BOARDS & BUREAUS: Going, Going, Gone . . .

Going, Going, Gone. . .

Payday jitters hit 300,000 Washington workers. Congress was late again with the salary money.

Just a few months back (along with some 75,000 like him) the new civil servant had landed in the Capital, his fever patriotically high, his eyes star-spangled, his shoes freshly whitened. He had pitched in to help win the war. Things looked different now. Now he cursed his Congressman, his tortured sinus, his lumpy boardinghouse bed, the humid streets, the dismal food, the bus service. Mostly, this week, he brooded about his tardy paycheck.

Veteran bureaucrats merely shrugged, wryly wished the fledglings a "happy...

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