“I’ve lived here for over thirty years, and I think those traffic circles you put up on my street are the stupidest crap I’ve ever seen in my life.”
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Vitriolic quotes like these from angry residents in the community I served for over six years were rare, but not so rare that I wasn’t thrown back by them each time an insult was lobbed my way over the phone or through an email. Being a transportation engineer for a city means more than simply planning & designing roads – it also means being an ear and voice for the community.
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For many of my colleagues, working hard and receiving a reputable degree in engineering, planning, or communications only prepared them for the technical side of city management, and did not come close to preparing them for the realities of public service. The personal side – the one that requires a large degree of patience, the element that makes you a jack-of-all-trades, the pathways that establish emotional intelligence – was oftentimes realized to be on-the-job training.
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Over a decade ago, I started my career in the private sector, where as a consultant I helped produce plenty of engineering drawings, master plans, reports, and other deliverables on behalf of public agencies. I finally jumped into the public sector in 2016 so that I could “be in charge” of project outcomes. (How naïve I was!) Now that I’ve left the public sector for the time being, I am reflecting on what it means to be a public servant in transportation.
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Public servants are the “Kamaji” for communities
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In the 2001 animated classic “Spirited Away”, we are introduced to a character by the name of Kamaji. This elderly man has six long arms and is initially shown pulling levers and doing numerous tasks all at once to keep the boiler room of a bathhouse operating efficiently. Kamaji has an impeccable memory of this magic bathhouse, telling other passing characters where to find soaps and herbs.
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I found that working for local government was, in a way, being Kamaji for the community. I was constantly juggling dozens of tasks and projects all at once, some of which were simple routines while others had barely defined scope. One minute I was writing grant applications, another minute I was on the phone with a resident solving a traffic issue, and a third minute I was participating in roadway design discussions and policy brainstorming sessions. On an average day, I likely worked on a dozen disparate and unrelated tasks before I headed home in the evening. When I was a consultant, I was lucky to work on two or three distinct projects in a day.
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My role was remarkably diverse; however, many of my colleagues had similar experiences in their domains. The longer I lasted at the agency, the more I became familiar with the cultural, technical, and political workings at hand. Even so, my seven years in the public sector paled in comparison to some of my peers, who kept positions for decades. My colleagues with this institutional knowledge had oftentimes set a foundational underpinning to how the agency operated and helped keep things moving along in a relatively orderly fashion. This consistency was a reason why residents felt positive about the overall function of our government. On the flip side, this unabashed consistency was also seen as a roadblock to change that some demanded.
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Regardless, by the time I left my position in the public sector, I had grown extra arms and learned the details of the bathhouse too, just like Kamaji. More importantly, I grew a fond appreciation for other public servants that need six arms on a daily basis.
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Incremental progress can be more valuable than fast change
When I was fresh out of college in my early 20s, I was ready to make an impact. When I realized I couldn’t make that impact as fast as I wanted, I was crushed. But over time, I learned that progress can happen.
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The democratic process plays out in unique ways – specifically at local agencies, this process manifests itself at a personal level. Instead of postulating about international affairs, one in local government quickly understands that issues exist literally in the backyard of your community members. NIMBY attitudes aside, this has real consequences and ramifications when trying to guide infrastructure or policy changes. If things move too quickly, they can backfire in a real way, causing years or even decades of lost progress.
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Public servants are tasked with serving the community, but also gently guiding that same community into the future in whatever ways possible. They are “change managers”, tasked with an impossible goal of escorting a community along with the fast-paced times.
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When opportunities arose that offered a chance for quick progress, I learned to not be afraid to take it. However, for most of my public sector days, I was inching along, like the tortoise trying to beat the hare at a game of slow & steady. For many of the projects I worked on, this pace eventually won the race.
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Emotional Intelligence is Key
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Working for a city, county, or any other government agency can oftentimes feel like a satisfying yet thankless career choice. From my experience, professionals enter public service for myriad reasons – some out of passion, some out of desperation, some out of a love for serving the broader public. Those passionate about their positions – like I was – often found themselves in a double-edged sword situation: although they were working in a professional field that they were enthusiastic about, they oftentimes had to restrain their opinions and passions to reflect the cultural and political realities of the communities they served.
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During happy hour meetups and chats around the transportation water cooler, I listened to and provided a variety of opinions on bike lanes, traffic flow, funding allotments, signal design, roadway safety, parking minimums, congestion management, department organization – you name it.
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However, when any of us chatted with residents, business owners, or other stakeholders in the community, we all had to restrain the fringiest aspects of our opinions and reflect a collaborative, pragmatic, and generally professional judgement on all city affairs.
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This element of reasonable constraint, from my perspective, is one of the most underappreciated skills that public servants employ when talking with community members. A heightened level of emotional intelligence is a human skill that takes years to master, and consistently requires a heavy dose of empathy and compassion when conversing with the layman – which, frankly, are most of the people that live in your town.
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As a transportation-oriented public servant, I also played the role of a part-time psychologist, acting sometimes as a last resort for community members that didn’t have anyone else to talk to. Remember that resident quote at the top? I soon discovered a little more about his life, his background, and his interests. I learned how he experienced the evolution of the city around him, and began to understand his broader fear of change. By the end of our call, he was much more relaxed and easygoing. He laughed and exclaimed: “so, what did I call you for again?”
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My assessment? He just wanted someone to talk to, and his property taxes helped pay my salary. I was more than happy to meet the occasion.