Efficacy

Separately, both the boss and the deputy boss pulled me aside today to say they were sorrow they did not use me more. Having HQ send down their “strike team” to our county, and only our county, felt like a judge telling us, you messed up. Both bosses told me that they knew we could have avoided lots of the problems if they had listened to me or let me have more control over our end product. It was nice to hear, but it was also a little sad.

At this point, there is no way to fully salvage our end product. It is going to be a mediocre plan. The goals, the projects, the needs assessment, all of them are not well written and not well thought out. Equally bad, our relationship with the CRC is shot.

It's nice to get the recognition from my bosses. I have felt this entire time that my skills were poorly used, and it is nice to have my boss recognize me. But in that conversation we had we were also tacitly admitting that the plan is not great, is not something of which we will be particularly proud.

I know I made some difference. One area where I made a difference was helping Duanny's team do their work, and they did excellent work. They relied heavily on my back ground reports, connections and to a lesser degree, my advice. That felt like a contribution. Then again, they would have gotten by without me.

The other thing we did was peddle hope. We led the CRC down a path and showed them a light at the end of the tunnel. But, at the same time, we distracted them from important questions, like what parts of the county should rebuild.

I came down here four months ago to try to help. I worked in an institution that makes it very hard to do that. If my time would have been better spent unloading boxes at the hippy soup kitchen, I don’t know.

I came down to try to help. I tried to help. That is all.