Hire the Big O

A few years back, the City of Omaha started a new campaign to encourage its citizens to support their local merchants. It was called "Buy the Big O". Basically, the idea was that if you lived in Omaha, you were supposed to buy whatever you needed – groceries, clothes, a meal, a movie ticket, a car, whatever – in Omaha.

Makes sense, right? To the politicians, it did. To the citizens trying to stretch their shrinking paychecks as far as they could, it did NOT make sense. Spend $25 on a pair of slacks in town when they could get the same slacks off the internet (on sale) for $12 and $5 shipping?

And then the city officials had another 'bright' idea and imposed an additional tax on restaurants, bars and caterers. I heard many citizens ponder the possibility of slipping into the suburbs for their entertainment.

And then, not long ago, I heard about a city department that was looking to hire a person. Wow! A job opening! In the midst of such bad news from city hall for so long, this news was like a breath of fresh air. Until I heard they'd chosen to offer the job to a person from Lincoln, a city some 50 miles away.

Now, I've nothing against the people of Lincoln. Evidently, they are just as qualified as the people of Omaha, and no doubt Lincolnites need jobs just as badly as Omahans. However, if Omahans are supposed to 'Buy the Big O', then it only seems fair that the City should make an effort to 'Hire the Big O'.