IT’S tough being at the top.
Like the time I was appointed committee scribe at the bowls club.
As gatherer and sharer of information, it was an important role which fulfilled my ego. I felt needed and loved.
That was, until the time I assumed – never a safe practice.
I wrote that the upcoming mixed triples would in fact be a mixed event, of teams drawing from the skills of both male and female participants.
This part of the equation was true. What I’d failed to understand was that traditionally, some of the teams were made of three men or three women.
My mistake was be to write that each team would contain either one male or two males, and by process of equilibrium, either one or two females.
By virtue of publication of 50 copies, printed with the generosity of the club’s management who owned a rapid-fire photocopier, the newsletter had become the point of all truth.
The three males who had formed a team for last year’s event were being told they could no longer be sans mix in a mixed tournament.
All because I hadn’t damn well checked with the constituency whether there would be any anomalies within the rules as issued by the tournament director – a politically-astute woman who knew the three males who teamed up weren’t going to win anyway, and were even less chance of finding a female who’d put up with their liquor-infused stench for the best part of four hours.
My well-intended bugle had erred, and my misdemeanor punished with the suggestion I should hand the communication duties to someone “with social media knowledge”.
I tell this story because politics is a cunning game, and popularity can ebb and flow.
Latest polling in our state shows the Queen P in an ebb of the process, no longer as well liked by 8% of the people who this week want her evicted from the hive and sent to isolation.
Like me and triples-gate, the Queen P seems to have forgotten the art of consulting her constituency before smashing everyone in the face with a solution.
People say they want harsher laws to deal with the underage buffoons who are stealing cars for joy rides and acting as couriers for drug importers who shamelessly leave vulnerable people telling courts it really isn’t such a big deal.
Then the Queen P tells everyone she’ll do what’s right which we, her constituents, hear as “you’ll think what I tell you to think”.
And whether the solutions to the problem are right or wrong, we see an arrogance which was always there, but that we never cared so much about because we didn’t think there was an alternative.
But now, someone wrote in their newsletter that there is indeed an alternative, a worthy opposition who might indeed overthrow the Queen P, and a revolution appears to be emerging.
Because you see, people like a good revolution, which they’ll join if they think they can win.
The Queen P should know all about this because it’s exactly how she came to power, during an unexpected wave of disdain for the evil conqueror, a former lord who was thought to be stealing riches from the kingdom.
The Queen P gave people back their doctors and nurses, and police and public servants. She was a listener, and being seen to be an empathetic soul is an artform. It not only must be genuine, but perceived to be genuine.
She then goes to the worker Ps who spin the honey and asks how she can get the people to like her again. At which point they remind her of the evil conqueror.
Ah yes, what we’re doing is so much better than what he did. And the overlord in waiting will be exactly the same, she reminds the people.
You see, she says, our laws are doubly as good as theirs. This is when the people see cracks in the hive. No longer is the Queen assertive with her positivity, rather spiraling into a sticky crevice of negative energy.
Her wings are flapping, but people are not believing like they once did. What we have now is a contest. And like I learned in triples-gate, it’s wise to seen consulting before telling everyone else what to think.
Hey Wanda, fancy a game of triples next week?
