How to win friends and influence people part 2!
First, I want to thank the astute reader who caught me incorrectly attributing the aforementioned book to Norman Vincent Peale. Peale wrote ‘The Power of Positive Thinking’ while the great Dale Carnegie penned ‘How to Win Friends and Influence People.’
But I digress!
For a variety of reasons, I attended yesterday’s Kane County Judicial and Public Safety Committee meeting, not the least of which was to perhaps hear those court services folks provide some insights into the probation officers and youth counselors strike.
And while they certainly obliged, it probably wasn’t in the way they’d hoped.
Chief Judge Susan Clancy-Boles, whom I’ve never seen flustered by anything, was clearly shaken. She didn’t address the strike situation in her monthly report, but with probation filling the gallery, I’m not sure I’ve ever seen anyone blink quite that much.
Court Services Director Lisa Aust tried to put a happy face on it, but her effort clearly fell flat with the committee. But while Boles and Aust were careful not to aggravate the strikers, Juvenile Justice Center Superintendent Mike Davis made no such effort.
It’s not that I didn’t expect Davis to offer some sort of lily gilding as to how the JJC youths were faring in the midst of a short staffing situation, but I was surprised to hear a number of blatant lies.
Despite his proclamation of business as usual, I will stand by the sources who told me that, until this week, those youths were on a 23 hour-a-day lockdown and that the JJC school days were suspended.
But what really struck me was Davis going out of his way to tweak the strikers in the audience by arguing they never really needed those employees to begin with.
Look, having covered so many of them, I understand it can get very personal very quickly in a strike, but this one will end, and management and labor are going to have find a way to work together going forward. And saying “you’re basically non-essential employees” will make that a much more difficult proposition.
DON’T LEAVE YOUR KEYS IN THE CAR!
Through the process of talking to all sorts of police chiefs over the last 12 journalistic years, if they have one pet peeve in common, it’s people who leave their cars running unattended. It’s an open invitation to someone who might not otherwise behave quite so badly.
So, when I learned of the recent Aurora, Illinois, gas station carjacking in which an 11-year-old girl had to jump out of the back of a still-running vehicle before the thief drove off with it, all those previous chiefly admonitions came flooding back.
Guys and Gals! Don’t leave your car running unattended anywhere! It’s really not a good idea to pump gas with engine the cranking either.
As for me, I won’t as much as leave the keys in the car while I’m right there pumping gas and I drive a somewhat rusty 2001 Ford Ranger.
In the sage words of the great Michael Conrad issued in the opening of every Hill Street Blues episode, “Let’s be careful out there!”
Our UPS mail thief is finally in hot water
The First Ward recently covered a rather enterprising Rogers Park man who somehow managed to con the Post Office into redirecting UPS’s Atlanta corporate mail to his rather tiny garden apartment.
Not only did this ploy work, but it went on unimpeded for three long months.
Upon discussing that stranger than fiction story with a County Board member this morning, we both wondered:
- USPS didn’t get suspicious when they started delivering tubs of mail to a Rogers Park basement apartment.
- How those fine folks in that UPS mHow the ailroom didn’t get suspicious when there was suddenly no more mail to sort.
Needless to say, I’m convinced heads are rolling in both locations.
Meanwhile, the only place our con man will be receiving mail anytime soon is the federal pen, because he was finally charged with mail theft and fraud, and the feds want him held without mail…I mean bail.
All-in-all, he’s looking at 20 years behind bars. I wonder if they’ll let him work in the prison mailroom?
The Trib turns off reader comments
And not a minute too soon! Because if I had to read just one more of those insane reader missives I was gonna get homicidal.
We all know our national IQ is mired in a rapid and uncontrolled descent, but having to bear witness to all that hard evidence is a truly depressing thing.
Guns banned from the NRA convention?
Let me get this straight! The NRA held a portion of their annual convention at a venue that banned all weapons from the premises? Bleepin’ hypocrites!
When did Rihanna start giving relationship advice?
So, suddenly Rihanna’s offering Prince Harry and Meghan Markle wedding night advice?
Really? Unless it’s something like “Duck if he tries to punch you in the face” I’m not sure she’s the one you really want to listen to in this regard.
