Wednesday, January 19, 2011

The PowerPoint rant that got a colonel fired

The article I was talking about in the previous blog-post, which I just found we not only have to talk about it but also blog about it (again, point of this is???). The article was about a colonel, Lawrence Sellin, who was fired after he didn't clear his comments through public affairs & failed to clear "written or oral presentations to the media" through a designated public affairs officer. 


In his PowerPoint, he talks about how in the two months working as a staff officer to a headquarters in Afghanistan, he has not done anything productive. He mentions how the International Joint Command was most likely founded to provide some general with a three-star command rather than to coordinate operations among all the regional commands. He humiliates the generals by calling them "cognitively challenged", and how the headquarters staff mainly has to make PowerPoint presentations to spoon-feed the generals' information. He makes a sarcastic comment as to how he has to attend series of PowerPoint briefings and meetings with PowerPoint presentations, because, "just like gym class, they take roll." 
He also makes fun of the commander, who never actually attends the "commanders update assessment,  or CUA," and his immediate subordinates, who sit through the CUA in a "semi-comatose" state. Finally, he talks about how the IJC (International Joint Command) will attempt to embed a new stovepipe into an already existing stovepipe. 




This is a blow to the IJC, I believe. I can understand why he was fired. At first, I thought firing someone because of a PowerPoint was a little too harsh. Well, since he obviously didn't like his job in the IJC, he can look on the bright side - since he was fired, he can search for a job he will like to do - maybe one without having to make PowerPoints. 

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