Ever had a really bad day? Ever fire off an email in anger, slam a desk drawer, snarl a response to a perfectly legitimate question or just out and out unload on the some poor innocent who crosses your path, simply because the person responsible for your ire is unavailable for the purpose?
Who hasn’t done something like that?
Now, the question is: Are any one of those instances, in and of themselves, worth losing your job?
In our opinion, it depends.
Firing off a criminally threatening email is one thing. Firing off an unflatteringly irate email is quite another.
We are inclined to put snarling at a selectman who proposes cutting your budget based on some particularly fuzzy math in the latter category.
Which brings us to Damariscotta Police Chief Steve Drake and the local controversy du jour. We don’t know all of the details behind Drake’s sudden, surprise suspension, but based on what we have seen, we’re more inclined to question the board’s judgment than his.
It is true that Chief Drake is a polarizing figure. Those who like him, really like him. Those who don’t, really, really don’t. That’s not news, nor given his line of work, particularly surprising.
However, to our knowledge for the most part, Drake has been an absolute professional in his role as Damariscotta’s top officer. If this is the incident the selectmen are going to use as cause to replace him, it makes us wonder what we’re missing.
One flash of unprofessional anger can happen to the best of us on our worst days. In that case an apology should suffice. If this is something more involved, the selectmen owe it to their public and their employees, including Chief Drake, to say so.
