Filling Out the Form

...Here we can all take example from the President His relations with God are excellent, hardly a speech goes by that Jimmy does not drop His name But what about his Interpersonal Relations with Peers...

...The problem would no doubt long since have been resolved by a hardworking mass transit official, except that this fellow, too, has trouble getting to the office on time on account of mass transit And when he gets there, to move along with the Evaluation Form, his Pace of Work, Level of Effort and Quality of Work all suffer as a result of an hour in a rattling train without available seats or air conditioning How much Conceptualizing and Implementing can a bureaucrat be expected to do when his shirt is wringing wet and his feet hurt...

...How Stable is a person who calls upon the Almighty for guidance and fires Mr Calitano because he oftended tobacco interests in several states...

...Is God that kind of Baptist...

...How Confident and Flexible is a person who demands from his Cabinet members loyalty above all and puts them in charge of a warder...

...Would the slot filled by this person be better filled by someone else...

...On the subject of personal goals, Mr Carter is determined to have a second term, and only God and savvy Ham Jordan know what he is capable of to achieve it Let us return, though, to the people working for the President—that is, the rest of us "How well does this person take direction...

...The President doesn't have many of those, unless you count Teddy Kennedy, whose ass he has promised to whip Let's say he has problems with Peers, give him a 3 on the 1-6 scale As for Subordinates, Mr Carter has lately plunged to a 1 To work for Jimmy Carter in this phase of his campaign for renomination requires surgery of the spine Is that good for Confidence/ Flunking Presidency Nor—since we seem to have gotten onto the subject of Jimmy Carter?does the man from Plains do very well on other questions "In a public setting, how comfortable would you be having this person represent The President...

...Did Jimmy know when he took office in 1977 that he would have to use so much of his time just trying to stay there...

...Will it upset Hamilton Jordan's balance and send Mr Carter back to the TV camera...

...Here the answer the Administration wants is This person loves his President as the President loves God, this person will follow where the President leads, even if it be to the edge of the cliff, this person is Confident, Mature, Flexible, and Stable enough to suppress his own ideas and personality in the interests of Mr Carter's success in 1980, and savvy enough to know how to hang onto his job by taking direction readily Speaking for myself, there is not enough space on the Evaluation Form to list my Major Weaknesses or the things about myself that have Disappointed me True, in such evaluations all of us, including the President, deserve the benefit of discretion But if, after two and a half years in office, Jimmy Carter continues to blame everyone but himself for his Administration's flounderings, if he continues to preface each decapitation of a Cabinet member with a prayer, if he continues to espouse populism in public and practice autocracy in the White House, and if inflation and recession proceed as promised, then his only hope in 1980 will be that the nation go easy on evaluations for Presidential candidates...

...The next area covered by the Form is Interpersonal Relations—a phrase that went out of fashion a couple of decades ago, except among backward social workers whose heads have been addled by jargon "How well does this person get along with Superiors...

...The public has responded to this question repeatedly in polls, and "comfortable" is not the word The President is flunking at representing the President "Rate this person's political skills (from naive to savvy)" A new category is required for the Administration in this period—maybe unbalanced (And where did the survey-makers find the word "savvy"9 Can they be the sort of people who think it's today's smart talk, like interpersonal relations/) "To what extent is this person focused on accomplishing the Administration's goals, personal goals/" The respondent is asked to give a percentage figure for each An embarrassing question Will the problems of the economy, energy, mass transportation, health, education and welfare be resolved now that Messrs Blumenthal, Schlesmger, Adams, and Califano have departed...

...Assign them chauffeur-driven limousines This being the moral equivalent of war, we can't let our generals go third-class To continue—do we have the skills to do the job we were hired to do' Now that, with all respect to the consultants who made up the Form, is the wrong question The 10b that somebody is lured to do more often than not turns out to have no particular relation to the job he or she is in fact faced with doing Did Mr Schlesinger know when he was hired for his job that part of his duties would be to get kicked out to spare his boss discomfort...

...On a scale of 1-6, what is the mental health ot a person who, in mid-term, undertakes to run against his own record and style ot operation' How honest is such a person' Never mind, honesty is no.l one ol the attributes listed on the Stall Evaluation Form Instead, it asks What is this person s range of information' 'What is Hamilton Jordan's range ol information' Is he going to encourage the shaken-up Cabinet to come up with new ideas' The thing about new ideas is that they may not work Will that mean another shake-up...

...But what are the Administration's goals/ How do they differ from Jimmy Carter's goals...

...Will Hamilton Jordan encourage the Flexibility of the officials under his boot...

...How are we to bring all mass transit officials to their offices in a condition that will enable them to earn a rating of "6" on the Form for their Pace of Work, Level of Effort and Quality of Work...

...Fair Game BY WALTER GOODMAN Filling Out The Form Despite what, as a sensible person, you may assume, or what, as a Joyal American, you may wish to assume, the Carter Administration's Staff Evaluation Form was no joke That's not the kind of joke they make back in Plains When the good ol' boys back there want a good ol' laugh, they toss an ice cube down a lady's front Ol' Ham Jordan once laughed so hard at a lady with an ice cube down her front that he nearly upchucked his third beer The Staff Evaluation Form has to be taken seriously, and not only by the Staff Our President is dissatisfied with the performance of the entire American population We must all fill in the Staff Evaluation Form so that the President can sort out the rotten apples among us who have been giving him such a low rating for performance Something must be wrong with people who do not appreciate his humility, his sincerity, his family To begin, then—what about the length of our working day' Personally, I get to work late pretty often even though I start out on time It is the condition of Contrail that delays my stalling hour I hope that Contrail is answering the survey...

...The answer wanted is "readily " Perhaps Mr Blumenthal was not sufficiently ready to take direction from Hamilton Jordan Would you readily take direction from Hamilton Jordan/ "Can this person assume more responsibility...

...What has Ham Jordan ever done to earn the Confidence of the nation...

...If the word "better" is defined as being a doormat for Ham Jordan, then in the case of Mr Adams, for example, yes, Washington is full of people who will make superior doormats As for Jimmy's slot, ask Jerry and Teddy Schizoid Politics On to the psychological questions, which get into our Confidence, Judgment, Maturity, Flexibility, Stability A problematic area How Mature is a person who, when he fails, attributes that failure to his staff and to the city of Washington...