WHINING OVER A GLASS OF WHITE WINE

Generally speaking, we see the positives in the world in which we live. We’re grateful for our work, family, and one another. Right now, we’re particularly grateful that the niche we’ve carved out for our lives’ work is focused on state and local government management and performance and has excluded writing about politics or the federal government.

But frequently enough, over the dinner table, we find ourselves venting about the issues that have come up in the work of our day, attempting to research, analyze and write about states, counties and cities.

So, welcome to our dinner table, pretend that you’re enjoying a nice glass of white wine, and join us as we whine about six (admittedly trivial) things. We’ll bet that you have similar issues, too.

Here goes:

1)    We don’t understand organizations that have dropped their full names in favor of acronyms. We’re not talking about something like “NASBO,” which is just a shorthand for the National Association of State Budget Officers, and pretty much everyone in state and local finance knows that. Rather, we’re talking about groups that pretty much obliterated any use of their full name.

Take for example, KFF, which used to be called the Kaiser Family Foundation. For reasons that probably made sense to someone there, it now only goes by its acronym. And when we write about the great work the organization does, we feel obliged to put its original name in parentheses so people will know what we’re writing about.

2)    On a regular basis, we find ourselves carping about people with whom we work, who don’t understand the real meaning of a deadline.  The origin of this word goes back to the Civil War, when a deadline wasn’t a marker in time, but a physical boundary in prisons. If someone sauntered over the line, they would be shot.

Obviously, that is an archaic use, but we believe that the word still has a meaning, which to us is the point in time at which something needs to be done. Not to attack some of our academic friends, but in that world, it seems to us like deadlines are aspirational, unlike the way they’re used in the old-fashioned journalistic world from which we learned our craft.

3)    Very, very, last-minute cancellations are another ongoing frustration. Like almost everyone we know, we tend to work long days, and schedule ourselves from hour to hour. So, when we’ve set up a Zoom interview, and while we’re sitting staring at ourselves on our screens, we get an e-mail or a text apologizing for the need to postpone. We can understand that sometimes public officials’ calendars can change from moment to moment (when the mayor calls, everything else takes second place). All we’re really asking is to postpone at the time we’ve arranged, not fifteen minutes later.

4)    Frequently, when we send out an e-mail, on the subject line we include words like “please confirm that you’ve received this”. It’s amazing how many people don’t pay any attention to this seemingly simple request. And then, when we follow through a day or two later, apologizing for writing multiple times with the same query, it turns out that they actually got the original note, but since they couldn’t respond in full right away, they just ignore our plea to confirm that they got it.   

5)   A remarkable number of people we interview are quick to provide data to demonstrate a point. But when we try to understand the number or percentage that’s been cited, we realize that it’s not really data, but more like a rough guess or the repetition of a statistic that’s been echoed with no reason to know it’s true. We wish that people would be more cautious about repeating a number they once heard – or wish to be true – if they don't know it's backed by evidence.

6)    We’ve written eight books over the years. And with remarkable frequency someone will tell us that “I saw your book.” We never know quite what to make of this. While we yearn for praise, the simple act of seeing a book, doesn’t get us very far, and makes us reticent to say “thank you,’ because we’re not clear what we’re thanking them for.

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