You Do Get What You Pay For By Jim Miller At the outset, I will make this admission: I am an apologist for the value of local government in our lives. And, as with all apologists, I am some times overly sensitive to criticism about the source of my passion. So it was when I read a short letter to the editor recently bemoaning the general ineptitude of local government officials because most had not worked in the private sector. The writer noted that: “In the private sector, poor performance has real consequences, like dismissal or failure of the business. Government at all levels would benefit, I think, if officials were required to have at least 10 years’ experience in a real job.” About this same time, there were several newspaper articles discussing how local government salaries had increased in recent years, with some top administrators now making more than the governor. Many reactions were negative— how can anyone working in local government make so much money? As with the letter to the editor, implicit in these responses is the belief that what government does is not worth what the private sector delivers.
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My sensitivity was heightened because at the same time I was having a—how shall I say it?—less-than-satisfactory experience with an appliance company that has been in business for many years. My issue concerned a two-month-old wall oven that was malfunctioning. This vendor was not necessarily the cheapest, but the salesperson stressed the superior service we could expect. As someone who has spent his entire career in government, I could well appreciate the importance of quality service. My experience did not go particularly well. The service representative first offered that the problem was probably something electronic and that this can happen because, of course, ovens generate a lot of heat. When I realized he wasn’t trying to be funny, I controlled myself (admirably, I think) and calmly asked how soon they could service the oven, what with Thanksgiving now less than a week away. The unapologetic answer was the second week in December. Again exhibiting remarkable control, I reminded him that this oven was less than two months old, that we had also bought other appliances at the same time, and that having a malfunctioning oven for Thanksgiving wasn’t
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