Contemplating City Hall Zen

Re “Zen and the art of management,” May 11

I’m sure other readers have their own particular favorites, but as a marketing and customer service professional, I can say that, in my experience, the Los Angeles Housing Department represents the nadir of customer service by a government agency, and that is a reflection of management. Compared with the Housing Department, the Postal Service and the DMV are Nordstrom.

The Housing Department does an execrable job of informing or updating its constituents. When I complained, after four months of runarounds, I got a lame excuse that missed the point of the complaint. But go ahead and twirl those sticks. You never know when those irate constituents might reach critical mass and you’ll have to do crowd control.

MICHAEL O’DANIEL

Los Angeles

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I don’t understand why one of the city employees mentioned in your article found the Zen-based training objectionable. The connection between being “taught how to breathe and how to stand” and facing “an irate constituent” should be obvious. It is actually refreshing to discover that the city is looking outside the box when it comes to training its employees to be better civil servants.

S. KENNETH KAWANO

Gardena