William Tong’s Hunger Games. Agency holiday party to feature employees bidding against each other for “Tong Tasting cooking event.”

“Nobody ever wins the Games. Period.” Employees of the Office of the Attorney General will be pitted against one another in a live auction at their annual holiday party. The top prize is a Tong Tasting cooking event featuring General Tong (as he prefers to be addressed) and the Deputy. Everybody loses.

Second prize is not two Tong Tasting events. No, it is Tong’s often vacant parking space. Let them eat cake becomes bid for my space. Third prize is she who shall not be named’s parking space—the Deputy’s space.

State lawyers and other agency employees shall mark the holiday season on Friday afternoon by engaging in a competitive auction in front of their bosses for a culinary event with their top two bosses. By the nature of the cringe-inducing event, Tong and the Deputy will know who bid the most on this tasting event.

A bidding war among colleagues for Tong’s favor is an unseemly method to raise money for the Office Culture fund. It feels particularly grubby by Tong, whose favored mode of travel remains the high horse, who lobbied for years to claw civil rights jurisdiction into his office.

Tong declared in the fourth year of the Lamont administration that every day in Connecticut is a struggle. If this is Tong’s notion of how to pay for Orwellian Work Culture activities, the fund is better empty. Tong can call off his Hunger Games.

Published December 12, 2023.

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