Mary Taylor's Delusions of Grandeur

[Cross-Posted at Progress Ohio]
I read a hilarious article Link by Paul Kostyu in the Canton Repository about Auditor Mary Taylor’s megalomania and self-promotion on her official state website. Mary leaves no opportunity undone in her zeal to advertise her CPA.

“Press releases coming from her office and her office Web site are emblazoned with the Ohio seal and her name followed by CPA in big, bold letters.”

How pathetically embarrassing. I used to work with a guy that signed every letter with his name followed immediately by “M.B.A.” He was the source of much snickering and amusement in an office filled with Ph.D.s, M.D.s, J.D.s, and plenty of Masters degrees in topics I could only pretend to understand. I just want to pick up the phone and say “Mary, Mary, Mary…enough with the CPA-thing”.

People want you to be well-educated. But once they have placed their faith in you, they do not want to be reminded of it, and they are less forgiving of you when you make a mistake. I learned long ago that the secretaries, mailmen, clerks, receptionists, maintenance personnel and every other support employee are the real backbone of every office. The rest of us are pretty much expendable and things will progress smoothly until the next guy arrives. And they will cover for you and help you do your job to the best of their abilities as long as you do your job well and show them the respect that they deserve.

But watch out if you don’t. Take my father-in-law (PULEEZE :). I once sent a Christmas card with a return address label that had my name and “Esq.” I never gave it a thought, since they were the free labels that come with a plea to support disabled vets or the heart association. Three years later when he was mad at me he pulled out the gem “that I rub his nose in the fact that I am an attorney”. I was stunned as I had always been careful to avoid any discussion of politics or legal issues. When I called him on the comment, he pointed out the return address label on a Christmas card three years previous.

Mary, let my father in law and a return address label be a metaphor for the electorate. You may have gotten your job based on your credentials, but unless you do the job that you were elected to do (such as responding for a request by SOS Brunner to audit the SOS’s office), your self-aggrandizing, even if it is in the form of a free return address label, will be perceived just as it is.

The voters put you in your position but expect you to do your job. And they don’t like to hear about how much you love yourself. Save your CPA letters for when you sign an audit report, if you must. Oh, and when you write to our Governor, I hope that you follow his name with HIS credentials, B.A., M.Div., Ph.D. Somehow I suspect that you won’t.