Opinion: Try talking to your boss the way Robert Beers talks to his

Most people in Bridgewater and Raritan go to work knowing one basic rule. You do not curse out the people who hired you. You do not call customers idiots in writing. You do not tell a coworker to shut up while families are still looking for their kids.

Do that at a shop, an office, a hospital, or a warehouse in this town and you are done. Security walks you out. HR does not ask how your morning went.

Superintendent Robert Beers did it on district email and still has the job.

On the first day of school, parents stood at the curb waiting for buses that did not come. Routes were wrong. Kids were late. Some families could not find their children. A board member asked the questions any parent would ask. What caused it. How many homes were hit. What was the plan.

Board President Michael Pepe wrote, “It is the first day of school. Shut up.”

Beers wrote, “Here is my answer- call me. Otherwise, go f*** yourself.”

That is the highest-paid employee in the district talking to the board that signs his contract, on a morning when children were unaccounted for.

Ask yourself if you could send that email to your boss and still have a paycheck on Friday.

The paper trail does not stop there. In June, high school staff forwarded parent questions about senior parking. Beers told Principal Daniel Hemberger, “These people are f***ing idiots.” Those people live here. They pay the taxes. They elect the board.

In January, a board member forwarded a state grant and asked if the district could use it to help kids. Beers thanked her on the chain. Then he wrote an assistant superintendent, “I just told her thanks. She is a f***ing moron.” Other New Jersey districts already run CTE and vo-tech, including woodworking, machinery, and culinary. Bridgewater-Raritan does not match that. The STEM push got shut down too. A question about money for students should have produced a plan. It produced a slur.

Parents have watched the same attitude in the room. On April 28, when a board member asked for time to read excerpts from an agreement dropped before a vote, Beers called it a “clown show” and an “embarrassment.” On Aug. 25, after parents pressed for notice on library materials, Beers called the room an “embarrassment” and a “circus.” He said, “This is insanity.” Pepe treated a board member speaking as a resident like a problem to send to the lawyer, then shut him down at the podium again in September.

Parents in this township are not confused about the chain of command. They elect the board. The board hires the superintendent. The superintendent works for the board. In Bridgewater-Raritan that order has been flipped. Pepe protects the administration. Beers acts like he runs the board. Parents get the lecture.

In every other workplace, the person who cannot speak to a supervisor without exploding is not passionate. They are a liability. The person who calls the public idiots in writing is not protecting staff. They are showing you who they think you are.

A man who tells his employer to go f himself on the first day of school is not in control of the district. He is not in control of himself.

If any one of us sent that email to our boss, we would be gone before lunch. Beers sent it to his. The board left him in charge of our kids anyway. That is the decision parents should remember.