Judge Newman has threatened to have staff arrested, forcibly removed from the building, and fired. She accused staff of trickery, deceit, acting as her adversary, stealing her computer, stealing her files, and depriving her of secretarial support. Staff have described Judge Newman in their interactions with her as “aggressive, angry, combative, and intimidating”; “bizarre and unnecessarily hostile”; making “personal accusations”; “agitated, belligerent, and demonstratively angry”; and “ranting, rambling, and paranoid.” Indeed, interactions with Judge Newman have become so dysfunctional that the Clerk of the Court has advised staff to avoid interacting with her in person or, when they must, to bring a co-worker with them.
It should be easier to whistle blow if someone thinks a worker is losing capacity to do their job, but having an arbitrary age at which you’re no longer allowed to work in office doesn’t serve its purpose. Some people can have dementia starting in their 50s, and other people in their 70s are excellent in higher level positions due to how much experience they’ve amassed.
If anything, there should just be better peer performance reviews across the board.
Removed by mod
That’s why. There are certain things that are significant enough that we don’t let just anyone do them, yet also important enough to self-determination that we don’t usually say a person will never be allowed to make that choice. That age when we’ve decided people are mentally, not physically, mature enough to make those decisions is 18. Most people have reached that threshold, some have been there for years, some never will be. Some will barely skim past that threshold, and we will hear stories about them for years. Those who are incapable of breaching that threshold have some or all of their rights as adults removed, and we call that guardianship, power of attorney, and similar things.
The difference between minors and incapable seniors is that some never become that much less capable, and those that do will do so over a truly significant span of years, like half a lifetime’s difference. So how do you pick a number and say, “This is when adults are too old to make good decisions,” without disregarding the capabilities of the vast majority of the people affected on the low side of the range or being far too late to matter on the high side? Perhaps dealing with something with such a great degree of variability should be dealt with on a case-by-case basis.
So we shouldn’t give social security to people unless they have dementia?
We already have an arbitrary age set. We should stick to it.
I’m still game for removing someone earlier than that if they are unfit. But after 65? You’re not fit. Even if you “are.” You’re too far removed from the policies you’d be enacting. It’s just nonsense.
I think that’s a disservice to people who have intimate knowledge of how a service has developed over time, and common problems with change that younger people may not have experienced.
I’m not saying that people should all be forced or unduly enabled to carry on working well into their seniority, but we’d be missing the opportunity to utilise skills and experience by enforcing a hard limit - certainly as young as 65!
Or as the famous catchphrase from the movie goes: Run Logan Run
The problem is that you’d need an objective, unbiased, incorruptible review process. I have zero faith that any government is capable of providing such a thing, particularly in a situation like this, where there’s so much room for interpretation.
Selecting an arbitrary age has its own problems, but at least it’s much simpler and harder to argue with.