What Job Are You Qualified to Do?

A Saturday prompt

Rembrandt knew how to do his job. (A self-portrait)

When I fly on an airplane, I expect the airline employs pilots who are good at their job. If my eyes or my heart need fixing, I prefer the most skilled surgeon I can find. When I go to an art museum, I like to look at paintings by deeply talented artists.

When I turn on my kitchen faucet, I count on water to come out that I can use to drink or wash my hands. When I take milk from the refrigerator, I expect that the electricity works, the milk is cold and it’s safe to drink. Each of these assumptions depend on work performed by qualified people.

When you read my essays, you expect that I know how to write a sentence, use grammar and spell properly, and share thoughts that are logical and information that is true. If I didn’t, I hope you would stop reading what I write and choose a writer who’s more capable of performing this job.

In recent days, the country has been bombarded by a series of selections by a man who will hold the highest office in our land. These choices amount to a parade of people who lack the necessary qualifications and skills to lead the critical institutions and agencies that shape our government and provide citizens a functioning world. You don’t need to take my word; the plan to make these choices by skipping FBI background checks illustrates that the President-elect and his enablers know that his choices likely won’t pass muster in a traditional vetting process.

A man to lead the massive bureaucracy of the Pentagon who has zero experience running a large organization and has been accused of sexual abuse? A woman to direct the nation’s intelligence agencies who has never worked in one and has a history of supporting America’s adversaries? A man to guide our leading health department who lacks scientific or medical training and trades in conspiracy theories? A man to lead our justice department—the top law enforcement job in the country—who has almost no legal experience, is accused of the serious crime of sex trafficking a minor, and whose backers are refusing to share an ethics report with the men and women who must assess his qualifications?

Our everyday lives function in the modern world because we typically don’t need to question whether the basic components of life reliably work. We drive over a bridge or through a tunnel because we assume that qualified professionals performed the needed engineering. The buttons on my shirt don’t pop off, my front door doesn’t fall off its hinges, my lights turn on when I flip the switches. If these things fail to work, we reach out to someone who knows how to fix them. That basic principle should extend to people who are handed jobs to govern our society.

You get my drift, which is why I hope we can populate the comments section by sharing our skills, talents and experience—the ingredients that make it possible to get the job done. What job or jobs are you qualified to do? Or perhaps you’d like to discuss someone whose skills you particularly admire. Here’s one example: I never tire of looking at the paintings of Rembrandt because there are few other artists more capable of creating light and painting people who come alive on canvas. Oh, was this Dutchmen qualified to perform his job.

As always, I look forward to reading your observations and the opportunity for this community to learn from each other. Please do be respectful in your remarks. Trolling will not be tolerated.

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