If you're an employee with the Oklahoma Health Department, you should probably get your resume ready.
Yesterday afternoon, Preston "2FAST4U" Doerflinger held a press conference welcoming himself as the new director of the embattled, broke and dysfunctional Oklahoma Health Department. His general message was grim – money is tight, services will be cut and layoffs are expected.
Via KSWO:
"It’s not rocket surgery. If you don’t have $30 million you won’t be able to carry out a lot of services that you’re currently providing to the citizens of the state," Doerflinger said... "In some form or another there will be a reduction in force as we evaluate the agency. It needs to be approached strategically."
I'm not a rocket surgeon or anything, but I believe Preston Doerflinger may have invented a new occupation. What exactly does a rocket surgeon do? Operate on rockets, operate on people on rockets, or simply operate on people with rockets. Now that would be cool. I think they covered it in an episode of House.
Here's a video of the funny blunder. I like how Doerflinger – and the blank, expressionless people who fear for their jobs and livelihood behind him – don't even realize it happened:
I know this was just an innocent word screw-up that happens to all heavy drinkers from time to time, but it doesn't exactly instill a vote of confidence that Doerflinger will be able to figure out the mess at the Health Department. This is your first big press conference as the guy in charge! Don't invent new words!
Anyway, I think the Oklahoma Health Department is in for a bumpy road ahead. It's going to take a long time to fix the problems created by Terry Cline, Mary Fallin and other people in charge, and it probably won't be fixed until we get a person in charge who can fix it. Someone qualified like a rocket surgeon.
