USA Today Missing the Point... Still

They've been banging away on 'senior mentors' for a while now, but there's one particular part of the most recent article that really rankles me.

Yes, Gates capped the basic pay of the mentors at $179,700 a year, about $86 an hour. Good. But, as USA TODAY's Tom Vanden Brook reported Monday, mentors can be paid up to $50,000 a year extra for all sorts of reasons — accomplishments, contributions, recruitment, relocation or retention. Under Army guidelines, for instance, "it may be appropriate" to offer an incentive of $12,500 to a mentor who agrees to work 200 days. (Note to the Army: Many people would be thrilled to work 200 days for $86 an hour, even without incentive pay.)

Note to USA TODAY: Many people would be thrilled to be 2- and 3- and 4-star generals. Not many people work their asses off to get there. You work your ass off to reach the pinnacle of your profession - say, VP of Global Product Planning for GM - and see if your pay isn't somewhere north of $86/hr for 200 days/year.

Lots of people would thrilled to do things they aren't qualified to do. Just because they do it with taxpayer money doesn't automatically make it some sort of super-secret ethical violation in need of excessive drum-beating by a group of writers who have no real understanding of the field on which they're reporting.


By: Brant