Two recently retired high level federal managers have issued the second edition of their book series on government service, We Are Not the Enemy: Restoring Honor to U.S. Civil Service: 2014 Review and Update. Scandals in 2014 by a few at the Internal Revenue Service, the Veterans Administration, and the Secret Service took their toll in sullying the reputations of the vast majority of civil servants who perform their duties well. Not surprisingly, the first rendering of the Government Honor Index indicates a decrease from ...
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Two recently retired high level federal managers have issued the second edition of their book series on government service, We Are Not the Enemy: Restoring Honor to U.S. Civil Service: 2014 Review and Update. Scandals in 2014 by a few at the Internal Revenue Service, the Veterans Administration, and the Secret Service took their toll in sullying the reputations of the vast majority of civil servants who perform their duties well. Not surprisingly, the first rendering of the Government Honor Index indicates a decrease from 2013 to 2014 in the perceived level of respect held for federal employees as reported by those inside and outside the federal workforce. The 2014 edition of the We Are Not the Enemy series, by authors Deborah Johnson and Mark Wallace, introduces the Government Honor Index as a means of measuring trends, both positive and negative, in the relative amount of honor bestowed upon U.S. Civil servants in our country from year to year. The authors intend for each year's edition to include updated indices that are calculated using consistent sets of publicly available measures. They hope this new annual index will become a closely followed statistical indicator that reflects the direction our nation is heading with regard to honoring the work of U.S. federal government employees. In the wake of the 2013 government shutdown and continuing negative salvos from politicians throughout 2014, this second book exhibits the authors' ongoing and strong defense of federal government service as a worthwhile and vitally important career choice. The importance of the work of federal employees was brought home in a very direct way to the public during the fall of 2013, when national parks - including the Statue of Liberty - were closed down, and there was a very real danger of Social Security and Veterans payments being delayed - or not going out at all. "The work of the federal government is like electricity," said Wallace. "You don't notice it until it's not there, and when it's disrupted, you want it to resume as quickly as possible." In the book's foreword, John M. Palguta, Vice President for Policy at the non-partisan, non-profit Partnership for Public Service, echoes that sentiment. He stated the book reminded him of the lyrics to "Big Yellow Taxi," with the refrain "Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got 'til it's gone."
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