2-26-25

There’s a lot of talk in the news today about federal employees…..you know, its

amazing to me that this is where we are…..on the one hand private sector

employees and owners of small businesses are sick and tired of feeling like

government employees don’t understand the economic realities that come from

having an organization that is oversized and inefficient…..at the same time, there

are a bunch of folks who serve honorable in government service who somehow

feel persecuted or unappreciated for quietly going about their work every single

day in the employment of the government……okay….those two perspectives are

not mutually exclusive…..we have a right to feel that government is too big….they

have a right to feel that their job is at risk for no reason of their own doing…..but

there is a sector in the middle that doesn’t get it at all….there is a sector that has

descended into the world of griping and complaining because they don’t feel that

they should have to answer to anyone….and that my friends is a dangerous and

unproductive mindset…..

I say all of this in the wake of yesterday’s show in which it became a viral moment

as listeners took sides on the question of whether or not government employees

should have to answer an email telling their high points for the past week…..this

morning at 6am I got an email from a listener…..I won’t say his name…..but he

first expressed that he listens regularly, has years of military service and is now a

GS employee at Redstone Arsenal…..he then proceeded to tell me how beset he

and others feel by the request for an email….they feel degraded somehow by

yesterday’s show…..and they feel that they are under threat and being given

orders by their local command structure not to respond and asked what my

position was on whether they should defy local orders to respond to a DC

request……he may be surprised to find that I responded to him already and this is

what I said….. I said this:

“First of all – thanks for your service….in uniform and out. I have a family that is

filled with folks who serve or have served in the civilian ranks of government.

What you described in your email is not accurate. There is a great level of

dissatisfaction in the private sector with the notion that employees in the GS

sector shouldn’t have to respond to an email requested and supported by their

President/Commander-in-Chief. You and I both know that the only orders that

should not be followed are those that are immoral, unethical, or illegal. Being

popular is not one of those criteria for not responding.

That said, if you are receiving mixed signals from your superiors then your role as

a subordinate leader is to seek clarity. It also means that you may have to set

aside emotion and not misinterpret every dissenting viewpoint as being a threat –

because they are not.

Me personally, I say answer the email and send it to your own boss. Let him or her

collect them and be the one who decides not to forward it up the chain.

If you’re proud of your work – and can report in generality without compromising

matters of national security, personnel data, or contract negotiations, then send

the coms and let the boss decide whether to put rounds down range.

Doing nothing is never an option. Thanks for your service, and thanks for listening.

I hope that you’ll stay in the Ruffian community.”

Look….Years ago….when I was a young Lieutenant training at Fort Benning,

GA…..several of us got sick and tired of being sick and tired…..not necessarily of

the training, the sweat or the long hours, but more of the sour attitudes that

began to develop as the Infantry training shaped our every fiber……a bunch of

Joes in boots and filled with testosterone can always find something to gripe

about…..it becomes an art form…..complaining can be done an epic scale when

you’re in that locker room type environment…..sometimes it’s a hoot,

complaining done right can be hilarious…..but sometimes the griping and whining

gets old and in my Platoon it had reached an epic scale…..it was complaining

about food, weather, leadership…..everything was met with complaints…..but

then a group of us got tired of it all and we made a pact in my Platoon that

anyone caught openly complaining had to buy a round for the others in the

group…..other’s took note and it began to change some of the tone in our

Platoon…..Our rule was that we were allowed to make a statement of fact but

true complaining was not allowed……it was a good move…..not always successful,

but hey….it was a good move for us then….

When we kicked off Rightside Radio four years ago I said up front that my goal

was not to become one of those shows that just sits around and complains…..God

knows I could……there is always something to complain about……I mean as a

conservative, and former elected Republican I’ve got what I refer to as a target

rich environment for complaints….. I hope that you’ve taken note that on this

show we will try to laugh……sometimes at ourselves…..that we’ll tell you why the

sun is going to rise tomorrow…..and we’ll take the time to point out the good with

the bad…..

So the Biden era is behind us…..and for many of us that’s a relief…..but elections

have consequences, there’s a new sheriff in town, and like it or not he’s actually

the one in charge……in a year filled with things that we could complain about I’ve

got to tell you that I’ve also seen some high points…..and some moments of

brilliance…..

I can tell you for a fact that I’ve had some government employees in my

family…..people who served in the federal GS ranks, the military, state

government, elected officials, educators…..all in my family and all drawing a

government paycheck…..I can also attest to several times when a government

employee did something that dramatically blessed my life…..I had one lady who

helped save my military career when Army Human Resources Command didn’t

have my paperwork straight…..I had another who insisted that the backlog of

promotions get straightened out so that my promotion to Colonel wouldn’t fall

out of line based on time alone…..I once had a situation where a family vacation

trip after one of my deployments was almost cut short because my birth

certificate could not be located…..my birth certificate had been misplaced in an

Army records dump and yet I was born at a former Army post in another state

that no longer existed…..this one sweet lady made it her mission in life to ransack

the archives of Monmouth County NJ, find my birth certificate, and fedex it to me

at the hotel so that my wife and I could take a much needed trip together after

me being in the war zone for a year…..those were all examples of above and

beyond behavior by government employees who did more than they had to

do…..and they did it without complaint…..

But it is also worth noting that each of those moments were one government

employee fixing the mess made by other government employees……but they

didn’t complain…..they didn’t post ugly things on their social media….they didn’t

run to CNN or MSNBC or call their union reps for assistance…..they did their job

because it was the right thing to do and they did it with excellence…..and if a day

later those same government employees who blessed me and my family by doing

their jobs with excellence were asked by their supervisor to list 5 things in an

email that they had accomplished I’m going to bet that they would have proudly

said a whole paragraph about what they did for some guy named Phil

Williams…..they wouldn’t have complained…..they wouldn’t have griped….they

wouldn’t have whined that an email is hard, or that you have no business asking

that……they would have proudly typed out that email and hit send with an air of

satisfaction because they were proud of what they had done and knew that it was

worth telling someone……

All said and done my point is that complaining doesn’t do any good…..we can

always complain……but it’s the doing of things that makes the difference……I’m

going to make a commitment to you that I will always endeavor to keep this show

in such a manner that it is not just a 3-hour gripe session…..but to be sure I will

tell you statements of fact that I believe are worthy of note…….

And here’s my point today…….anybody can complain…… anybody can gripe……but

in the end it’s the doers that find their way through the storms to the clear skies

on the other side that really set the agenda……Ain’t no use in complaining my

friends………

And that’s a wrap for the Rightside Way!