Technology in Local Government

In Delaware County Pennsylvania, we have a one party system. The Republicans control it all, and we have proven that we can be just as corrupt, reprehensible, and downright stupid as our Democratic counterparts in the White House.

Ok, almost. But we try harder.

We have a system in which Domestic Relations excels in incompetence. It is run by a woman named Mimi, and her qualification is her father is a local judge. In her stewardship, the entire department has fallen apart, so the local politicians and judges have vowed to shake things up. So they fired a lot of managers, at least the managers that don't have mommies or daddies as judges.

And last week, the big announcement was made that they had found the one person who could come in and turn it all upside down and get the train back on the tracks of professional management. Her name was Tara, she graduated from college in 1997. She spent a whole year as an administrative assistant to State Representative Curt Weldon. She is 23 years old.

And while all of this was transpiring, about a half a dozen employees got caught sending pornographic material over their local area network. At least somebody was learning how to use technology.

Anyway, that is a little history. I wrote a letter to the local newspaper, the Delaware County Daily Times. The following was published in the Op-Ed section on April 16, 1999.

I have been following your articles on the situation at Delaware County Domestic Services, and I have found your articles both entertaining and interesting.

However, I am concerned about the repercussions that have developed over the employees sending pornographic material via email.

Using technology, all that the employees had to do was go to the web, find a picture, right click with the mouse, copy it, and voila, with a couple of more mouse clicks, send it to a predefined distribution list.

Now that this practice has been abolished, the employees will now have to line up at the copy machine with Hustlers and Penthouse in hand, make numerous copies, stuff them in inter office memos, and hand them off for delivery.

Because of this policy, Domestic Services has taken a step backwards, and productivity will decrease significantly. And no one will notice the difference.

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