is Jeff? The director of the fed. agency. It seems that ol’ Jeff is anxious to have this new publication come out well, and have his office’s name right up there on page 1, for its funding. And why is that? “He’s ambitious,” says Jack. “He wants to be an under-secretary someday.”
So I’m to be servant to Jeff’s ambitions, and those underlings in Washington are anxious to please so they can move up with his fortunes. Sniveling sycophants! Bu I suspect this is the story of the entire Washington working while collar corps. And really—hasn’t this always been the case, from Henry 8th’s court to Idi Amin’s henchmen to Stalin’s KGB?
But I don’t want to get caught up in that. The heck with ambition to power.
Yet I inevitably I have to at least move a couple checkers, if not play the game. The people are hot to trot in Washington, to see me hand-carrying some formal layouts. Get this: they want to ship me down to Washington in about 3 weeks just to, I suppose, mold me to their viewpoint. Your tax dollars at work, thank you.
Okay, I’ll play—in any case, I think of this job as a client, a freelance client, and I’m just working to please the client. Whatever he wants, fine by me….
“This is what you do when you’re funded on soft money,” says Jack. “If it’s the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, you play their game. If it’s the state, you play that game. If it’s the feds, you play that game.
Nobody warned me when I was hired that I was going to be paid with “soft money.”
—Jan. 23, 1992, Grand Forks, North Dakota
OtD 