re: Coolest Job(s) You Ever Had....?

During my time in Oz, I worked for the New South Wales state government. One of the jobs of my department was investigating accusations of corruption, conflicts of interests, unethical behavior, etc. at the local government level, mainly local shire councils. But the size and importance of the council could range anywhere from Wagga Wagga to Sydney city council. Anyway, I was at the perfect level in the department. I was important enough to know all of the big wigs in the NSW government, participate in the investigation, and sit in on parliamentary hearings, but I wasn’t important enough to actually have my name attached to anything, so I didn’t get bothered with the fallout from the findings. I think part of it was the novelty of being an American conducting business for a foreign state government. It made people somewhat curious about me. Sometimes it felt like the mafia movies where the head mobster is talking business, and one of his bodyguards stands in the background, while the opposing mob boss gets a little nervous and says “who the frick is that guy?” Then your mob boss just says “Don’t worry about him. He’s my associate.”

My favorite investigations were the ones where we sacked entire shire councils for violating the Local Government Act, and appointed interim administrators until new elections were held. That always rustled jimmies.