If you ever find yourself near the White House in Washington, DC, and hear a loud noise above you, you should be careful when looking up. Because there’s a chance, if you squint hard enough, that you might just witness a careless seagull flying away after unloading its dirty business all over the (now formerly) white walls.
Now, I’m not talking about an actual bird here, but the heavily foreshadowed exit by Elon Musk as his work leading the so-called Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) comes to an unceremonious end.
Arriving with an ambition to cut $US2 trillion ($3.1 trillion) from the US federal government, Elon Musk is now leaving having reached just 8.75 per cent of his target.Credit: AP
I’ve previously written about some of the most common animal archetypes you’re likely to find in most workplaces, including hippos, zebras and wolves. HiPPO stands for the Highest Paid Person’s Opinion that can dominate any meeting. ZEBRA means Zero Evidence But Really Arrogant who jumps to quick conclusions. And a WOLF is always Working On the Latest Fire.
On top of that, there are even more animals in the work menagerie, including a RHINO, or colleagues who are Really Here In Name Only and PARROTs that are Pretty Annoying and Ridiculously Repeating Others.
Which leaves us with the SEAGULL, or a Senior Executive that Always Glides in, Unloads and Leaves Loudly. Most people will recognise a seagull at some stage of their career, but if you want to see a textbook example of what this animal looks like in the workplace, look no further than the world’s richest man, Elon Musk.
After US President Donald Trump was elected, Musk swooped into one of the most complex bureaucracies in the world and unloaded on everything in his sight. From foreign aid to tax processing, diversity programs to national parks, everything was viewed from a great height with little time or care given to its consequences.
You’re never going to stop seagulls from swooping in on your work, but you can at least make the aftermath a little bit easier to clean up.
Arriving with an ambition to cut $US2 trillion ($3.1 trillion) from the US federal government, Musk is now leaving having reached just 8.75 per cent of his target, or $US175 billion of savings if you believe the higher end of the double-counting and dubious maths posted on DOGE’s official website.
Having made his mess in record time, he’s now retreating from the hard work involved with genuine reform, inspired no doubt by falling sales of Teslas around the world.
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