Return of the Red-Headed Stepchild

For as long as I have been employed at my current office (over 33 years), the department I have spent almost the entire time working in has been considered the red-headed stepchild of the office. We have never been the "sexy" area, like Investments or Trust, just little old Tax Collection which later upgraded its name to Revenue Management.

We did the grunt work, processing millions of tax forms and checks until about 10 years ago when most of our department's jobs were shipped off to Taxation, along with the people.

Nowadays the bulk of our work is processing electronic payments and the documents that go with them.

This morning, Day One for the new administration, one of the newbies (who later turned out to be the lead counsel) brought in a group of suits as part of a tour. They stepped into our department, and I quote: "This is Revenue Management. None of you will be assigned here, so we will not need to spend any time back here. If you want to know more than you really want to know about it, ask Jennifer."

Un-as they say-quote.

The more things change, the more they stay the same.

An interesting e-mail came early as well. The deputy dawg announced that for the time being all previously in-place office policies would be continued for now, except all employees "will no longer be able to accept meals, gifts, or gratuity of any kind until a new ethics policy is announced."

I never knew we were permitted to accept any of the sort; sounds like an ethics violation to me, at least that is what they tell us every year in our ethics "training". I am a bit miffed that I never got any of these meals, gifts, or gratuities that apparently were so prevalent.

I wonder if I can claim I should be grandfathered in on those? Maybe there are some leftovers sitting around, and I am a grandfather after all!