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Maxed Out

Some temptations simply can't be resisted. They should be given in to immediately. Temptation is like water, the universal solvent.

Some temptations simply can't be resisted. They should be given in to immediately.

Temptation is like water, the universal solvent. Sooner or later, albeit perhaps in geological time, water will wear away almost any surface, dissolve or suspend any particles once they become fine enough. Temptation will gnaw at the most resolute resolve. You can ignore it for only so long. Every passing thought of that piece of chocolate hiding in the dark corner of the top shelf, screaming my name, brings me closer to buckling. Every denial of the inevitable is not, as some may think, a victory of willpower over temptation; it's just one iteration closer to willpower's inevitable collapse and capitulation.

Temptation wins every time because temptation has time on its side; willpower doesn't.

Having paid due homage to my resolve, my willpower has dissolved and I shall do what I didn't want to do yesterday. I shall - oh lord, I can't fight it any more - wade into the gooey mess of our recently-departed chief administrative officer's decision to bite the hand that fed him so well for so long.

Unless you've been particularly distracted, or simply indifferent, you've probably heard our former CAO has taken up a new hobby in his retirement. Long a closet pugilist and terror on the ice, Bill Barratt has decided to spend his golden years suing the RMOW for wrongful dismissal.

I know what you're thinking. I was thinking the exact same thing. Dismissal? I thought he resigned. What, you thought he resigned too? Well, so apparently did everyone else. But au contraire. As he used to tell me, frequently, it's not that simple. Or, as he also told me frequently, I was wrong. So were you, not that it makes me feel any better, though I often feel you're wrong and I'm not.

Bill frequently used to say, when asked, that he was going to resign after the Olympics. When the Olympics were over - not that they're ever really over, as witnessed by the tsunami of cheap nostalgia during the grand opening of Whistler Olympic Plaza, WOP North - he didn't resign and people wondered what was up.

I didn't. Hey, would you leave a job you loved... even if it didn't pay you $208k a year? Even if it didn't come with a $700/month car allowance and pay for all your fuel, insurance, repair and maintenance costs, thus calling into question why you had a car allowance to begin with? Even if it didn't include seven weeks' paid vacation? Wouldn't you keep working just because you loved what you did and enjoyed coming to work every single day to be assaulted by complaints from people who don't know how to live next to an asphalt plant and be thankful for it? I know I wouldn't, and neither did Bill.

But as time went on, I imagine all the harping finally began to wear down even Bill. So in January, he sent in a letter of resignation saying he'd vamoose on June 30 or - and this is where it gets litigious - "...a date after the hiring of his replacement, whichever was later." I'm sure the actual letter said, "... a date after the hiring of my replacement..." or words to that effect because in all the years I knew him, I never heard Bill refer to himself in the third person, an affectation usually favoured by royalty.

Fast forward to June 21 and it appears council decided to accept Bill's resignation. It must have been an interesting decision because, as so often seems to happen, the vote was 4-3. For whatever reason though, they didn't want Bill sticking around until his permanent replacement was hired and Bill's reign as CAO came to an end on July 6, followed by a swell "retirement" party. I wasn't invited - and am not bitter about being excluded, dammit - but I heard it was a swell party by the people who did attend and enjoyed cake and refreshments compliments of, well, all of us.

Now you might be asking yourself why did four council members want Bill to leave earlier than, "... a date after hiring his replacement." Well, I can imagine several reasons. Many companies prefer high-ranking executives leave after they've announced their retirement because, (a) they tend to slack off, (b) their lingering presence fuels speculation as to who's going to get their secretary and parking space, (c) other employees feel just a sliver of resentment knowing they're going to be fishing and watching daytime TV on a pension larger than the salary they'll be making if they stick with the company for the next 30 years, and, (d) all of the above.

Then again, with their newfound zeal for fiscal responsibility - funny how it always pops up around election time - maybe they thought they could save taxpayers a few bucks with a cheaper, interim replacement for the last couple of months. I don't know and I don't want to speculate because that's the kind of thing that can get you sued. So let's just accept the facts as they lay.

The reaction to Bill's lawsuit has been, how shall I put this, un-Christian. I don't understand it. It's as though those Facebook people fixated on my column last week and applied the unflattering term, "scum-sucking bottom dweller," to someone who's neither a lawyer nor a catfish. I prefer to be more generous in my appraisal of this unfortunate situation.

Let's be honest for a minute. If you saw an opportunity to pad your retirement nest egg with an additional $400k or so, wouldn't you take it? Of course you would. After all, if you'd just come out of a job you'd held for six years that paid for your gas, insurance, maintenance and repairs and you suddenly discovered gas was going for $1.45/litre for premium and the cost of insuring an Audi was, well, a lot, no matter how diligent you'd been at contributing to your RRSP, no matter how large a pension you were looking forward to, you'd begin to feel a little tight around the pursestrings.

Bill says his dismissal caused damage to his reputation. I believe him. I believe it caused so much damage he decided to completely destroy any shred of reputation he had left, which this lawsuit seems to have accomplished, at least for some narrow-minded people in town.

Personally, I'm in awe. By taking this very public step, whatever the driving motivation may be, Bill has shown the kind of single-minded dedication usually reserved to, for example, elite Olympic athletes. While they may toil endlessly trying to reach the heights of perfection in a particular sport, Bill's reaching for the gold ring in an form of human endeavour all too endemic in modern public life: hubris.

I stand mute in the presence of perfection.

I think it would be hard to argue with hubris.