The curious case of the abominable shower
austindailyherald.com
austindailyherald.com
Unlike other commentators, I wouldn’t draw any conclusions about the presidency or the US from LBJ other than that sometimes very weird people win positions of power and proceed to do very weird things with that power.
As for the Vietnam War: I guess it was easier for the US state to let the domestic population have civil rights compared to ending the Vietnam War and risking the “contagion” spreading. It’s easier to kill non-nationals on the other side of the world compared to continuing to violently crack down on domestic protests for civil rights.
(Kennedy didn’t have a nice record in Vietnam either, even though he is apparently the anti-deep state crusader if you listen to enough rock songs or whatever...)
I don’t know if "weird" is the right conclusion when you can factor in outside influences.
I'm doubtful that these leaders do these things because they are "listening" rather than because they are forced to. Or what, politicians are cynical power brokers (a common view, and correct) except on this issue? The leaders behind the State violently crack down on protests until they have a sudden epiphany and realize that demonstrating against segregation was good.
[1] Civil Rights was to Johnson’s credit, apparently, while the Trump Presidency was due to “stupid voters”
People say Trump did X, Trump did Y, people don't say Trumps voters did X or Y. So I don't think so, the leaders gets most of the credit and the blame in the publics eye. In some cases the people on the ground gets credit and blame, but in most cases the leaders gets most of it.
Johnson regarded the war in Vietnam as something he had inherited from Kennedy. He regarded it as politically impossible to cut losses and pull out--the Republican Party beat on the Democrats for years over China, a more obviously lost cause.
Kennedy was younger, richer, and better looking. Then and since many Americans (and not only Americans) have confused their fantasies about him with history.
I wonder if he mentions the shower somewhere?
> Lucy’s father was not as pleased with his new quarters. Two days after the Johnsons moved in, he told West, “Mr. West, if you can’t get that shower of mine fixed, I’m going to have to move back to The Elms.”
> “He didn’t sound as if he were joking,” West was to say. And after the President explained that the water pressure was inadequate, and that he wanted the same elaborate, multi-nozzle arrangement that he had had at his former home, he repeated his threat to move out. Then, “without a smile, he turned on his heel and walked away.”
> A few minutes later, Mrs. Johnson asked West to come by the room she had chosen for her once, a small sitting room with one door. “I guess you’ve been told about the shower,” she said, with a smile, and repeated to West what she said to all Johnson employees. “Anything that ... needs to be done, remember this: my husband comes first, the girls second, and I will be satisfied with what’s left.”
> As he became acquainted with the Johnsons, West was to write, “I soon could see that had been her life’s pattern.” Nothing, he came to see, could “faze her.”
Then how on earth was his home shower constructed?
It doesn't make any sense that it took the White House workmen five years to figure out how to replicate his home shower setup.
What happened to the guy he hired to install his home setup? Just get him.
(The whole story is particularly unbelievable because implementing such massive pressure and throughput of hot water would have been an equivalently large engineering problem in his home.)
If it’s real, it must be exaggerated, as Johnson only was in office for 5 years and 2 months (November 22, 1963 – January 20, 1969).
Because he withdrew from the 1969 presidential campaign on March 31, 1968, it also was long known he would be gone by the end of that year.
Even rereading that section about having a switch to turn from hot to cold, never warm makes no sense to me. Unless you want a single-pole double throw knob, and have the mother of all water-hammer any time you change the temperature.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2015/03/ldb-white-house-show...
The description of LBJ in the article makes him sound like a narcissist, or at least a manipulative person, and a common technique is for the manipulative person to claim that they've personally witnessed (or in this case, own) something superior to what they've asked someone else to create. He probably really did have a very fancy shower head arrangement in his home, but I doubt very much that it had the kind of pressure and temperature he insisted on for the White House. He probably just wanted something even more extreme, and his approach worked.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_House_Reconstruction
Considering the fact that this is essentially true, I find it extremely dubious that it took them 5 years to solve the problem. Surely just making a carbon copy of his shower at home wouldn’t take more than a month or two.
I wouldn’t put much stock in it.
Maybe the people who installed his home shower couldn't do it at the White House for national security reasons (using foreign parts and labor, maybe). Maybe it interfered with other systems at the White House, or maybe some of the arrangements would be inappropriate in a historical building. Maybe his home shower was deemed too unsafe. Or maybe the White House workmen were just incompetent, at least compared to the ones hired for his home setup. Or LBJ was just abusive.
And in some of the scenarios, I kind of understand the frustration. You are the most powerful person in the world, you can decide the fate of millions and lead a country that can put people on the moon, but when you ask for the same shower you have at home, you don't get what you asked for.
That's a rather common theme. Workers (from chefs to software engineers) assume the customer doesn't know what he is talking about and try to reinterpret the requirements. Often, they are right, but sometimes, the customer really wants what he told you he wants.
The President saw the officer staring at the fixtures and asked, "Son, do you have a shower like that?"
The officer replied, "No, sir!"
President Johnson said, "Then, boy, you got a dirty ass!"
> It turned out that the Elms had a shower faucet like nothing the staff had ever seen. Water from multiple nozzles sprayed out in every direction with needle-like intensity and astonishing force. One nozzle was directed at Johnson’s most private part. He called it “Jumbo.” Another, to his delight, shot straight at his back side. This, he demanded, is what he wanted in his White House bathroom … a shower head with the intensity of a fire hose. Additionally he wanted a temperature gauge that would immediately change the water from hot to cold. Never just warm.
Sadly, with this one, no bang. Real use of tax money.
If it's OK for a president to behave in this way, then you better believe this goes all the way down (and every person is abusing public funds to various extents).
Flying first class is for peasants.
Wtf, a politician is allowed to do that? How was the politician able to convince the train to stop? Are there laws enabling politicians to reschedule trains at any point?
Johnson became president when JFK was assassinated. This was within forty years of an attempt on FDR's life--the bullet got the mayor of Chicago instead.
There's nothing third world about it -- for security and logistical reasons it's not like the president can just hop over to the YMCA to shoot some hoops.
So because the president's family is so "trapped" in the White House, special accommodations get made. And remember, this is their home for 4–8 years.
This isn't building palaces with gold sculptures of themselves or anything. And improvements get kept for the next president.
This particular story, however, seems presumably greatly exaggerated for comedic effect (if there's any truth to it at all).
This doesn't even count as reading between the lines, they're obvious implications from the language in the article.
https://www.nytimes.com/2003/05/22/arts/an-lbj-feud-finally-... 2003 seems the earliest clear reference to the shower itself?
I always crack up at this conversation of him telling Joe Hagaar how he wants his pants made as well.
There was a story about when LBJ was first running for political office, that he started rumors that his opponent had done some reprehensible act with a pig. LBJ's retort to some staffer who told him to stop repeating this rumor was that he knew it to be untrue, but wanted his opponent to have to deny it all the same.
For me, it was unforgivable turning away from JFK's plan to get out of Nam, instead bombing the hell of the area and killing many more. Oh, and sweeping JFK's assassination under the carpet.
Some of course claim this is its main advantage...
Bergholt Stuttley, aka Bloody Stupid was a prolific inventor. If memory serves, his character was inspired by several Rube-Goldbergesque figures, LBJ doesn't appear to be in the mix.
That said, who knows for sure.
>Upon moving in, the president immediately let it be known how unhappy he was with the water pressure and temperature of his shower. Johnson summoned a solicitous workman to meet him “right now” as he had a pressing problem to discuss. “If you can’t get that shower fixed,” he sternly warned, “I’m going to move back to the Elms,” (Johnson’s Washington DC mansion). Then he walked away.
>It turned out that the Elms had a shower faucet like nothing the staff had ever seen. Water from multiple nozzles sprayed out in every direction with needle-like intensity and astonishing force. One nozzle was directed at Johnson’s most private part. He called it “Jumbo.” Another, to his delight, shot straight at his back side. This, he demanded, is what he wanted in his White House bathroom … a shower head with the intensity of a fire hose. Additionally he wanted a temperature gauge that would immediately change the water from hot to cold. Never just warm.
>Teams of plumbers then went to not only the Elms, but also to the Johnson Texas ranch to study the showers. There they found the hot water was nearly scalding.
So yes, LBJ did have a reference shower that was studied.
In the US military, if you want to keep your budget, you have to spend your budget. If you spend less than your budget, your budget will shrink because you don't need it. So, you have some very strong incentives to spend as much money as you possibly can without going over your budget, otherwise the next year you might actually need that money but not have the budget for it.
I'll let you use your imagination on what kinds of things were purchased (because they probably were if they were available to be purchased and the unit was under budget that year).
but i have never seen budget cuts on this basis actually happening and i wonder how much of it is an urban legend that gets passed and ends up fueling inflation
‘Look boss I saved x from budget z but we achieved target y anyway!
‘Yeah but I gave you Z for a reason, if you’d have added extra resource you may have achieved y+1’
Only empire building is rewarded. Growth is everything.
Savings are overrated and for household budgets not corps or governments.
It seems so perverse to a layman, so why is it apparently so widespread? Are there contexts in which it's the best system (ie. better than any reasonable alternative)?
It isn't more complicated than that, it is very hard to motivate not reducing A's budget in that case. It does create perverse incentives, but at the same time what are you supposed to do as a manager in that situation?
But the implication seems to be that underspending departments are "punished" with a smaller budget in subsequent years. I would naively hope a good manager would ask for a justification of the spending of both departments, and allocate the forward budget according to reasonably-evidenced projections of value for money based on the organisation's priorities or goals. Perhaps the answer is that that is just too hard, or even more prone to being gamed.
One of those things that are widely true, but rarely admitted to. It seems to be very much a maturity thing. The older,larger and more governed an org is, the more likely such a pattern is.
Habits become precedents. Precedents become rules. A pattern emerges is everyone operates within rules. Staying within the ruleset, represents known safety. Even if something is dubious.. as long as it's within the rule set you are safe.
Is shaky principle tentatively applied once.. it doesn't have that kind of safety. That means it's less likely to be stretched and made absurd.
There is a logic to trimming unused budgets. not perfect, but it wouldn't surprise me if it worked well enough, often enough. If a department keeps going over budget, well.. they need more budget.. or maybe less work. Where is that budget going to come from? Departments without enough budget.
It's hard to get more legible, than last year's expenditure as the starting point for the next years budget. Nothing very notable about birthing this "principle."
I'm sure it makes sense, often. At least in the sense that it's the easiest, good enough method.
If there's a new management, using old methods is helpful. They don't know enough.. and this just gets the job done. If budgets become contentious, sticking to "principles" helps smooth things.
That is the point though.. whether it's a big-hype management method like agile.. or some unofficial budgetary principle that happened to work before these are principles. We like to be principled, especially when we don't really know what to do.
There's a literary trope of a bone casting seer. It takes a wise person to cast bones. It's an art and science. Sure, you have to know what all the bones mean. But, you also have to figure out it's a good idea to fight to fight this particular battle, build a town in that particular place... And also to understand the role bone casting plays in this particular case.
Bones must be cast, because we like external validation. It helps to bring everyone together, and calms underconfident, overwhelmed, or underunited leadership.
Knowing when to cast them, why, all the different implications.. how to define the question, how to approach the answer.. those are jobs for the seer, not the bones themselves.
Things are better when soldiers watch the stones, and chieftains watch the seer. If and when that flips, the paradigm is not at its best.
This applies to any part of the US government, not just the military.
https://teambuilding.com/blog/end-of-year-budget
However that doesn’t fit into the “government=bad” narrative the US likes.
For average person it's easier to change the government than to change Google CEO.
Put more bluntly, you cannot convince your bean counters to give you money you didn't spend, because if you didn't spend the money you didn't need it regardless your arguments for wanting/needing a seemingly extraneous budget.
Of course, this leads to the incentive of spending your entire budget no matter heaven or hell so you maintain your budget next year which can lead to actually wasting money rather than saving it.
And also ask for stuff you don't need, which you can "give up" during the budget allocation process.
Corporate Budgeting is a game. If you need to play, best you first learn the rules.
Having money left over at the end of the budget year is a failure, as that money could have been used in a profitable projects.
The point is not that investing the company's money wisely doesn't make sense but that looking hat how much each department used and then basing the next budget on that alone is the opposite of wise because those departments are run by humans that will be looking out for themselves first.
It's a principal-agent problem. Imagine there is $100,000 in front of you. You are absolutely forbidden from taking any of it. However, if you set it on fire, and write a short memo inventing a plausible justification for doing this, your working life will be easier over the next year. A lot of people would do that with only very minor guilt.
From the employer perspective: there's no magic way to find out whether spending is "good" or not. You can add process and reviewers to check. But that also costs money, and slows down all the actual work. That's how you end up spending $1000 of staff time to have a meeting to approve purchasing a pen.
Pretty idiotic, but it's the army after all.
Sounds about right.
But yeah, I can imagine militaries have a huge challenge stockpiling fuel without it expiring.
Maybe make you hit yourself whilst at it
The frustrating part wasn’t pointlessly dusting off training ammo; it was cleaning the weapon afterwards. The blank fire adapter that was needed to create the back pressure to cycle the weapon meant that none of the gunpowder residue left the barrel behind a round (as there wasn’t one), so all that residue was waiting for us at the barracks.
I don't understand why organizations haven't cottoned on to a rollover model instead. If you have unspent budget, you not only get the same budget the following year but also 10% of the surplus, subject to approval. And in subsequent years, increase the proportion of surplus you can tap. After all, you've clearly shown you can be trusted to spend company money honestly.
Basically large parts of US federal contracting run indistinguishably from a make-work program for contract firms and the COTRs and other contract-management staff working with them. It’s a major reason I’m certain that “modern IT” efforts like 18F or USDS or “groundbreaking” reforms like FITARA will never be allowed to amount to much (absent a Truman-style “integrate the military and I don’t give a shit what anyone thinks about it” mandate) — there’s too much money and too many staff wrapped up in the way things currently work, which is how they’ve worked longer than most of the people now in the system have been alive. None of the modernization or reforms will ever be completely terminated or repealed, because they’re too useful to point to as evidence that “see, we are aware of the problem and we are doing something about it”. Just as long as “something” never has any significant long-term impact on anybody’s budget, allocated FTEs, or revenue.