Is it them or is it us, redux...


Greetings. I am here to tell folks who don't already know something about dementia. Doesn't matter who you are or what your root cause is (AD, etc), you are effectively demented after a certain point and at that point, even the simplest and sanest things around you can be confusing to the point of distraction.

Under normal circumstances, this is one of the bigger things the dementia patient has to deal with, and make no mistake, it can be hard under the best of conditions. However, as shit-ass bad luck would have it, just as my Lewy Bodies were robbing me of my ability to understand, the current administration took over and all hell and chaos broke loose. People don't realize that dementia folks can maintain their rather tenuous grip on reality only by relying on norms and routines or customs from their life before. Take those norms away and suddenly the dementia patient who was just hanging on before feel cut loose mentally, rudderless in their attempt to navigate the real world. I wrote something about this at that time here ( https://healthunlocked.com/alzheimer-support/posts/136093694/is-it-them-or-is-it-us).

Now it is some time later and things have gone from bad to worse it seems. And I can't use anything from my past to explain the present. For example:

1. Donald Trump is elected to the presidency and claims that because he is this fantastic corporate whiz-kid deal-maker, he can make everything OK again by running the government as a business would and the land will flow with rivers of milk and honey. OK.

Except....I have worked in many companies over my working life, some so small there are only two of us there and some so big I never knew where half the offices were (Sony, Kinkos/Fedex, etc). I know how things work there and how things simply do not.

* Trump comes in claiming to have the big plan yet as soon as the actual work starts, he is out screwing off (Executive time? Really?). Any other employee of any other company would have been fired for that.

* If any company I ever worked for had a new employee come in with promises of expertise that were quickly revealed to be false, again he would be out on his ass in about a minute. Seen this many times as well. Some things simply can't be learned on the job and most important positions require you to start hitting the ground running, not trying to learn what the job requires only after being hired.

* If any corporation took a flier on someone like Trump and then tried to get a project off the ground (read: tax cuts and health care) with no actual knowledge of the project worked, would be paid for or how it was actually going to benefit the company (not just someday promises or promises not grounded in any reality we all share), again, bang, out on his ass.

* If Trump worked for any company I have worked for and got caught self-dealing like he is, boom, he would be serving fries before the next sunset.

* Even in crazy California during the dot-com boom (where we engineers got away with alot) his antics with women, minorities and more would have gotten Trump fired.

* Even all that aside, any employee that has been caught as dishonest and lying to both his peers and subordinates the way Trump has and continues to do, he would be fired and escorted from the property.

I could easily go on, its basically low-hanging fruit with him but the point is, here is a guy claiming to be good at running a company or even knowing how a company should run, doing all of the above, every damned day and where are the others out there? There are political and religious groups supporting him and sometimes the senator on his way out will say something but where are the bigs at Google, Microsoft, Sony, etc? Can even a single one of them say Yes I would hire and keep that employee? Not a fucking chance. And there are a LOT of corporate-smart folks out there keeping quiet as a church mouse over this.

It just doesn't make sense to me how the most important job in the land can have job requirements less than working at Burger King...and yet here we are and some people are trying to claim, oh this is OK. Its not OK, this is seriously screwing me up because the still-logical part of my mind cannot reconcile the contradiction running the country with the way I was raised, the norms and customs of decency I grew up with.

This may seem normal to everyone else but to someone with dementia, this whole current situation is just so weird! And I think its unfair to dementia patients everywhere. Cruel and unusual, etc. In short, I cannot think of any other position where Donald Trump would remain gainfully employed. Not in this country. Too unqualified, unwilling to learn to work as a team (doesn't play well with others, as found on many corporate job performance forms).

It occurs to me that someone reading this may get the obviously-mistaken impression I think Donald Trump is unfit to work as president. If so, I didn't mean that at all. I am stating with confidence that Donald Trump isn't fit to work anywhere in our government. I definitely don't want this carrot-head in charge of anything that has an impact on my life or my loved ones. I would rather juggle chain-saws. He definitely would have been fired or not-hired for every job I have had since paperboy at age 12.

Maybe this makes sense with the NRA, Evangelicals or Republicans or someone but is sure as hell makes no sense to me....and with shit THIS crazy in Washington, I still find myself seeing this and asking:

Is it them or is it just me?


Peace and hope for a saner tomorrow....
Jeff

PS I think its kinda funny that Jerry Falwells crew is so supportive of him. I lived in Lynchburg for a while, home of Brer Falwell and the town showed: the streets rolled up at 9 pm on weekends, Sundays were dry, etc. I had the rather subversive pleasure of smoking a Chong joint just down the road from his crib in the early 90s. Blew the smoke his way and everything.

Didn't say it was interesting, only that it happened.



J.

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