“There was no need to tidy up your desk just for me,” said O’Mara dryly as he sat down. They both knew that the colonel had a neatness fetish and that his desk always looked that way. He swiveled his chair to face O’Mara and stared directly at his chest for a few seconds without speaking.
“As you have seen,” said O’Mara caustically, “I’m still wearing my uniform with the insignia removed. This is not because I yearn for my former rank or have any deep attachment to the Monitor Corps, or for any other sentimental or psychological reason. There are just too many people in this place who can’t tell one Earth-human from another, but they think of me as the one with grey hair and a Monitor green uniform who doesn’t bother to wish anyone the time of day. I’m wearing it as a simple aid to identification, so you don’t have to commiserate or avoid hurting my bruised feelings because I don’t have any, bruised or otherwise. And as a civilian I don’t even have to call you ‘sir’…”
“I don’t remember you ever calling me ‘sir’,” Skempton broke in, smiling. “But as the new civilian administrator everyone, including as a courtesy the military personnel, will call you ‘sir’ at all times, whether they feel respect for you in any given situation or not. Do you handle megalomania well, O’Mara?”
“… so if you have instructions, advice, warnings, or other unclassifiable knowledge you wish to share with me,” O’Mara continued, ignoring the interruption, “let’s cut to it at once. I would appreciate your advice even though I probably won’t take it. Then you can formally introduce me. to your staff, having first indicated which heads I should pat or the asses, if any, I should kick. Right?
And the megalomania will be a temporary condition,” he added sourly, “because so is this new job.”
Skempton nodded sympathetically. “Choosing and training a successor capable of filling your shoes could take time,” he said seriously, “so your temporary job could last for as long as you need. Or even want.”
“Are you trying to compliment me,” said O’Mara, “or lead me into temptation?”
“Yes, twice,” said the colonel. “But seriously, the hardest part of the new job is being pleasant, and firm, too, of course, with everyone. In this office you won’t be dealing with emotionally troubled patients, they will all know that they are saner, more intelligent, and fully capable of doing this job better than you can. Maybe some of them are, but they are too high in their comfortable medical specialties to seriously consider ousting you. They will come to you with legitimate requests for equipment, medical supplies, or additional staff that have, they will insist, much more merit than the similar requests of their colleagues.
You will listen to them,” he went on, “and tell them exactly what you think of them, but always under your breath, and do whatever is humanly, or non-humanly, possible. Considering the resources of the Federation and the Monitor Corps, that is quite a lot. The ones who know exactly what they need will tell you without wasting time. You will give them what they want or tell them gently why they can’t have it until the week after next, or whenever, and find a compromise solution to their particular problem. But with the others you will listen and be diplomatic, I hope, and do nothing at all.”
He gave O’Mara a worried smile and continued, “This is because all they want to do is talk to you, and complain about the nasty things they think their colleagues are saying behind their backs, or about the apparent and sometimes real attempts certain other department heads are making at empire-building by grabbing their unfair share of the top trainees. Or they will complain about the difficulties of fitting their workload into the allotted time, or stuff like that. Basically it is just high-level griping which you will listen to with an occasional sympathetic or encouraging word as appropriate or, in extreme cases, a promise to look into it as soon as your own workload allows. But usually you won’t even have to say or promise anything, or do anything that your subordinate staff can’t do or aren’t already doing.”