Hopefully the City of Natchez department heads are not as cynical and sarcastic as we are.

They must surely be more composed, anyway, since they survived a specially arranged “How to work with the boss” class Thursday.

Mayor Butch Brown’s move to bring in his former co-worker to lead a session with Brown’s current employees about, what else, but Brown himself, was, well, a new take on people management.

Every management book we’ve ever read proclaims a much different message — don’t expect those you work with to alter their personalities, strengths and weaknesses and abilities to your liking. Instead, a good manager — being the higher paid, leader in the room — must alter himself to bring out the best in those around him.

Of course, we didn’t go to the Butch Brown school of management.

Brown is a good leader; we don’t doubt that. And we trust that this blip on the radar of his city leadership won’t amount to much in time. Brown’s intents don’t seem malicious, perhaps just a tad self-aggrandizing.

We also hope city employees who attended the meeting did, legitimately, take something away from it they can use.

If they learned something that can later help our city run more efficiently, the class may have amounted to something more than a waste of taxpayer-funded employee time.