Philly Mayor: Closet Mac Fanboy? Or Just Sick Of His Job?

If you're reading this on a hand-held device while camped outside an Apple store, you're likely taking a personal day, on summer vacation, unemployed, employed by a boss who's as big a Macaphile as you, or just taking the opportunity to exercise your man-sticking-it-to muscle by playing hooky.  One way or another, you're likely either truant in some way or you've got nothing better to do.

Which one is Philadelphia Mayor John Street?

Mayor John F. Street abruptly ended his wait in line for an iPhone Friday after a passer-by asked him about the city's murder rate.

Street, who showed up outside an AT&T store at 3:30 a.m., left shortly after a 22-year-old sporting a mohawk asked him, "How can you sit here with 200 murders in the city already?" The Philadelphia Inquirer reported on its Web site.

Street told the man: "I'm doing my job," the newspaper said.

Street had planned to stay in line for most of the day, waiting for Apple Inc.'s iPhone to go on sale at 6 p.m. When he left at 11:30 a.m., Street said he planned to return to his spot.

Eight hours Street stood in that line.  Pretty impressive for a man in his mid-60s.  For the first several, of course, he was just robbing himself of sleep.  But well before 11:30, the taxpayers' meter started running.

I doubt if the local murder rate crept up due to Street being out of the office this morning (in fact, it might well have fallen, as the city's murder rate only seems to climb with Street in office), but the mohawked chap makes a decent point.

The mayor said he wants the new device because he loves trying out the latest technology. Apple's new handheld would allow him to work some of the day outside the office, he said.

"We don't have to be sitting in City Hall to be conducting city business," he said.

Er, right, but... does the mayor need to be City Hall's iPhone procurement agent?  Even if his office's apparently woefully stationary affairs need to be mobilized via iPhone immediately, there's already an insta-cottage industry of people who will wait in line to fetch you your sudden must-have communicator/entertainment device for as little as $250.  Is the Mayor's time not worth $17/hour (he hopped in line 14.5 hours before the phones were to go on sale)?  If the most productive use of Street's time is simply to occupy space, it might be time for him to shuffle along to less influential pastures.  Street will only be "in office" for another few months as it is, so if he's already content to while away his days among the fanboys and professional line-sitters, rather than spend his remaining time in office in his office, maybe it's best just to let him.

And whoever was behind Street when he skulked out of the line this morning, make sure you don't let him cut back in if he makes good on his threat to reclaim his place later today.