Case Studies

POLITICS: HOW DO YOU HANDLE THE INSECURITY OF A POLITICAL APPOINTMENT?
by Neal Kunde


Ed and Karen Moy worked in the Bush Administration. Ed was the director of the office of managed health care policy and planning in the health care financing administration. Karen was deputy associate director of presidential personnel in the executive office at the White House. They talked about their experience, and in particular the insecurity of political appointments, in an interview in 1993 with Kathleen Corcoran.

Kathleen Corcoran is a marketing consultant. She lived in Washington, DC for many years and she still isn’t sure if she is politically correct.

KC: When the Bush Administration left the White House, you both found yourselves without a job. How did you handle that?

KM: We assessed the risks before we went to Washington. We had come from the private sector with the intent of returning to the private sector. So it was inevitable. To be honest, we expected to be there for another term. But God’s sovereignty hasn’t changed. Oh sure, for the first weeks we looked and behaved as though a family member had died. But God is still God. We didn’t elect a new God, just a new president. And we knew God would put something else interesting in our path.

KC: What advice would you give to others who are out of a job through no fault of their own?

KM: Don’t be proud. Accept graciously from people who offer it. Anybody who offers help to us during a month of unemployment is going to have their offer accepted. I’m shocked at the number of people who will hold their closest problems in and go through tremendous, self-imposed pain and suffering. Allow people around you, in your church and your family to know about your difficulty, land that includes the specifics of your finances. Let people help you with it. Because you never know when the shoe is going to be on the other foot. We’ve been in a position financially to help a lot of people for a lot of years. And I wouldn’t be surprised if God turned that around during our unemployment.

Practically speaking, stop spending and start saving. Pay your minimums and your credit card debts if you have any. Be humble and, if you need to, call the utility companies and ask if you can work out a payment schedule to pay off the bills. Use all the resources available to you to make it through. Remember that God has carried you through difficulties before. You have to make a deliberate effort to think back to another time when you thought you weren’t going to make it, and you did.

EM: Take a look at your past job situation, whether is was good or bad, and view it as a blessing. What did you learn from it? Why did God put you in that situation? Get the most of your most recent experience. Then you need to have a lot of people around you who care for you, who can support and encourage you. They should spend time talking through issues with you. That’s an important part of getting through the present. The future is not an end, but a new beginning. Look at all of what the future holds. Don’t look on it as limiting.

KM: That’s right. See it as an opportunity. That doesn’t mean you can’t be afraid. Every now and then the reality of unexpected unemployment kind of grips me. But it’s possible to be afraid and to step out in faith at the same time. You can act despite your fear. That’s what courage is. And that’s what God gives us. We don’t have a spirit of timidity. In Timothy, we read that we have a spirit of courage.

KC: Are there any advantages to not having security?

KM: Is sets you free in a way. Job security is almost like a treasure. You’re always afraid you’ll lose it. When you don’t have any job security, you don’t have to worry about spending time and effort safeguarding it. In the end, it turns you loose to go where God wants you next. It sets you free and it enables you to take risks.

EM: If God is truly my security, then the practical test of that security involves things like job insecurity. Intellectually, you may think you know that you’re secure with God. But you never really know for sure unless you’re put in that position. Job insecurity gives you a very visible reading as to where your faith is.#MP

In The Lions Den, Marketplace Métier, Spring 1993, page 5