On Elections

Having spent a fair number of years now as a professional appointee of an elected official, I have to say that election years are a little different. For one thing, questions about who exactly you vote for takes on a new meaning. Here's a typical exchange:

Person A: “Who you gonna vote for?”

Person B: “I don't know. [Incumbent] is a pretty good boss, he basically stays out of our business. Still, [challenger] is a [party member], so I'm kind of torn.”

Person A: “I hear [challenger] likes a lot of memos.”

Person B: “Memos? I hate memos. I'm totally voting for [incumbent].”

Elections take on a new meaning when you are actually choosing your new boss, especially when there is a real probability that your new boss might just fire you “because.” You try not to be afraid of change, but that is easy for me to day. I'm still young (for my profession) and I don't have a big pension that is just a few years from a step-up.

At the same time, who else actually gets to vote for their new boss?

In the end, I did not vote at all for the race for my new boss. It helped that he or she will not be my new boss soon since I am resigning, but I also just couldn't decide. In the end, while I was staring at the little check boxes on the ballot, I just thought “someone else can do this” and left it blank.