Touching on my column today about bargaining rights for rank-and-file city employees, there’s a pretty funny comment buried in the otherwise trollish Talk of Austin archives. (A note on that to Chron commenters: If you haven’t figured it out already – and some of you dunderheads haven’t – engaging the troll is no better than being the troll. C’mon people.)

Where were we? Oh yes:

“I recently retired from the Fire Department as a non civil service dispatcher – I earned $13 AN HOUR LESS than my civil service counterpart for doing the same job!!!!! When I asked the Chief, why? He told me “we don’t have anything to say about your pay.” I retired – got tired of being shafted by the city – and I knew the difference between bar-b-q and burning building smoke…”

This article appears in February 23 • 2007.

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