In response to my noting the resignation of GSA chief over lavish, taxpayer-funded spending on a work conference, a reader e-mails his memory of a GSA poo-bah with whom he shared a pew:
Howdy–
Several years ago I attended church with a guy who was a GSA quasi-big shot. His job, as he explained it to me, was to find ways to donate all the surplus office supplies purchased. Budgets could not get smaller, so people bought new desks, bookcases, etc. every year, often seeking the most expensive ones so as to have to make the fewest purchases. But it was more trouble to replace the existing furniture with the newly acquired stuff, so these top of the line desks and such arrived at the loading dock and then were donated to various non-profits, usually still in the packaging they arrived in. This was his full time job. All he did was re-direct things that were purchased by the taxpayers but not needed to people who would take them.
I was depressed for days after this conversation.
That ought to get your heartrate up an power you through the midday lull!
UPDATE: This is a pic that’s been circulating, allegedly of the commemorative coin GSA handed out to government employees for working on “recovery projects.”