Where I live, there is a county organization that maintains all roads, curbs and sidewalks in the county as well as all road signage. Several times I’ve called them about low hanging tree limbs obscuring street and traffic control signs. They get the offending limbs trimmed back within a day or two every time. (I have a driving job so visible signage is important for me)
More personally, a few years ago, our neighbor across the street was an elderly gent suffering from dementia, and the local police came to know me by name and rely on me to let them know when a health and welfare check was needed until his family could get him into more appropriate quarters. (His only living family was a sister living in San Diego) so, I guess that was a two way deal on that.
It took a act of Congress to get my brother’s disability claim approved. Well, an action, not an Act. But once a U.S. Senator’s office made an inquiry with the Social Security administration the application my brother had made was suddenly found after allegedly being “lost” repeatedly.
And then it took a local judge, who was a family friend, to make it clear to the lawyer from Social Security who was opposing my brother’s application for benefits that the judge’s personal relationship with our family was not going to be a problem. Right?
Cancer sucks bad enough without also facing financial ruin and homelessness due to lack of disability benefits.
And then Congress actually acted to keep other families from having to go through the same agony. There is now a Compassionate Allowances Conditions list where people with a diagnosis of one of those horrible medical conditions are presumed to be disabled unless proven otherwise. Reverses the burden of proof in disability claims based on those conditions.
There was a rental property across the street from where my ex-wife and I lived. Someone new moved in and they had many friends start visiting for very short periods. It was not uncommon for someone to stay in the car with the engine running while someone else went inside. I’m not saying it looked like a crack house…oh wait, my ex and I were saying exactly that. My ex worked with a woman whose husband was the community policing officer for the area. The message got passed along and suddenly we started seeing a lot more police presence on our block. The new neighbors moved a couple weeks later.
I accidentally got discharged when I tried to transfer from the National Guard to the Army Reserve. There was boiler plate language that mentioned resigning my state commission in order to transfer; National Guard Bureau(NGB) didn’t read the whole sentence and thought I quit. I was able to get NGB to amend the orders but that still didn’t put me back in the admin systems. I couldn’t figure out who to even contact on the Reserve side to fix the issue. As soon as my Senator started looking into it I got a lot of very personal, and high level, attention. Problem solved.
I work for county government. I have for 26 years. Often, my department (GIS) gets questions that others can’t answer. We do mapping and have all the hook ups to property information, assessor information, deed and clerk information and even tax info.
Location is everything.
The ‘Contact Us’ email link on the GIS web site that I wrote comes right to my desk. I love being able to send a response within 10 minutes with an answer, or at least information on who they should get in touch with. It surprises many folks to get any response at all. It’s fun for me though. It’s part of my job.
She’s a social narcissist. Well-connected, well-perceived by anybody who hasn’t seen her ugly side, ridiculously influential among a social circle comprised mainly of mothers and grandmothers, including those of local politicians. And whenever she’s part of an organization, she tends to gravitate to the kind of jobs which require someone to look importantly ladylike, graciously get other people to do most of the grunt work, and hold negotiations with the local and regional governments and the diocese. If I can get her to consider that Issue X is important and should be Like This, she’ll convince enough people into the same side that eventually those who only give a shit about the polls will do it.
Some years ago, I couldn’t get through to the unemployment office on the phone for over a month. My state senator’s office happens to be around the corner, so I strolled in and told them of my issue. A couple of says later, the unemployment office called me, and my problem was resolved immediately.
She sounds like quite a character, but what does that have to do with this thread?