I hope that some of those officials have to fill in to replace Mr. Slade for a few weeks so they can find out that it’s a people job, not one that requires an automaton…
BBButbutbut…high-fiving…means…he…TOUCHES CHILDREN.
THINK OF TEH CHILDRENZ! PEDOBEAR! TERRORISM!
sigh
I weep for my species sometimes.
Just the other day, thousands of miles from home, forty years after school was finally out and deep inside the foreign country called the USA, I reached a street crossing at school-leaving time. The lollipop lady stopped the traffic and led me across the street like some kind of warrior-Britannia. I said “Nobody’s done that for me for a while,” but she just smiled enigmatically.
The lollipop men and women are the only school officials for whom I have any admiration. I hope this man had a good time as a lollipop man and can look back on it with pride.
It’s incredible the lengths small bureaucrats will go to, just so that they can stamp their authority on something, anything. Meanwhile, the most respected and successful people are ones whose authority is tacitly acknowledged and rarely ever enforced.
Hard power is like a nuclear weapon: if you have to use it, you’ve already lost.
Well, except that’s not why he quit. He quit because they were going to suspend him for going out into the road without looking properly (he stopped high fiving the kids earlier in the year when they asked him to stop). As ridiculous as it is that they banned him from high fiving the kids, if he actually wasn’t looking properly before leading children out into the road, perhaps it’s actually better that he not be a crossing guard any more.
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