Interesting comment from physical therapist Kim Stewart, one of 300 state employees protesting today in Raleigh to save their jobs:
“Unless the General Assembly acts, I will not be able to do the job I am so passionate about, serving the disabled,” said Stewart, who now faces unemployment less than two years from reaching the 30-year-threshold for full state retirement. “On a piece of paper, I am just another position being eliminated. But I have a name, and I matter.”
This is not your typical sob story from a public employee post. I guess what bothered me about Ms. Stewart’s comment is I refuse to believe that she would let a mere act of the General Assembly stand in the way of her passion. I predict she will never lose that passion and she will be able to carry it over to the private sector, although plenty of people have lost their jobs there, too, no doubt many of them as passionate as Ms. Stewart.
It’s kind of like being a writer, and more than a few of them have lost their jobs in recent years. And when nobody’s paying you to write, you write for nothing. A lot of people are doing that today, and the passionate ones are changes things, all without the General Assembly acting.
