Employee of the Month

Clearly I've been in the wrong line of work all these years.

Devaney pointed to one supervisor in the Royalty-In-Kind program — under which oil companies are allowed to pay royalties owed to the federal government in actual oil rather than cash — who "engaged in illegal drug use and had sexual relations with subordinates, and in consort with industry."

Devaney said that between 2002 and 2006, a third of the Royalty-In-Kind staff socialized with, and received a wide array of gifts and gratuities from companies with which the government was doing business.

"While the dollar amounts of gifts and gratuities was not enormous, these employees accepted gives and gratuities on at least 135 occasions from four major oil and gas companies with whom they were doing business — a textbook example of improperly receiving gifts from prohibited sources," Devaney said. "When confronted by our investigators, none of the employees involved displayed remorse."

Remorse for accepting free gifts, money, travel, pussy? Uh-huh. Having never been bribed by anyone with anything of value, I can only imagine what the psychology is there. But if you're a middle-management tool getting a free jaunt to the Houston Hyatt, drinks and meals comped, and not much else to do after the meet-and-greets besides schmooze and get lit -- I mean, you couldn't cultivate this environment any more thoroughly if you tried. Ultimately they figure that it's the way things get done, and if they don't take the perks, someone else will.

Plus, you know, if there are two more egregious examples of the Peter Principle in play than the organizational cultures of federal government and oil companies, I have yet to hear of them. The Mustang Ranch probably has tighter strictures than the little rub-and-tug shows resource extractors run on their government benefactors.