It’s good to be king, if just for a while
To be there in velvet, yeah, to give ’em a smile
It’s good to get high and never come down
It’s good to be king of your own little town
Tom Petty said it’s good to be king. Sioux Falls mayor Paul TenHaken finds the crown thorny:
I understand that leadership, in business and in public affairs, requires levels of responsibility that may frighten some. Leaders make big decisions with high stakes for lots of other people. I recognize that leaders who don’t handle that responsibility well can end up more lonely and less healthy, as TenHaken’s fellow CEO from California, Ryan Caldbeck, laments in the thread TenHaken finds a “powerful and frighteningly accurate” account of the burdens of leadership.
But I have a little trouble working up sympathy for CEOs who cry about being “scared”, “worried,” and “tired” because of the “soul-crushing” jobs that provide them with more wealth and power than any of the people working for them. A newly elected mayor who can snap his fingers and assemble a ten-person transition team to help him figure out his job really has nothing to complain about compared to the new South Dakota mom who can’t get her boss to grant paid maternity leave or allow her to breastfeed her child at work.
Remember, Paul, no one forced you to seek your positions of wealth and influence. If being king makes you sad and lonely, you can quit any time, and lots of other people will gladly compete for your crowns.
Please allow me to introduce myself
I’m a man of wealth and taste….
So if you meet me
Have some courtesy
Have some sympathy and some taste
Use all your well-learned politesse
Or I’ll lay your soul to waste….
si un puede
Probably finding it hard to have time to take selfies. May I suggest Sundays?
Sounds like the new mayor needs more “executive time”.
I’ve never been a CEO or business owner, and I’ve never been in a “leadership” position, so I can’t say I personally understand Paul’s experiences or stressors. Have any of you?
I saw a statistic recently regarding the top ten or twenty job titles with the highest instances of psychological illness. CEOs were #1 on the list. Mental health is usually a pretty solemn topic for most democrats; I’m a little surprised to see the mockery here.
Nobody forces parents to have children, either, and parents aren’t forced to work at jobs with crappy benefits. We all make choices. Seems like Paul was trying to be genuine, which is difficult for most “regular” people, let alone politicians.
Kim Jung Un/trump are looking for a CEO for the new Burger King to open in soon, not snark:
“In an odd twist, a list of potential concessions by North Korea in the CIA analysis included the possibility that Kim Jong Un may consider offering to open a Western hamburger franchise in Pyongyang as a show of goodwill, according to three national security officials.” https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/cia-report-says-north-korea-won-t-denuclearize-might-open-n878201
So there ya go Mr. Tenhaken, the possibility for a good trumper to make burgers at the King for the kings. Not sad and lonely when you can chum with your idols. Ring the King!
Side observation, from the looks of Pompeo, he is no stranger to burger joints either. Wonder if they will put the burger joint in the soon to be built, trump tower Kimmy in sunny Pyongyang to go with the golf course in the mine fields that will give new meanings to handicap scores for sure.
If you’re trying to be genuine, you’ve already failed.
I’ve managed a variety of projects. I run a classroom and am responsible for the lives of dozens of children at a time on a regular basis. I know stress, and I’ve never gotten paid as much for dealing with that stress as TenHaken now gets paid.
I’ve never given birth or breastfed, but I’m pretty sure a new mom faces more stress trying to raise her new baby and keep her working-class job. A rich and powerful CEO moaning about how hard his life is needs a reality check.
Especially new moms forced to become new moms because wingnut, white men know what’s best for the little ladies.
Good one, South DaCola.
I would think it would be an exhilarating challenge. If you look at leadership as a lonely struggle, you aren’t going about it in the right way. There are lots of people with great ideas who will pitch in. Good leaders find ways to elevate others. If you think, “I alone can do it,” well, your administration will be a hot mess.
I was being completely serious, but ok, let’s be offensively genuine. I think a teacher who says they are responsible for the lives of their students needs a bit more of a reality check than a mayor who admits that leadership over hundreds of thousands of people is stressful.
I don’t even like Paul and I didn’t vote for him, but comparing your stress in class
to his whole life makes me laugh.
America’s classrooms have the possibility of being a kill zone for students. That is a little more stressful than having to decide what lobbyist is gonna take me to lunch, or a fishing/hunting trip.
Mfi, only your scapegoat whitey males get to vote right? And parents with children they were forced to have make up about one-millionth of the population or so, right? And those people were forced to have sex, right? Darn that oppressive Man!
Congratulations on having no original thoughts and just drinking the koolaid you’re served.
OldSargeCloneRyan, if you were half as smart as you pretend to be you’d know what I was talking about. But, you ain’t and you don’t.
Jerry,
Why aren’t airports or court houses a kill zone?
MFI,
You aren’t smart. You think the military uses AR-15’s.
Jason, I considered asking the same question but I doubted that it would get a real response so I let it go haha
I considered asking the same question but I doubted either Jason or Ryan are actually people so I didn’t.
Now show me one post where I claimed to be well educated and/or smart?
mfi – you seem very fragile. Is everybody who disagrees with you not a real person?
Since you were the first to discuss how smart people are by talking about how I ain’t as smart as I pretend to be, why don’t you show me any comment where I claimed to be smart or pretended to be smart? I think I do OK, but I think this is the first comment where I have said so.
And clone, huh? I wish I cared about your opinion enough to go back through this blog and find all your comments that simply mimic the original post. You are a caricature of a hypocritical left wing radical, and I have independent thought. I don’t mind being called names by adult children like yourself, but at least don’t be so obvious in your insults. You are less than a clone. More like a shadow. No substance at all.
I am not used to seeing classrooms in airports. I think though that classrooms may be a topic in court soon though. This Gear up thingy has gotten your boy Jackley all hot and bothered because NOem kind of spanked his arse on his failures.
Right now, the Army uses 5.56 mm rounds for standard Army light weapons and 7.62mm for light machine guns. The Marines use something else right now for light weapons, the M4. Both will change for a new kind of killing machine to debut in 2020 that is being tested right now. So there ya go. mfi may not be totally correct but he is not totally wrong either. Both arguments fall into the category of who cares. Tenhaken still whimpers like a little lad that just got disciplined. Boo hoo for Paul.
ArmaLite first developed the AR-15 in the late 1950s as a military rifle, but had limited success in selling it. In 1959 the company sold the design to Colt.
In 1963, the U.S. military selected Colt to manufacture the automatic rifle that soon became standard issue for U.S. troops in the Vietnam War. It was known as the M-1
So the rilly smart ex-spurts are splitting pubic hairs by saying the AR was never used by the military when in fact it did get used under a different name. The difference between M-16 and AR-15 is semantics.
mfi, good info. In January 1969, when I got there, we were transitioning from the M-16 E1 to the A1, still had M-14’s at that time as well. The E1 was a 5.56mm same same as current models, but it had a forked flash suppressor that constantly got caught in the underbrush. It also sometimes cooked a round and was a very unreliable weapon. The A1 more or less solved the problem and was a much better manufactured war weapon. The real difference between an M-16 and an AR-15 is the semantics of calling one a civilian gun and the other a war weapon. Both shoot the same caliber and both have the same characteristics, but semantics rule the day.
And still Tehhaken is a bratty kid that whines a lot.
Jerry understands the main point: TenHaken comes off as a whiny rich entitled guy who thinks he deserves everything and our sympathy for imagined agonies on top.
We all have our stresses, Ryan. Some of us whine less about them. TenHaken has an important job to do. If he thinks it’s too hard on his fragile mental state, he’s welcome to step down and let someone more mentally prepared for the stress to take it on.
So one comment about stress is whining? He didn’t say anything was TOO hard, he just said another guy’s post about stress was accurate. Your comment about the stress you have felt is equally whiny (whiney?) if that’s the word we are using for comments about stress.
ryan-caricature of a hypocritical left wing radical”. funny. whut’s it mean? get real
Jason-“You aren’t smart. You think the military uses AR-15’s.” besides insulting u waste time telling us a clip is not a magazine, a shell is not a bullet. wgaf? oh, and get real
Leslie – reading goes left to right, top to bottom. Google the definition of those basic words if you’re struggling.