Public Service Employees

Regarding (Ojai resident) Bruce Roland’s letter chastising two Ventura County service employees:

I did not read the letters from the two service employees, so I cannot comment specifically about Mr. Roland’s complaints regarding their points. However, I do have a response to Mr. Roland’s final statement that people working in the private sector are part of the “real world,” as opposed to public service employees who, I suppose, live in some blissful fantasy world. While we, the public service employees, certainly care about our salaries and benefits, the vast majority of us work in our jobs because we care about people.

According to Mr. Roland, in order for us to “get real,” we should abandon our public service jobs for jobs in private industries. Would I get a sense of “realness” working for companies involved in the manufacturing and selling of sodas, SUVs, tobacco, fast food, cosmetics , and so many other products whose only reason for existence seems to be to fatten someone’s pocketbook?

Brad Nelson

Oxnard

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The letter writer from Ojai, which should be Ventura County’s sister city to Beverly Hills, refers to “a bunch of ungrateful whiners” who should move to the “greener valleys where all those pots of gold are.”

The sad fact is, these public servants can’t afford to live in the area in which they work, and definitely not any green valleys, which I assume may be Ojai in the letter writer’s mind.

I used to share the letter writer’s views of the public sector more than 20 years ago. I was also downright self-righteous, viewing myself as superior to public employees while I had to prove myself daily to survive in private industry.

Service employees really don’t want the public’s tears, just some understanding of the real issues here. The “powers that be,” as usual, have gotten their compensation all along through thick and thin. It’s the service employees’ turn now to be justly compensated for hanging in there through no “thick” and a lot of “thin.”

Teri T. Andre

Ventura