Service Employees

While reading the May 16 letters from two Ventura County service employees, every effort I made to work up a few tears for them came up dry.

I thought about how the cost of living was increasing at a faster pace than my income and all the protests I could not attend because I had a job. I thought about how being able to visit my doctor hinged on earning money at this job to pay the insurance premiums that my employer splits with me as a condition of showing up. After laughing at myself for thinking that vacations and retirement were even options, I found myself hoping that I get enough money from the fed’s new tax cut to help pay this summer’s utility bills and eat in the same month. And I thought about how swiftly the Navy responded to my “taking time off without permission.”

But most of all, I thought what a bunch of ungrateful whiners some of Ventura County’s service employees are. Instead of showing appreciation for having a job that comes with retirement, vacation and health benefits, they suggest plucking a few more feathers from the goose instead of taking the honorable path by moving to the greener valleys where all those pots of gold are.

There is no question that plenty of people would love to have a job like the two letter writers and could probably do it just as well. These two should take a leave of absence--unpaid, of course--and join their true employers (members of the private working sector) in the real world.

BRUCE ROLAND

Ojai