But once in a while, like now, we stop to focus on what we ask of the people who serve in our stead when the task seems all but impossible.

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Nor were there many people to ask about the steps we should take to fulfill our dreams of becoming world-class athletes.

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Partly because I was curious and partly because I have a masochistic streak, I recently e-mailed the people we had swapped with to ask what they thought of our place.

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If you ask people, they'll say, well, we give 10 percent of our federal budget away in foreign aid.

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Usability of our survey instruments, to a researcher, means we ask how well they work for the people taking them and give us meaningful answers.

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Yet our collective social responsibility may force us to pause and ask about the relative tradeoffs among the people we serve.

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