Sir: While working in the public sector and sitting in the Pakistan Secretariat, Islamabad, one can realise that our public sector employees, at all levels, be they imperial staff or the ancillary staff, do not bother to strengthen and deepen their skills for an effective delivery service. We all plough our own furrow, partly because that is what is required of us but that can have its down side: we can become a bit like Mr Darcy, the proud hero of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice, who eventually acknowledges, “As a child I was taught what was right, but I was not taught to correct my temper. I was given good principles, but left to follow them in pride and conceit.” If left unchecked, this can lead to the terrible affliction of public sector employees including the key stakeholders in the administration of the justice system in the country, among others, which John Mortimer, in one of his Rumpole stories, describes as, “one of the hazards of judicial service, along with piles and the sleeping sickness”. Indeed, we are all vulnerable to that, and we all need to reset our moral and professional compass from time to time. HASHIM ABRO Islamabad