Favoritism Trumps Civil Service:
Stepping All Over Merit

By BRANDON L. WARD

Admit it. If a confession about the notion of merit and fitness were beaten out of most city employees, the scream would be: "merit" is a misnomer - a romantic myth.

Brandon L. Ward is president of the New York City Municipal Chapter of Blacks in Government, an employee advocacy group. He is a Mechanical Engineer with the Department of Transportation. He can be reached at brandonward@nycbig.com .

At least that's what I am screaming. Of course, some, like the Department of Citywide Administrative Services Commissioner Martha Hirst, would readily argue that this is not the way it's supposed to be. After all, in her March 29, 2004 testimony before the City Council's Government Operations committee, the myth coming out of her agency's testocrats was, civil service examinations are the general measure of a potential city employee's "merit and fitness."

Ideal, Reality Diverge

Let me begin by noting that merit and fitness is government's way of selecting a competent work force to perform the services of government. And generally speaking, the yardstick used for measuring "merit and fitness" is a competitive examination process. Ideally, this is all good. The reality is, however, "merit and fitness" has its defects.

For starters, "merit" assumes that passing a civil service exam qualifies a person. However, even the three blind mice can see that it doesn't always follow that one's smarts (i.e. position on the list) automatically determine one's job fitness or competence. Certainly, it is difficult to argue, as a point of merit, against someone who isn't a transparent fool if they can show proof of passing a test.

Indeed, as one who has peeped the cards of the guys who ranked number 1, 12, 17 and 27 on the last DOT Administrative Engineer's list, I am convinced that qualifications are not synonymous with being qualified. After all, metaphorically speaking, if the combined cognitive engineering abilities and expertise of the top three individuals were ink, they don't possess enough ink to sign the time-card of the individual ranked number 27.

Talkers Move Up

From this observer's chair, it seems that in a "contest for acceptance," (i.e. the job interview), the selection process generally works in favor of the candidate who can talk a good game. And frankly, this seems to be a new orthodoxy of merit for engineering leadership.

More fundamentally, however, it is hard not to conclude that the 1-in-3 rule is a bias numbers game. Here's an example of what I mean. Anecdotally, number 27 indicated to me that despite his exceptional engineering acumen, his low list ranking was perhaps the results of a last-minute addition (I guess by DCAS) of an oral test to the examination.

Why does this matter? Well, according to the "Notice of Exam" for the title, seniority, a multiple-choice test and a qualifying essay were weighed to determine an applicant's score. There was no mention of an oral exam!

Needless to say, it does not require a fertile imagination to see the banana peel for some was an oral exam. As I have stated in a previous article, "Why Engineers Are Angry," English is a second language for a disproportionate number of city engineers.

As an advocate for equity and opportunity in city agencies, it is intuitive for me to argue that even blind squirrels are entitled to a nut. However, I am also keenly aware that it is difficult to argue the merits of appointing a blind man to direct traffic at a busy intersection simply because he can hear the traffic. Disturbingly, however, in my division, engineers are being supervised by an erstwhile Highway Repairer (HR).

Knows Not What He Does

Furthermore, taking merit to new heights, this reality was the initial response to American Engineering Association criticism of this managerial arrangement. The agency's Chief Engineer stated that this was his "managerial right." Just like his decision to remove and demote Bharat Parekh as director of a unit for exercising the temerity to do his job evaluating an agency consultant's work as "unsatisfactory." The curious explanation offered by the agency's deciders-in-charge (DIC) was "it's in the best interest of the agency." To me, there is a certain degree of spitefulness to such decision-making.

Unfortunately, however, most professionals' acceptance of leadership mediocrity is generally on the al-together specious premise that an individual is "not so bad" after all. As some rationalize it, the devil you know is better than the devil you don't know. Meanwhile others suggest that just as rare things increase with value, unqualified managers become qualified managers with time. Consequently, employees succumb to the most pernicious form of an agency's dumbing-down: embracing mediocrity. And in the parlance of Thelma and Louise, "Ya get whatchya settle for."

Fitness in Beholder's Eye

This brings me to the defect I see in "fitness." To begin with, the very word conjures up pictures of sculpted bodies flexing their muscles on a stage. However, one cannot ignore the fact that the notion of "fitness" is subjective and as such conveys a nuanced meaning. In other words, based on the political reality of the moment, "fitness" seems to always favor the mindset of the individual who is in tune with the sensibilities of the person hiring.

After all, figuratively speaking, in all likelihood this erstwhile Highway Repairer ducked into the phone booth of the Commissioner's office and, in effect, emerged to reveal the super abilities he was hiding inside by becoming the manager of engineering decision-based units. To put it crudely, this is the kind of brown-nosing employees are prone to do when their career ambitions outweigh their jobs kills.

Connections Matter

Against this backdrop, one could convincingly argue that job competition occurs in a Darwinian environment, and one's job fitness is more a matter of luck than skill. In other words, in the Darwinian world of job competition, "luck" is a euphemism for "a rabbi," "a pastor," "an uncle," a husband or boyfriend (as is the case with recently-ousted World Bank President Paul Wolfowitz, who gave a significant raise to his girlfriend. Interestingly enough, Wolfowitz's mission as president of the World Bank was fighting for "good governance.'')

I must confess that in spite of my sarcastic slap in the face to merit and fitness, the truth is that government works best when it is a meritocracy. Unfortunately, some DICs seek to make "merit and fitness" passé by broadbanding job qualifications, or have us believe that one's job "fitness" is to be just another opinion. The hard fact is, notwithstanding its defects, merit and fitness is still the best remedy to a spoils system and cronyism in government.