I got news for you. You've got another thing coming

I finally concluded a marathon, grind it out, you-have-got-to-be-kidding-me negotiation session last night with our County Probation Office over the spat we had a day earlier.  I'm none to happy with the result, but, accept it as the price to pay to avoid the longer term liability. 

The alert reader will recall that this same office had planned on dumping placing another of their losers here at FTI to be a part of our staff in honor of our recent blog recognition.  As Executive Director, (and  acting HR manager as our appointed official is finishing a 30 day "recovery" sabbatical),  I felt this would be disruptive.  We've experienced a placement of this type before and the results were not good.  The hair pulling, petty jealousies, disappearance of support materials, etc. disrupted our ability to develop and deliver the clear, concise positions and observations we have become known for.  And this behavior was among our upper management team; we haven't even begun to discuss the effects on the rest of the losers housed here.  I knew such an addition would never work.

I contacted the probation office in question and began the session to somehow avoid being forced to add one more misfit to our team.   I pleaded that our ability to deal with the current members of our tinfoil hat brigade already here were stretched to the limit and more harm than good would come as a result of this action.  Finally, a compromise was reached that will end this conflict:  The individual in question will not be placed with us.  In return, the office extracted a commitment to allow the staff to program next Friday's jukebox selection with no interference with me, regardless of  the selection made.  To date, I have taken on this duty and have felt it was my personal signature contribution to this forum.  I immediately rejected this offer, but was met with a no movement stance from the other side.  In the end, I had one choice:  relent or accept the loser.  You know the decision I made. 

Here is what I am faced with.  This is what the staff wanted to play.  I only hope next Friday is better than this.