A former colleague has the misfortune to be on the spot for the planning director's job in my hometown. (You may remember that the title of this blog reflects a fantasy from my former working life as a planner to chuck it all and sell desserts oceanside.)
Poor bastard, he thinks he can have it all - planning career and some rewarding teaching experience on the side. But alas, some citizens think otherwise: " How dare he not be working to fight developers 60 hours a week?"
I've been following this chatter for a couple of weeks, and it reinforces my gratitude that I left planning while I still had some potential to do something else. Here's how the blogs and newspaper see it:
local paper:
blog #1:
life on the margins:
The only saving grace in all of this is that, Schadenfreude-style, it's nice to know that I wasn't alone in all of this. It happens everywhere.
Does it really make democracy better? I don't think so: I think it just makes decent people, who don't like every detail of their lives raked through the newspapers, want to find other professions.