YOU CAN’T MAKE THIS UP:  TO PUT ITS BEST FACE FORWARD, THE IBB RUNS COSMETICS CLASSES 

by Quo Vadis (Marie Ciliberti)

An early April Fools’ joke?  Classes in “outer beauty” as part of “Taking care of yourself from the inside out” in an Agency whose employees face a sweeping loss of 200+ positions in the upcoming Reduction in Force (RIF)?  Surely someone jests.  

Could this be some misguided bizarre attempt to improve morale by bringing in brigades of Cosmetic Consultants from high-end, chi-chi area stores to an Agency where morale is already at rock bottom and sinking if that’s possible?  Are packets of shiny lip gloss and eye shadow color palettes and technicolor nails and the newest blush brush demonstrated by imported make-up mavens from Nordstrom’s and Macy’s the answer to the VOA morale problem?  

Who are these strange out-of-touch people who occupy suites on the third floor that evidently believe that the prospect of losing your job calls for cosmetics and not job consultants?  

Could it be a variant of Marie Antoinette’s infamous “let them eat cake” in answer to a plea for bread? 

Or could this be the BBG/IBB saying, in essence: let them have lip butter in parfait pink and delicious Airbrush mousse as their cryptic answer to VOA employees wondering why their jobs are being eliminated for reasons that don’t make any sense? 

Hope it’s not the BBG’s final Alice-in-Wonderland act before tossing what they view as rank-and-file flotsam down the rabbit hole.   

In the national interest, the BBG’s self-proclaimed value-added experts should be mandated to take classes in make-up removal to expose the real face of the BBG/IBB.  It’s high time Congress and the taxpayers see who they really are. 

Life at VOA is starting to look a bit like the Mad Hatter’s Tea Party.  “There is a place. Like no place on Earth. A land full of wonder, mystery, and danger! Some say to survive it: You need to be as mad as a hatter.”  

Link to Video.

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From: IBB Notices Administration 
Subject: House Announcement: Taking care of Yourself – 1 PM Today VOA Briefing Room
Date: March 20, 2012 10:16:54 AM PDT
To: IBB Staff 

Taking care of yourself from the inside out (outer beauty)
Time: 1:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Location: VOA Briefing Room
 
Nordstrom’s Cosmetic Consultants will be here with their Spring Collection.

Macy’s and other cosmetic consultants are invited.

Marie Ciliberti

Marie Ciliberti

Marie Ciliberti will be most remembered for her longtime broadcasting career at the Voice of America (VOA) Russian Branch, especially her production of Willis Conover jazz programs to the Soviet Union. Willis Conover attracted millions of loyal shortwave radio listeners with his jazz broadcasts which were one of the best instruments of American soft power public diplomacy in the USSR. Marie was also a confidential advisor to several VOA USSR Division managers and played an active role in the VOA employee union for many years even in her retirement. She and I continued to communicate regularly after we both retired from U.S. government service and focused our pro bono activities on protecting VOA programs from cuts by BBG Board members, some of whom had business interests in Russia and China. Preferring to stay out of the limelight, Marie wrote from time to time anonymous commentaries for the independent BBG Watch website and offered her advice to other contributors on defending agency employees from effects of unjust retaliation and mismanagement.
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