Apposite

Today’s word is apposite which is an adjective which means being of striking appropriateness and relevance; very applicable; apt.

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Three years ago four people applied and everyone on the staff knew who should have been chosen, but it was hard to believe at the time that discrimination was involved. How could that happen, we said, with all of the affirmative action directives, laws and regulations that were in place. Besides, the hiring manager’s final choice at the time was a likable enough guy, much younger than the other applicants but with a new family to support, and although he was probably the least qualified with respect to experience, he did, at least, have a good education.

The next time it happened the discrimination was more blatant, and still impossible to prove, unless you compared education, experience, and technical ability to age, beauty and most importantly, the ability to never disagree with his opinions. This time there were only two women who applied, and the choice based on qualifications was clear, but one of the applicant’s positions diverged from his own, so he instead made the decision based on a half-hour interview of both employees who had been working in the same division for over ten years, instead of on their resumes, over the intense objection of his most senior management staff.

Now another managerial position has become vacant and no one from the ranks has applied, for although discrimination based on like-minded opinions is legally acceptable, his beliefs are unconscionable and workplace morale has suffered, but the clueless hiring manager appears to consider this is a good thing because, as he is often heard to say, an infusion of “new blood” is always better.

Now we are merely left with the faintest nugget of hope that someday the “new blood” he hires eventually develop opinions in contravention to his own, which, if we may dare to wish for even more apposite justice, turn out to be similar to the opinions of the old rejected corpuscles.

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