Source: Rhino Times Greensboro

Yost%20Column
Yost Values His Job: Gives Hammer Yostie

by Scott D. Yost

May 28, 2010

Here we go with Part II of the Yostie Awards. The envelopes please …

Laziest Sales Person in Guilford County – No, Make that in the World.

I was in Wal-Mart on Battleground last year looking for headphones for a portable music player, and I couldn’t find any or even find the store’s electronics section, so I looked and looked for someone to ask and, finally, I found a female employee wearing a store ID badge. I went up to her and said, “Excuse me, can you please tell me where I can find headphones for portable music players?”

And she gave this look of utter and total disdain for me and for my intrusion into her world, and here’s what she snarled back at me …

“Uh, I’m not on duty right now.”

And then she turned around and went back to whatever she was doing.

Here’s what I wrote about it at that time: “You know, it hit me later: If that salesgirl were smart, and she really wanted to be lazy, it would have been easier for her to just say, ‘Aisle 8,’ or whatever, because ‘Aisle 8’ is shorter and easier to say than, ‘I’m not on duty right now.’ So, ironically, I managed to get her to exert more energy than she would have had to if she were on the clock – though somehow I still don’t consider that a huge victory.”

Least Helpful Site on the Web. I’ll tell you in a second. Let me say it this way, I Googled something and I started reading about it, and everything I was reading sounded wrong and then I realized which site I was on because every time I go there it’s just filled with worthless, senseless and wrong information.

Now, there are about 25 billion web pages on the world wide web – literally, not figuratively, there are 25 billion – however, out of the blue, I turned to Rhino Times writer Paul Clark, whose desk is near mine, and I said, “Paul, what’s the most worthless site on the web?” and, without even having to think about it, he said, “Oh, that would be Yahoo Answers,” and I was like, exactly.

It should be called, “Web-answers-from-total-idiots-who-don’t-know-anything-but-who-think-that-they-do.com.”

Best Bait and Switch When it Comes to a County Line. Alamance County commissioners. Right now, there’s a big controversy going on in regard to changing the Guilford/Alamance county line from the line that’s been used for years – not the correct one – to one state surveyors found a few years ago with the latest GPS devices – the correct line. (Or, as one angry Alamance County resident referred to the line the surveyors found, “the arbitrary geodetic line they cut down from outer space.”)

Well, anyway, for months and months, the attorneys, staff and commissioners of the two counties have been hashing out an agreement and, every step of the way, everything has indicated that the Alamance County commissioners were totally on board with the “new” line – which is really the original line. Just about everyone other than the citizens near the line think the problem needs to be fixed so there won’t be increasing confusion – as population of the disputed area grows – over where citizens should pay taxes, go to school, vote, etc.

Of course those people who are going to be moved from Alamance County to Guilford County – which has much higher property taxes – are somewhat less than thrilled about the change to say the least, and not just because of the taxes. (As one of them said: “I bought a house in Alamance County because I wanted to live in Alamance County.)

So, anyway, cut to Monday, May 10. The Guilford County commissioners have already voted for the change and sent it to Raleigh and the Alamance County commissioners were expected to do the same soon. There was a public meeting held to discuss the line change. It was at 5:30 p.m. on a very hot day in the standing-room-only Gibsonville town hall. It was like a scene out of To Kill a Mockingbird or whatever – only, instead of being in a courthouse, it was at a packed town hall. Anyway, the meeting got started and the Alamance County and Guilford County citizens were very angry over the proposed change.

The Alamance commissioners just looked “shocked, shocked I tell you” that the evil Guilford County commissioners would even consider moving the line.

The Alamance commissioners were suddenly all like, “No, you don’t understand, it’s the Guilford County commissioners who are doing this – we haven’t voted one way or another.”

And so all the verbal venom from the angry, hot and standing-room-only crowd was then directed squarely at the Guilford County commissioners for two hours while the Alamance board sat back and watched quietly.

Amazed Guilford County Commissioners Kirk Perkins and Bruce Davis spoke up and said, what? Perkins and Davis said it was their understanding that the Alamance commissioners were also totally on board, but the Alamance County commissioners where like, “Oh no, not at all – this is really the first we’ve talked about it.”

Best Area Store. And the winner is …

Early in 2009, Apple opened its store in the new part of Friendly shopping center. The last time I was at the Apple store, I was playing with an iPad and three different workers asked me if I had questions – even though the place was packed. It’s like a little city; it’s a store that people go to just to hang out even when they’re not buying anything. And, now, you can go there and play with an iPad to your heart’s content. (Oh, and those three different people who came up to me and asked if I had questions – well, amazingly, when I did have questions, they actually knew the answers.)

Dumbest Statement Made in the Last Year. Jared Pike, The Murphy in the Morning Show on 107.5 WKZL. Jared said, on the air no less, that, in the 1994-1995 season, Coach K realized he had a bad team, so he faked a back injury so he could sit out that season and not have his career record marred by that team.

If you want to read the column, Google “Jared Pike Rhino Times.” The column (“Yost Says A State Divided Cannot Stand”) comes up, and, in that column, I explain, in great agonizing detail, the multitude of ways that Jared’s statement is idiotic on so many different levels. Jared shouldn’t be on the radio – he should be the answer boy for Yahoo Answers.

Best Political Feud. Chairman of the Board of Commissioners Skip Alston and News & Record Editorial Page Editor Allen Johnson. Recently, there have been all these editorials in the News & Record about how the county manager’s budget process – which apparently saw a lot of input from Alston – was kept under wraps until it was revealed by the county manager at a mid-May commissioners meeting. It’s no different this year than it is every year – still, this year, the News & Record has had all these editorials and articles about a lack of transparency in the budget process.

Listen, I’ve been covering the county for eight years and, every year, the manager’s budget proposal is like Moses coming down off the mountain. The moment the manager unveils the proposed budget is a moment of great anticipation.

Also, a lot of what the News & Record sees as a lack of transparency is simply the fact that Alston has essentially stopped talking to them – because, according to Alston, (1) they misquote him a lot, (2) they get things wrong and then won’t write a correction and, (3) they always try to portray him in the worst light possible.

Several years ago, a woman tripped on a bad step at a government housing complex Alston managed and the News & Record did this big series of stories basically on how Alston was a slumlord. I called up the city inspectors at that time and asked if Alston was a bad landlord, and they said Alston didn’t get any more citations than other landlords and they also said he was always quick to fix problems when they were brought to his attention.

Runner Up: Alston and Commissioner Paul Gibson. Last year at one point, Gibson said he had half a mind to just vote against everything Alston was for and vote for everything Alston was against, just on principle.

Most Idiotic Expenditure of $8 Billion. The Large Hadron Collider (read: the Doomsday Black Hole Machine). Yes, you are right to point out to me that they haven’t been able to make the earth-devouring black hole yet, but remember what the man who fell off the 100-story building said after he had fallen past 99 floors: “So far, so good.”

Most County Attorneys and Interim County Attorneys in a One-Year Period. Guilford County, NC, USA. There’s no practical way for me to prove that, so I’m just going to go ahead and state it as fact and, if you find a county that’s had a half-dozen county attorneys in a year, let me know. Sharron Kurtz was attorney in December 2008 and then there was the guy from Smith Moore Leatherwood – though I think he pulled out at the last minute citing a conflict of interest because that firm represented High Point. There was former Deputy County Attorney Mike Newby who took the position for a little while and then he hightailed it to Davidson County. There was that retired guy from another county who came in for like a month before walking off in a huff. Then there was Sheriff’s Department Attorney Matt Mason. He was followed last summer by the two Steves from Nexsen Pruet, the firm with the name that I still can’t spell without looking it up.

The scary thing about all these attorneys is that I’m going by memory and I feel certain I’m leaving out one or two.

Guilford County Attorney Mark Payne, who came to the county in early November of last year, pointed out to me that he had recently passed a milestone: He had been the county attorney here longer than the last four county attorneys combined.

Biggest Election Surprises in the Last Year. Bill Knight wins the 2009 race for Greensboro mayor; Earl Jones loses in the 2010 Democratic primary for the NC state House District 60 seat.

Worst Spelling Mistake in a Joint Resolution. Guilford County officials get Greensboro Mayor Bill Wright’s name wrong. Oh wait, did I say Wright – no that’s just how the county thinks his name is spelled – it’s actually Knight, with a K and an N, not a W and an R. Wright, Knight – what’s the difference.

Closest I Came to Going to Jail. Last September, when I snuck into and attended a private meeting held by President Barack Obama’s deputy secretary of the US Department of the Treasury, Neal Wolin, and Democratic Rep. Brad Miller, who represents North Carolina’s 13th congressional district. Federal security authorities apparently don’t like it when you sneak into closed meetings of high-ranking federal officials.

Best Area Singer/Musician/Performer. Evan Olson. I could listen to him perform 20 nights in a row and it still wouldn’t get old.

Worst County Official About Returning My Phone Calls and Emails. This was going to be a tie between County Manager Brenda Jones Fox and Budget Director Michael Halford but, for some strange reason, out of the blue, they have both started returning my phone calls and emails promptly. Best About It: Skip Alston, Vice Chairman Steve Arnold and the very hot Assistant County Manager Sharisse Fuller.

Best Decision I Made in the Last Year. Dropping my landline. It wasn’t just costing me the $40 bucks or so a month plus the voicemail charge I was paying to the phone company. It was costing me more than that because the only people who ever called me up on that line were people asking for donations for the homeless starving orphans or whatever, and, a lot of the time, I’d give something. There was, no lie, even a guy from Carolina who called and, for the first time in my life, I gave some money to Carolina because I am a Carolina graduate. (I don’t like to talk about that part of my life but I will admit it under pressure: It’s true – I did my graduate work at Carolina. There, I said it.)

Most Cluttered Desk in the County. Rhino Times Editor John Hammer. I worry that some time, if he ever cleans it up, he’ll find a Japanese soldier who doesn’t know the war is over hiding in there. Second Place: Rhino Times writer Paul Clark. Third Place: Scott D. Yost.

Biggest Mistake Made by Local TV News. Runner up: Fox 8 News for not paying Roxanna Haynes enough to keep her here. She’s doing the weather in Nashville now and I miss her a lot.

Winner by a landslide: the News 2 weather team for the Duke-Baylor-Game-Radar-Gate fiasco. News 2 caused thousands and thousands of people to miss the end of the fantastic Duke-Baylor NCAA basketball playoff game, because the station kept a weather radar on the screen the whole time and the weather people kept saying the same thing over and over about tornadoes in the area.

Listen, if people have to die so that I get to see the Duke game, well, then – look, I’m not saying those lives aren’t important. OK, I’m not saying that. I’m just saying that it’s Duke, in the playoffs, and the only point I want to make is that, you know, everyone has to go some time, be it by tornado or falling coconuts or whatever.