“I used to prepare reports for a city council. The city manager had such a low opinion of his council members that he instructed me to restrict my reports to one page (”that’s the most they can comprehend”). Once I ran over and had a one and a quarter page report. He made me rewrite it.”
That’s SO FUNNY. When I worked for a city council, I had to assemble packets for their weekly meetings. Once, a department submitted a document that was printed double sided. The office manager told me to go to the copier and copy it one-sided, because the council members “might not think to look at both sides”. A little temp girl was there and she quietly asked, “Do they read books?” I burst out laughing (and got in trouble, of course).
Re politicians: Another client I had was a county government. I reported to the Assistant County Manager who told me that his commissioners used to be bankers, doctors, businessmen and other professionals. Nowadays he said we have people on the commission who can’t even balance their checkbooks and they are in charge of millions for the county budget. He was very discouraged and soon retired.