The talents of a cook, a singer and a florist

BY CLAIRE LYNCH

My friend, Samantha, always dreamed of opening a restaurant featuring breakfast and brunch so six months ago she did just that. She and her contractors spent time renovating an old building and setting up the interior with a bar, tables and seating for 45 people, and a huge kitchen. “Sammie’s Place” has been a hit from the first day. Using social media to advertise, people came from all over. Sandwiches include a chicken salad wrap with a side of chips and chicken cordon bleu, grilled, on a pretzel bun. Brunch is steak, eggs and home fries.

Her brunch special often includes pancakes piled high with fruit. On holidays she offers a lobster dish that people rave about and when lines started forming out the door, Sammie started taking reservations. That way the customers can take their time enjoying their meals, on special occasions or not, and not feel rushed by the people waiting to enter. Six days a week they are open from 7 a.m. to 2:30 p.m. That gives Sammie and her employees time to clean up and prepare for the next day.

Looking at her logo on the sign as she pulled out of the parking lot, she smiles seeing her silhouette encircled by the name of the restaurant, Sammie’s Place. She told me she was glad she had become a small business owner, that being her own boss allows her to have some independence and be as creative as she wants to be in the kitchen. And her customers love the results!

Reading a non-fiction book about singer Peter Cetera’s life was interesting because even though I’ve heard his songs so many times I never knew where he was from. This came up recently because my family and I were watching “Good Girls” on Netflix for the second time around and I was sur- prised when Peter Cetera’s song “The Glory of Love” came on. It reminded me of 1986, the year it came out, and where I was then. At 30 years old, I was in the midst of my PR career working for a corporation in Manhattan. It seems so long ago and in many ways it was. Ronald Reagan was the president. When I saw the movie, “The Karate Kid Part II,” and heard the song, I sat upright in my chair. The lyrics go, “I’ll be the hero you’re dreaming of …”

Peter Cetera songs are great - he was a lead vocalist and the bassist of the rock band “Chicago” from 1967 until 1985 when he launched his solo career - so I decided to read more about his upbringing. Born in Chicago in 1944, Cetera has said that his mother was always singing around the house. Cetera was one of six kids and his mother taught them to sing in harmony while they were doing their chores around the house. His brother, Kenny, also remembers the family harmonizing together while growing up. Because people would give him compliments and say that he was a good singer, at age 11 Cetera realized that he actually had a talent for singing.

Cetera kept enjoying music and at 11 his parents bought him an accordion instead of the guitar he wanted. He calls himself “kind of a polka prodigy” and at 12 Peter Cetera won a local talent competition for his accordion playing. The show was broadcast on the radio the following week. In high school Peter Cetera thought of becoming a singer as a career.

When he was 15, some older students from his high school took him to a club to see a band called the “Rebel Rockers.” Cetera liked the music so much that afterwards he bought an acoustic guitar at Montgomery Ward. He eventually took up the electric bass, and started playing in a band with some high school friends - a drummer, a guitarist and a saxophone player. Cetera and the guitarist were the lead singers.

Melanie, my old high school friend, worked a few retail jobs before deciding to open her own florist. She always wanted to be her own boss so when a shop that was the perfect size for what she wanted became available, Melanie seized the opportunity to go into business. Designing floral arrangements is what she really wants to do - that and decorating weddings and other celebrations with floral arrangements and potted plants. I’ve noticed that Melanie has a real knack for design and I’m envious of people who can take a plain space and make it look gorgeous. It’s a talent!

When I compliment her, Melanie says that she doesn’t really have a green thumb and she is not a person who spends time gardening outside but she’s got a creative flair. One time Melanie explained that both of her parents are very artsy and she got lucky by inheriting that gene. She likes what she does and it shows.

Her customers have agreed because

Melanie’s florist has done so well that she has hired five full-time employees. Sometimes Melanie packs the van with boxes of floral arrangements for delivery and on other days one of her employees does the deliveries to their happy customers. They are open six days a week - they are closed on Sundays for their day of rest.

When I stopped by her store recently, my favorite was the vase of lilies with carnations and chrysanthemums. It was beautifully arranged and I could see it brightening up a dining room table or sitting on top of a traditional fireplace mantel.

Melanie’s florist holds many beautiful things: baskets of flowers, different types of green potted plants, silk arrangements, botanical soaps, lotions, candles, specialty fruit and snack baskets and more. At the end of the day Melanie is happy about having a job she loves and equally as important, she offers steady employment to some local residents. That all sounds good to me!

BY TOM MARGENAU

For reasons that will become clear at the end of this column, I am updating another column I wrote about four years ago.

I am going to give you a series of names. I would give any reader a hundred bucks if he or she could tell me who they are and what they all have in common. Here are the names. Stanford Ross. William Driver. John Svahn. Martha McSteen. Dorcas Hardy. Gwendolyn King. Shirley Chater. Kenneth Apfel. Michael Astrue. Kilolo Kijakazi.

So who are they? They are 10 of the past 30 commissioners of Social Security. The Commissioner of Social Security is the top spot within the Social Security Administration. He or she is responsible for running one of the largest agencies in the federal government, in charge of maintaining Social Security number and earnings records for nearly every working American, and for paying retirement, disability, and survivor benefits to about 70 million people every month.

Yet, almost no one knows who these people are. Most folks can probably name the FBI director or the head of the CIA. But SSA is one of the many federal agencies whose top dog might as well be named “Underdog.” Who heads the VA? Who is the Commissioner of the IRS? Who runs the Federal Highway Administration? How about the Bureau of Labor Statistics? The heads of these and so many other federal agencies are almost always nameless political appointees. And therein lies a story I’d like to tell.

For part of my career with the SSA, I worked for several Social Security commissioners. Usually in the role of a speechwriter. Sometimes as the agency’s deputy press officer. By no means was I a major player on any commissioner’s staff. But I used to say that “at least I was in the room.” In other words, if the commissioner had a meeting with his or her top staff, I might be sitting in a chair in the corner of the room -- usually taking notes.

So I got to know a lot about the inner workings of the agency. I learned what the head of a big agency like the SSA really does. One of the commissioners I worked for (I won’t name names) was President Ronald Reagan’s pick to head Social Security. And one time, soon after she was appointed, she told me that Reagan told her this: “You really have only one job. Make sure those damn checks go out on time every month!”

But let’s be honest about that. The issuance of Social Security checks is pretty institutionalized. It’s built into the nature of the bureaucracy. Social Security checks have gone out on time every month for about 88 years now. Donald Duck could be the Commissioner of Social Security and the checks still would go out like clockwork each month. After all, commissioners come and go. It’s the dedicated civil servants who have been with the agency for decades who really keep the place humming along and make sure those checks always go out in a timely manner.

So what the commissioner really does, what the head of any large organization really does, is set the tone for how services will be provided and how staff will be allocated to provide those services.

And for many recent years, the Commissioner of Social Security has had to deal with the problem of ballooning workloads (10,000 baby boomers retiring every day) and dwindling resources.

This is an issue that has always puzzled me. I mean, if any private business was growing by 10,000 new customers every day, they would be hiring lots of new staff to deal with the increased workloads.

But sadly, that’s not the way the public sector works. Because so many Americans keep clamoring for less government ... well, they’re getting it. The SSA’s administrative budget (along with the budgets of most federal agencies) frequently comes under the knife -- leading to severe staff shortages. So there is a reason why you have to wait on hold for a couple hours when you call the SSA’s 800 number. Or why there are huge backlogs in disability claim appeals.

So I’m sure the SSA’s newest commissioner (more about that in a minute) will be looking at these problems and trying to reallocate staff to improve service to the public.

Before I get to the new big boss at the SSA, I must make this point. A long time ago, a chief of staff for one of the Social Security commissioners told me this. “Tom, when a Democrat is president, you will get a good Commissioner of Social Security. When a Republican is president, you will get an ineffective Commissioner of Social Security.” This seemingly biased analysis carried a bit of weight with me because the chief of staff who told me this was himself a Republican political appointee!

His reasoning went like this. For years, Social Security has been known as a favorite of the Democratic party. So if a Democrat is president, and you are a potential Democratic political appointee, you would be pleased and honored to be named the Commissioner of Social Security. Some of the best and brightest people available got the job. On the other hand, if a Republican is president, and you are a potential Republican political appointee, almost the last job you want is to be the head of Social Security. More desirable jobs were filled by the top people, and SSA got someone from near the bottom of the Republican political appointee barrel. (And again, remember, these sentiments were those of a Republican politico.)

Sadly, this proved true when Donald Trump was president. He named as his Commissioner of Social Security a guy named Andrew Saul. His critics charged that he was previously associated with some right-wing groups that advocated deep cuts in Social Security benefits. And surprise, surprise! His tenure at the agency didn’t go well. According to at least one government report, SSA employee’s job satisfaction declined during his reign -- citing lack of confidence in agency leadership as the main reason.

Now President Joe Biden has nominated Martin O’Malley as the next Social Security Commissioner. As a former mayor of Baltimore and governor of Maryland, at least he comes into the job with some administrative experience running large governmental organiza- tions. And I’m going to hope that what my former Republican colleague told me is true: because he was appointed by a Democratic president, I hope he will be an effective leader and turn the SSA back into the proud and service-oriented agency it used to be.

If you have a Social Security question, Tom Margenau has two books with all the answers. One is called “Social Security -- Simple and Smart: 10 Easy-to-Understand Fact Sheets That Will Answer All Your Questions About Social Security.” The other is “Social Security: 100 Myths and 100 Facts.” You can find the books at Amazon.com or other book outlets.

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