One of the innumerable sad realities of working in the
public sector is the inflexibility of the organizational structure. To-wit: there
is simply no way to recognize and/or reward high quality work and accumulated
experience and expertise other than conveying supervisory status. The problem is, of course, that there are
innumerable accomplished folks who are more than deserving of a raise and
recognition and who also have absolutely no aptitude for supervision. A good
case example is our Chief. The Chief is
a frustrated academic archaeologist whose capacity for hard core research work
is the stuff of legend. He has been known to refit and glue back together literally
thousands of pieces of chipped flint and jasper to reconstruct the original
pieces of raw material prehistoric craftsmen were fashioning into tools.
Think about that.
Because of his research accomplishments, his boss, Queen B, promoted
him to supervisor. The chief has publicly opined on a number of occasions
(most of them involving beer) that he doesn’t think he is a very good
supervisor because he really doesn’t like people all that much. So it is that
hardly a day goes by when he doesn’t provide some evidence that this opinion is
well founded.
Opening day has
arrived here on the Island. The press has gathered, the excavation is camera
ready. Mr. Savage has arrived and set up his reenacted Native encampment along
the west edge of the parking lot. A busload of 50 middle school kids and their
teachers are in attendance. The volunteers and staff have assembled. A podium
and P.A. have been set up. The dignitaries are on-site. The list of luminaries
include the Commonwealth’s First Lady, the Mayor, the President of the state
archaeological society, the Executive
Director (who apparently survived his annual review) and all of the agency Commissioners, including
the Prince. At a few minutes to 9:00AM
we are all milling about waiting for the speeches and formal opening ceremony
to begin when the Prince spots the archaeology society President in the crowd.
As it happens, this man used to work for the Prince, and they had an
unfortunate and extremely acrimonious falling out a number of years ago. The
Prince’s face darkens, and he glares at the Chief, who is standing in front of
him, and snarls “If that shithead gets within five feet of me, I’ll snap his fucking
neck!” The Chief goes white as a sheet
and begins blinking rapidly, then turns to FD and me and says “Take care of
this.” He then walks away and heads for
his car.
FD and I look at each other, and engage in a brief
conversation.
“What do you think that means?”
“I’m not sure.”
“What do you suppose we should do?”
“Beat’s me!”
…etc.
Eventually FD gently walks the Prince over to one edge of
the crowd, while I walk the President, now sweating in terror having glimpsed
his former boss’s threatening glare, to the opposite edge. We adjust the
speaking order so that they do not follow each other at the podium, and the
opening remarks (the typical lengthy litany of banal and harmless inanities) go
off without a hitch. Soon we have packed
the President safely into his car and sent him home. It is time for the first tour of the project.
These begin with me or one of the other staff holding forth for
15 minutes on the Island’s formation and long history from inside the
excavation block. I will give this talk approximately 40 or 50 times by the
time the project closes in a couple weeks. There are small variations each
time, but by the time we close up I will be able to give it in my sleep, or
near delirious from exhaustion, or probably drunk. Most of my crew can also do it, and they
sometimes amuse themselves with devastating and spot-on impressions of me,
often substituting some ribald, sidesplitting and unfortunate dialog in place
of the scripted comments. They think I don’t know about this, and I never let on
that I do.
Following the talk, the group proceeds to the west edge of
the Island where they encounter the Savage in full regalia: handmade moccasins,
wool and deer hide leggings, breech cloth and belt, a mid-thigh length gingham
hunting shirt and beaded sash with a belt axe tucked in it, a red wool British
officer’s coat if the weather is cold, with a handmade iron knife in a sheath
around his neck, a brightly colored porcupine roach and turkey feathers in a
carefully groomed scalplock (his head is otherwise shaved) and sometimes face
paint if he’s feeling frisky. The overall effect, especially on kids, is just
amazing. He demonstrates flint knapping, the plaiting of cordage and weaving of
nets, and the manufacture of ceramics. There is also a native garden with
heirloom varieties of maize, beans and pumpkins (planted by a volunteer in the
previous spring) to interpret, and a log that is at the earliest stage of being
burned and scraped into a dugout canoe. Educators from the State Museum take
the kids through an exercise in grid mapping and artifact interpretation. Later
in the week, Mr Savage and FD will be erecting a small storage or multi-purpose
structure and a larger Eastern Woodland house from posts and poles, cordage and
bark. These demonstration projects
really serve to put the artifacts and features encountered in the site into a
more accessible context, and the kids and older visitors are always transfixed.
Finally there is the book sales and information tent where a
variety of archaeological and historical books and periodicals, as well as Mr.
Savage’s beadwork, can be purchased. At one point we had actually asked if a
more formal kiosk could be constructed for this purpose by the good folks in
the museum exhibits shop. Unfortunately they handed the project to an exhibit
designer who was newly divorced and had much on his mind. He modeled his design
on the Pennsylvania State Museum which is of concrete and light colored stone
masonry, round and domed. The resulting
design was a pale eight foot tall domed and elongated cylinder which bore a
shocking and unmistakable resemblance to a gigantic marital aid. A prominent
feature of this distinctive design was a pair of doors that opened in the
middle of it to reveal a sales desk. Mr. Savage, on viewing a scale drawing,
offered to sit inside with a sign hanging in front offering “Kisses:
$2.00”. Mercifully, we caught it before
it went to construction.
Following the tour, I am standing in the excavation block
with the Prince, discussing the fine points of site stratigraphy when we hear
an engine start. We look up and out the open end of the weatherport to see a
large white passenger van, with the Executive Director at the wheel, pulling
out of the parking lot with all of the commissioners on board save one; the one
standing next to me in the excavation.
The State Museum is a mile and a half away. The Prince is stranded on
the Island and none too happy about it.
“That BASTARD! He’s stranded me here! And he’s taken my
things!!!”
He looked like he was ready to tear someone to pieces, maybe
me. What to do!? Then I remembered that
AW, one of the other staff archaeologists, had his truck in the parking lot. AW was living the bachelor life at the time.
One of the results was disdain for certain civilized conventions. For example,
whenever he traveled somewhere in his truck, and happened to finish a pack of
smokes, a cup of coffee, a soda, a sandwich, etc., the trash simply went on the
passenger side floor.
As I mentioned before, the Prince has a
profound-going-on-pathological dislike of dirt (he literally did white glove
inspections of department field vehicles). When he opened the passenger side
door of AW’s vehicle, he was greeted with a cascade of garbage that soiled his
trouser cuffs. AW somewhat sheepishly noted that he was sorry but that his rig
had “…become a bit of a pigsty.” As he entered the vehicle the Prince glared
pointedly at me and while replying to AW in a dangerous sounding growl “Indeed!”
I had the camera trained on him and clicked the shutter as
AW put her in gear and drove off toward the museum. Must have been some ride…
To be continued...
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