A Voice of America journalist who uses a pen name Mary Jane has posed this problem:
As we stand on the precipice of collapse, crumbling and leaderless, fearing for our jobs while simultaneously wishing to be released from this torturous slow decay, a keen look at our so-called management is due.
Mary Jane promised to provide that look in several installments.
The series is titled “HOWL.” This is Mary Jane’s last HOWL post in this submission.
BBG Watch wants to thank Mary Jane for her contributions and would like to urge her to write more. If you liked, or didn’t like, what you’ve read, please leave a comment. You don’t have to use your real name or include an email address.
Part Five – Old-fashioned Cronyism

Finally, in the most demonstrative, yet heartbreaking, metaphor for what my daughter would term “utterly clueless,” let us consider the IBB New Year’s party; senior IBB and VOA staff, many earning over $150,000 (and large bonuses) stood shamelessly in their hallway offering VOA staffers Costco brownies and Milano cookies. It presumably never occurred to these highly-paid managers to pool a mere 100 bucks each for second-rate catering. Blinded by their navel gazing and crippled by in-fighting, they failed to realize the importance of the gesture and, rather, insulted every employee with their “Let them eat cake” attitude.
The image of a SES manager standing at the door beside a table with three plastic bottles of warm coca-cola, smiling and grandly gesturing, welcoming staffers to an imaginary bountiful feast, completely unaware that the offer was little more than a gob of insult to the underlings, will remain, forever, for all who witnessed it, a symbol of the decline and collapse of an organization that was once great.