Short Term vs Long Term

I learned a great lesson, while I was away from home at college, from my father. Perhaps it was the best lesson during my college years.

Dad was a Division Director in the state Highway Department. In those days, if not still, the political party occupying the governor's mansion would subsidize the continuing campaigns du jour by requiring division directors to sell fish fry tickets to 100% of the employees in the division. Dad refused. He went so far as to say that he would fire any employee who asked him to sell a ticket to them. They could go elsewhere to buy a ticket.

For that act, Dad had the division taken away from him, and his desk was moved into the elevator lobby. He went to work, with no assignment, at the expense of the tax payer, so the hierarchy could pretend they had put his head on a pike.

I am gratified to report that he held his head high for three years in that situation. When a new regime came in, he ascended to a higher station.