Wrangler ponders the Fork in the Road

A pal of mine (let’s call him Wrangler to keep him safe from the Not-Really-a-Department of Government Efficiency) works for the federal government and was one of an estimated two million employees who recently received President Trump’s generous early retirement offer.

He apparently could take a “deferred resignation,” and then lounge around until Sept. 30 on the government’s tab (aka the tab paid by you and me).

Sounds kind of luxurious, especially since the work he does – hefting 90-pound packs and bales of hay onto mules and then tugging the famously stubborn critters into the back country, where they occasionally spy grizzlies and the like – isn’t exactly easy.

But last I heard, he wasn’t planning to take the offer. “Just another social experiment by the billionaires,” is how Wrangler described it.

Now you see why I can’t use his real name. These are the kind of comments that could get him arrested by the Thought Police or fired before his eight-month vacation is up.

Plus, I’m a little worried that he hasn’t completely renounced Diversity, Equity and Inclusion when it comes to the Corps de Mules. His crew is mostly brown (should they be white?) and some are females (does he recruit according to quotas?). Also, I’m pretty sure he encourages them to feel like they all have something to contribute to the pack train, which could be construed as fostering a sense of inclusion.

On the other hand, his horses, Pork and Bean, tend to think of themselves as a cut above the mules. And the mules aspire to be horses, but alas, never will be. That sounds like non-equity to me, which in the new world order is apparently a good thing and could save Wrangler’s bacon.

The email from the government’s personnel office suggested Wrangler find a “higher productivity” job in the private sector. And since his talents are myriad, I have no doubt he could.

Then, the feds could get busy hiring someone with the correct mindset to maximize those loads, flog the mules and spur the horses in a much more productive fashion. Or they could turn his job over to all those unemployed mule packers in the private sector.

And technically, aren’t the mules also federal workers and shouldn’t they have received the “Fork in the Road” email? Perhaps these are questions Wrangler ponders when he says, “I want to see how it all pans out.”

There’s also the question of who would feed the mules this winter, and begin coaxing them into the woods come May if Wrangler abruptly resigned? His office is in the tack barn and the backcountry instead of D.C. or Silicon Valley, and wrangling requires a skill set that I don’t believe folks at the Not-Really-a-Department possess.

I like to imagine the Richest Man on Earth giving it a try though.