Let Me Tell You About Personnel Reform in South America
A long-overdue outing was a delight. No—it couldn't have been anything else. Going out alone is fun enough, but going out with a beautiful woman? That's double the fun.
We wandered the waterfront, ate seafood tacos, then climbed a nearby hill with coffee someone else had poured for us and took in the panorama of Libertad. At dusk we came back down, had dinner at a restaurant Isabella used to visit with her parents as a child, and rode home together.
"Today was truly wonderful."
The sudden remark made my heart lurch. What man on earth could keep his composure when a beauty who looked like Jessica Alba in Sin City said she'd enjoyed the date?
Of course, I knew she only meant it had been a pleasant time—nothing more. Besides, the seaside was the very definition of an open mind.
Don't get carried away over nothing.
I answered as calmly as I could.
"Ahem. If you enjoyed it that much... shall we go out again sometime, when you're free?"
"Of course. If anything, I would like to request it myself."
"I didn't think we had that much fun..."
"I was so absorbed in marveling at Your Excellency's insight that I lost all track of time."
"I-insight?"
"It came so naturally that you didn't even realize you were demonstrating it. I understand. That's entirely possible."
"......"
"Please allow me the honor of escorting you next time."
"Well... sure."
I had no idea where she'd spotted this so-called insight, but I nodded along anyway.
Does she have a thing for brainy guys?
So that was Isabella's type.
Next time I should try talking about the Romance of the Three Kingdoms.
If I explained the five reasons Cao Cao defeated Yuan Shao and the three reasons Zhuge Liang advocated dividing the realm into three, she'd probably like me even more.
Nobody hates the Three Kingdoms, after all.
Time flew. Five months had already passed since President Juan and his cabinet were killed in a bombing. Which meant four months since I'd become acting president and declared martial law. Two months since I'd found the former president's slush fund and founded Tortilla Seafood. Two months since I'd reformed the gangs rotting society from within and turned them into farmers at Tortilla Farm.
Looking back, a lot has happened.
I'd accomplished things that would have taken an ordinary country three years. Granted, it was possible because the economy ranked among the world's smallest and the population was modest—but dragging the country this far had been anything but easy. I'd approached every step as if my life depended on it. Without that, I wouldn't have accomplished a single thing.
I wanted to show the politicians back home, thousands of miles away. That if you set your mind to it, you can do it.
Of course, that didn't mean San Marcos was actually functioning properly. This time, the bureaucrats were the problem. Corruption had improved, but the incompetence remained... no, it had gotten worse.
"...So you're telling me you tried to import used tractors and got scammed?"
"The American agent said it was a fire sale—pay a deposit and we'd get them at half price, so..."
"There's no such thing as a deposit in trade. And if the price is half of every other listing, shouldn't that be your first red flag?"
"I-I'm sorry! I was just trying to do a good job... sob Please, spare my life and I'll serve you with absolute loyalty!"
"......"
The Ministry of Agriculture had tried to import tractors to lend to farmers and gotten taken for five million dollars.
"What happened to the bridge that was supposed to be built over the Almen River?"
"Well... the construction company we contracted couldn't secure the engineering method, so they never produced a design."
"You should have broken ground ages ago. What have you been doing this whole time? If they can't do it, switch companies!"
"B-but we've worked together for so long. There's a matter of loyalty..."
"Don't give me that. You think I don't know that construction company is run by former officials from your own ministry?"
The Ministry of Construction and Housing still hadn't gotten its act together.
"I'm sorry—you ordered dengue vaccines, stored them improperly, and now they're unusable? What are you talking about?"
"Well... we ordered the vaccine refrigerators in 110-volt."
"Then you get a converter and run them. Why did you just leave them sitting there?"
"By the time we noticed, they'd already passed their expiration date..."
"I'm going to lose my mind."
The Ministry of Health had taken two million dollars' worth of dengue vaccines we'd barely managed to procure and thrown them into the void.
And the disasters kept coming. The Ministry of Justice had been given a budget to expand the prison and used it to renovate the warden's office and the break room. The Ministry of Commerce had set out to build an electronic customs clearance system, then bought the computers and skipped the software.
"We were going to have the young fellows download it off the internet and save on the budget."
"No."
Who downloads government software from a file-sharing site?
Wait. Could you even download that if you wanted to?
That was when it hit me. If I didn't do something about these idiots, San Marcos had no future.
When I was a kid, I used to say the same thing over and over while playing Protoss.
It's hopeless.
I said it because it was so hard to find a single thing the race did better than the others. I never thought I'd still be saying it now.
"It's... hopeless."
We had scattered a budget of two hundred million dollars, and barely half of it—just over a hundred million—had been executed properly. Of the remainder, ninety percent hadn't been spent yet, but a full ten million dollars had been hurled into the void through bureaucratic incompetence. If this were Korea, they'd be dragged into a National Assembly audit and have nothing to say for two and a half hours of grilling.
What is this incompetence, a passive skill?
How could there not be a single normal person? My chest was so tight I was getting depressed. I was starting to wonder if I ought to go buy some bread just to cope.
I was clutching my head when Isabella came in with coffee.
"You look troubled."
"I am extremely troubled."
What's the point of carrying if your teammates keep trolling? At this point I was starting to wonder if I should investigate them for intentional trolling and get them banned.
Isabella seemed to read my mood. She nodded and offered her opinion.
"Would it not be appropriate to have those who squandered the budget executed by firing squad, and send the rest to the mines?"
"......"
This woman. Every other sentence it's firing squads and mines.
Wasn't it just the other day I said we should abolish the death penalty?
I was angry at the incompetent bureaucrats too. I resented them. But that didn't mean I could just kill them.
"Isabella. Calm down. A firing squad is going too far."
"Not at all. Wasting the national budget is tantamount to treason. Please make an example of them and restore Your Excellency's authority."
"No."
How exactly do you restore your authority with a firing squad?
"...You can't take a person's life that easily, and wasting a budget is not a capital crime. Besides, what matters right now isn't punishment. It's a solution."
Isabella gave a small, admiring nod.
"Your Excellency is as merciful as ever."
"......"
I had no idea what she was talking about, but my head already hurt from the incompetents, so I let it go.
Why isn't anything getting better even though we have money?
If anything, the incompetence stood out more now than when we were broke. When there was no money, there was no work to do, so it didn't show. Hand them money and a job, and critical hits started popping off everywhere.
At this rate, it wouldn't matter if we had six hundred and fifty billion dollars instead of six and a half billion. It would still be pouring water into a leaking jar.
So what do I actually do?
Fire them all, and there'd be no one left to work. Leave them in place, and the whole government was crawling with saboteurs. Replace them with other people? If that were an option, I wouldn't be in this mess.
The great nation of San Marcos was a country whose public education had collapsed as far as it could collapse. Of a hundred children born, fewer than thirty finished middle school, and fewer than ten finished high school. Even elementary school—compulsory, in theory—had a graduation rate under seventy percent. You couldn't get more broken than that.
In a situation like this, who exactly am I supposed to hire?
So, here's a question. What percentage of the population has a domestic university degree?
The answer, astonishingly, is zero. San Marcos doesn't have a university. Which is how graduates of the military academy ended up as the most educated people in the country.
"Ugh."
In the end, there was only one way.
Just drag them along somehow.
Worry about the talent pipeline later. Make do with the people we have now. With the grim resolve of a man saving the nation, I offered a solution.
"Let's hold an exam."
"An... exam?"
"Yes. We'll test their basic intellectual ability and their competence as public officials."
"...Would that be effective?"
"It'll be extremely effective."
I took a sip of the coffee she'd set down.
"People have an instinctive desire to stand above others."
And that went double for anyone who'd volunteered for the army just to get ahead.
"To stand above others... meaning you intend to take action based on the results?"
"Yes. Promotions and demotions according to their scores. The bottom ranks will be sent to Tortilla Farm to work the fields."
Isabella's eyes widened at the mention of farming.
"If you don't have the ability, you pay with your body. You don't just sit there occupying a seat. Don't you agree?"
In fact, that was why I'd stayed in the United States after finishing my MBA instead of going back to Korea. I'd found Korean seniority culture absolutely unbearable. Well... I hadn't expected to get fired, but still.
"A truly perfect plan."
"Right?"
"However, discontent may grow internally. In the worst case, it could lead to collective action."
"Isabella. If you scored San Marcos's public officials out of ten, what would you give them?"
"...One or two points, I would say."
"Exactly. And if they staged a collective action, how many points would that even cost them? 0.2? 0.3? From where I'm sitting, it wouldn't make a difference."
"Ah."
She nodded, finally understanding. I laid out the next part of the plan.
"And I don't intend to stop at a single exam."
"Then...?"
"We'll make them take it every year. If they don't want to get demoted, they'll study on their own. All we have to do is raise the difficulty to match."
"They'll be worked to death."
"And San Marcos will grow stronger."
"Ah...!"
Isabella nodded in deep admiration.
"May I add one small idea of my own?"
"Of course."
"Rather than once a year, what if we split it into a first-half and second-half exam—twice a year?"
"Hmm... the cost would go up, but the effect would definitely be maximized."
Not a bad idea. Right now, getting things back to normal mattered more than the cost. And it wouldn't even be that expensive.
"And one more thing. Anyone who comes in last on each exam should be executed by firing squad for failing to meet Your Excellency's expectations. I believe they would study quite diligently if their lives depended on it."
"No."
Why would you put a permadeath mechanic in a civil service exam?