How does your organization demonstrate public service and/ or urban governance?

Solid waste services are probably one of the services most taken for granted, but one of the most important services needed for a city to function. To be honest, before this internship, I had not given it much thought myself even though my family has always had City of Phoenix trash collection. 

As I saw when I shadowed call center employees, a lot of our job is customer service. Sure, people take trash collection for granted, but one something goes wrong, they expect it to be fixed immediately. 

I am extremely impressed with how hard everyone works in my department, and it is always the goal to serve the people. Whether it is dealing with residents directly, or trying to figure out the most efficient routes, everyone has public service in mind.

One of the reasons I like solid waste is that we also are always thinking of the future of the city and of future generations. Our goal is to reduce waste and to get people to recycle more, and part of the goal in everything we do is to be environmentally friendly. It is hard for many government agencies to focus on the future when they are so busy focusing on the present (and residents demand that they focus on the present). 

It is very important to me to work somewhere that demonstrates public service, and at the City of Phoenix Public Works Solid Waste, I definitely feel that we exemplify it!