Letters

The Talent War

Paul Light's assessment of the failing federal hiring process, the looming stagnation of agencies because of baby-boom retirements, and the need to provide challenging work and opportunity for growth in order to compete for the best entry- and mid-level employees is only somewhat on target ("The New Public Service," January). He leaves out a broader assessment of what can attract better candidates for federal jobs. Unfortunately, challenging work and opportunity for growth is often elusive in many government jobs, as it is in many private-sector jobs. That doesn't mean that a higher level of commitment and performance cannot be sought for federal job applicants.

For example, in Washington, prospective applicants arrive for interviews in federal buildings designed and built for a bygone era. The working environments in the Agriculture Department's main building and in the General Services Administration's headquarters, among many others, fail to say to prospective candidates, "this is an institution with an eye to the future." The fact that some agencies are still using old versions of WordPerfect and have difficulty communicating electronically with other parts of their own agencies using more advanced software says they are not taking reinvention seriously and they aren't focused on customer and employee service needs.

Applicants at these locations are also considering positions in modern buildings, with adequate parking facilities, exercise amenities for employees and up-to-date workstations. A look at the new NASA headquarters in southwest Washington or the National Science Foundation offices in Arlington, Va., illustrates the great disparity from agency to agency. This is an important reason some agencies are not having such grave problems attracting better candidates.

I disagree with Light's assumption that pay is not a major contributor to a more competitive posture for attracting employees. Many of the career bureaucrats today entered the government in a time of high inflation, high unemployment and bigger swings in the country's economy. Government jobs were seen as a hedge against these economic factors. These factors have little, if any, impact in the minds of today's younger workers. If candidates cannot see a clear advantage to federal employment, they should not see clear disadvantages either.

There are a multitude of reasons for candidates to look elsewhere for employment, and the failure to provide challenging work and the opportunity for growth is not only a symptom of federal employment.

Russ Gardiner
Management Analyst
Agriculture Department

James Pinkerton's advice to supplement a public policy degree with a law degree is interesting and, no doubt, meant in the best of faith. However, the reality of a legal practice is very different from the "dream team" Hollywood version he depicts.

The legal profession suffered a tremendous blow during the early to mid-1980s from an oversupply of legal candidates drawn to the profession because of the unrealistic romanticism and glamour evoked by such popular television shows as LA Law and the fiction of John Grisham. A legal practice is, more often than not, not glamour and glitz, but hard work, professionalism and long hours. The profession is only just now balancing out.

It is ironic that Pinkerton's article advocates private practice over public service when it is precisely the stresses and lack of social balance inherent in the highest of flying legal careers, particularly in litigation, that drive many lawyers into so-called nontraditional legal careers or public service.

Pinkerton's article overlooks how the traditional and conservative nature of the business of law can discourage passionate and innovative individuals. Counsel to approach a private-sector practice should be tempered with realities.

Ronald Perkel

The Color of Business

I am dismayed that in the year 2000 and we are still being subjected to the types of discussions and mind-set lauded in the December 1999 Media column ("Freedom to Speak"). As an African-American, I have been a beneficiary of and strong defender of our Bill of Rights and its amendments. Do all Americans, including even government officials, have freedom of speech and expression? Of course, even the freedom to express prejudice and hate. Whether the taxpayer wants to pay high salaries to public servants who publicly defame, discriminate or harass is his or her call. I would rather pay my hard-earned taxes to civil servants who vigorously serve and defend all Americans without regard to gender, race, religion or sexual orientation. Tolerance and equal opportunity are what America is all about.

I will leave it to any reader or reporter who is interested in the facts to review my educational credentials and accomplishments during my 27-year career or those of my fellow women or minority senior executives and determine if our achievements are undeserved. We made it to the top in spite of the many obstacles placed in front of us by stereotypes about gender or race, not because of them. There are disciples of Herrnstein and Murray, authors of The Bell Curve, who believe that achievements of people of color could not possibly be due to scholarship, knowledge, talent or experience. They believe any success must be due to the misguided and unfair largess of white employers, who overlook all the innately more qualified white males and seek to fill quotas.

"Reverse discrimination" is often a soothing, but self-delusional, balm for some who are not as qualified or have not successfully competed. Some men meekly accept not being selected for 10 jobs that went to other white males, but go ballistic over the one job they lost to a woman or person of color. Understandable? Yes. Logical? No. Again, any objective review of the facts would demonstrate that affirmative action has not allowed women and minorities to take over the Interior Department or the Bureau of Land Management; their nationwide representation in GS-15 and above positions remains low.

But facts often give way to emotions. It is important to acknowledge and understand the reasons (frustration with personnel regulations, diminishing numbers of management jobs, RIFs, money worries, etc.) behind those emotions. But it is equally incumbent on all of us, including the media, to not let those emotions unfairly and adversely denigrate the image or progress of entire groups of people.

Society and its institutions must decide when freedom of speech spills into inflammatory and potentially harmful rhetoric. Even Web site bulletin boards (and the Internet is about as "free" as you can get) now often have member agreements that prohibit objectionable or defamatory statements. The United States is struggling with how and when speech crosses the line and what the consequences should be. It is a complicated issue and not as simple ("free speech" or "censorship") as the media sometimes implies.

This kind of dialogue is healthy and, I regret, still needed. But, instead of bemoaning imagined and unproven unfair advantages, we should get back to concentrating on doing what the public is paying us to do: manage the public lands and resources. It will take all types of people working together, respecting and utilizing each other's actual talents and abilities (not assumed stereotypical shortcomings) to do that.

I want your readers to know that there are talented people of all colors who have been working hard for years to protect your public lands. I hope that before the next millennium has arrived, we have accomplished Martin Luther King Jr.'s dream of concentrating on (and valuing) the content of these people's character, instead of the color of their skin.

Denise Meridith