The last decades of the XX century have been appointed by the intense transformations in the national and international productive sectors, among which stands out the process of productive reorganization. This research aimed at understanding the ways these changes affected a public university in the south of the country, more specifically its university City Hall, and also at understanding which senses were attributed to such changes by the public servants of the maintenance area. The technique used to collect information was the focal group. The analysis of content applied to the collected data brought a better understanding about the interviewed servants profile and about the senses they attributed to their work. Two categories were delineated: daily/organization of the work and senses of the work. Several peculiarities referring to the public service and to the management way of the City Hall were found. The interviewed people considered themselves privileged for the stability the public service provided them and understood their work as a source of personal accomplishment and financial support. However, they demonstrated discontent feelings about the lack of recognition of their work by the academic community, to the work in precarious physical and human conditions and also felt embarassed about the stigma of being public servants.
Job satisfaction; Public university; Public servants; Focal group