Take This Job and Shove It

Did you think you could beat your old boss?

There’s a great country music song I loved as a kid, back when my family left me in a department store in Gatlinburg, Tennessee.

"Take This Job and Shove It" was a working man’s anthem in the late 1970s and was a hit during the Outlaw Country period featuring guys like Johnny Cash.

The song was written by David Allen Coe but performed by a guy named Johnny Paycheck. There is no better country music singer name than that. Paycheck was born in Ohio, and his real name was Donald Lytle. Who doesn’t remember this song and immediately wants to shout, “I ain’t working here no more!”

We all have jobs and bosses we dislike. It’s even better when those two things happen together. I had one genuinely awful boss, like he was a jerk every day. We were raising money for a Catholic college, so of course, I would have a horrible boss. One day, he found me shooting a basketball after work in the gym and wanted to play one-on-one with me.

I agreed. He was a few inches shorter than me and nowhere near as athletic as I was, especially at the time when shooting basketball was a release from an awful job instead of sitting at home pounding beers.

Awful Boss blurted out right before we began to play with, “You know I’m quicker than you?”

Narrator: He was not.

I went on to smoke this fool like a pork butt. Two games. Two scores: 12-2 and 12-4. For whatever reason, people think adult me is some awful athlete. That mindset only changes when you decide to come at me with soft stuff, and you find out real quick that I got game, and I send your shots all over Baltimore.

It was so satisfying. I quit that job after ten months.

On the other hand, it’s tough being the boss. I’ve been the boss a few times, and I’m sure people I supervised out there think I was terrible. You could argue that they were probably right. But I was a terrible boss because I was stupid, not because I was mean and insecure. My insecurity comes through jokes, and I’m freaking hilarious when I’m the boss.

I like bosses who can tell good jokes. Abraham Lincoln was good at telling jokes. He had a quick wit and could lighten a mood with zingers that made people relax and laugh. Lincoln grew up suicidal and was surrounded by death, so I bet he tossed out a few morbid jokes that made others uncomfortable. But, like me, some jokes land, and some are just bricks on a backboard.

General George McClellan most likely didn’t laugh when Lincoln joked about borrowing McClellan’s army if he wouldn’t use it. Lincoln didn’t like the joke McClellan was making of the Army of the Potomac, so he fired him in November 1862, like a reverse Johnny Paycheck song. McClellan thought Lincoln was a lousy boss and wanted that shot on the basketball court.

The only problem was that McClellan’s nickname was Young Napoleon, and Lincoln was 6 foot 4.

Let's dive in.

3: The Presidential Election of 1864

Election Date: November 8, 1864

The Candidates:

War can make strange bedfellows. The emerging Republican Party, fresh off their first victory when Lincoln won in 1860, found themselves needing to build a coalition to ensure the country wasn’t handed off to another guy, and then who knows what happens. Lincoln described it as switching horses while crossing a river.

So, Republicans and Democrats who favored winning the Civil War and keeping the Union together created the National Union Party. Lincoln won the nomination and, in turn, named Tennessee War Democrat Senator Andrew Johnson as his running mate.

Radical Republicans splinted off, thinking Lincoln was too soft about winning the war and advancing racial equality. They nominated the former GOP nominee John Fremont, who lost to James Buchanan in 1856. So good luck with that.

But the Democrats pulled out a doozy of a nominee. Desperate to end the war quickly, they nominated US Army General George McClellan, thinking he was popular.

Narrator: He was not.

They also put forth a platform that advocated peace with the Confederacy at any cost, even if it meant disunion.

McClellan did not favor this platform and did not campaign on it.

So good luck with that.

Major Issue of the Day:

The Civil War began before Lincoln took office and raged for another three years. Those three years were tough, especially on Lincoln, who at least became a self-taught general, which made him a better commander-in-chief.

McClellan's decision-making didn’t help the war efforts. He consistently overestimated the size of the rebels and always took a cautious approach, which led to him always being in the back. His firing led to massive changes in leadership and tactics.

The Winner:

Unity.

Voting for Lincoln again showed that the country wanted to be united again. If you hated Lincoln, for whatever reason, it had to be a gut punch to see how massively he won.

The States in the Electoral College:

25. The Confederate states were barred from voting since they spent the previous three years killing lots and lots of Americans.  

The Electoral College had 234 members, and the winner needed 118 votes.

Even in war, we stuck to the Electoral College. Crazy, isn’t it?

There was much doubt that the president would win reelection. Even he thought he would lose. But, like the election in 1948, good surprises can happen. Even though it was somewhat surprising that he pulled out a victory, it was really surprising to see how much Lincoln beat McClellan.

Like a one-on-one basketball game with a shorter, slower work colleague, Lincoln dominated McClellan and took 22 states. He dunked on George by securing 55% of the vote, ran layup drills by winning the Electoral College 212-21, and drained outside shots when McClellan’s soldiers voted for him by a margin of 4 to 1.

The 2021 OKH Presidential Ranking:

Lincoln tops the OKH Presidential List. It would be difficult to knock him off this spot, but there are some shady things Lincoln did to preserve the union. There are people today telling everyone that America needs to be saved with the same mindset.

Why Did I Rank it Here:

The top three elections are interchangeable. And if you have paid attention all year, you know the remaining two. I felt this one was third because we were winning the war by the time the election rolled around, and it was the greatest surprising gift the country could ever give a president.  

We are down to two! How many weeks are left in this election? Two? Who’s going to be on top?

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Anonymous is leaving me again today because a spy’s life is always on the move. That means Blue and I will have a guys' weekend! Blue also got good news this week as he continues to be in remission from his cancer, which was a year ago. 

With three essays coming out this week and the last uninterrupted weekend to work on my practicum, I won’t be putting out a Maundy Monday Newsletter. I hope that’s okay. I’m a little beat since I worked all day last Sunday.

That means we will count down the last presidential ranking the next time we are together. It’s hard to believe another year of ranking stuff is history!

I hope you have had as much fun as I have had going through these elections. I’m so appreciative of your support. Thanks for being okay.

Okay,

Chris

Blue is concerned we don’t have enough beer for the weekend.