I work for the government. On Tuesday, we had the worst snow storm in 50 years blow through town. On the state level, it was declared a state of emergency. Bus routes were shut down. Highways closed off. Mail didn’t arrive as scheduled. The chief of police stated that he would strongly advise everyone to stay at home unless it was absolutely necessary because going outside in this blizzard would, frankly, be insane.
And our press release on the weather:
“While City offices and the Municipal Court are open for business as scheduled, weather conditions will be monitored and operational hours will be shortened, if needed”
I am with Guns. I work in the private sector and am probably paid better than I should be but public workers deserve to be compensated for the job they are doing.
Everybody deserves to be paid for the job they are doing. The problem with government jobs is they collect a lot of deadwood. It’s almost impossible to fire government workers once they get into the system. Thus the perception that government workers are slugs and subsequent downward wage pressure.
I’d guess governmental offices probably double the ratio of slackers in any given organization. You know - where in any given organization 10% of the people do 90 % of the work? Probably more like 5/95.
The last time we got any significant snowfall down here in the NC mountains, about mid-January, a friend of my roommate was in town for a court date. He showed up at court the day after it snowed when all of the other government offices were closed. He said there were maybe twelve people there and they all got their cases continued. The reason why he did this is because he wanted them to know that he was going to show up anyway. Also, he drove two hours away to get into town for the court appearance anyway, so why waste a trip? (It was an old case that’ll probably be dropped anyway–showing up also shows the court officials that he’s serious.)
Read the whole original post, my friend. They have a choice of working in the private sector just like you two. **Toxgoddess **said that she stays because she “loves” her job in the public sector and then proceeded to complain about the pay, and that tweaked me a bit. You make your choices in life and take the consequences.
Many jobs we “love” may not pay what we would like; that doesn’t make the low pay someone else’s fault if you continue to work there. Applies not only to the public trough (or “sector” if you prefer) but to any job.
Roddy
p.s. in case there is any question in your mind, I generally don’t respect public employees as much as other working people, for a variety of reasons, exceptions to the contrary notwithstanding.
Yeeeeaaahhh, I think most people are going to prefer “sector” to “trough,” Rod, and your disdainful, disrespectful, condescending, and ultimately unfair characterization made you look like an asshole.
I could have predicted that. Just about your level.
I have to wonder how you have so much free time during the day to ride herd on all the mini-rant threads (which I’m sure would curl up and die if you didn’t prop them up with your unending commentary) if you are in fact “working for a non-government, publicly traded company, earning probably in the top 2% for my position”. I’m sure you have some pat story all worked out for whenever anyone asks you about it, but I do wonder what the truth is. Something, I feel certain, we’ll never learn from you.
Roddy
A person can love what they do and still think they deserve to be paid better for it. I don’t see it as a contradiction at all.
All the state employees in my state have been told to forget about all raises or cost of living increases for an indefinite amount of time. (No, I am not counting the have-them-pay-their-own-pension-and-we’ll-kick-in-a-few-pennies-to-their-salary as a “raise”). Haven’t had a raise in three years. I’m a professional and do my job very well, and yet don’t get treated as one.
The governor made a stop by our agency and apologized to us all in person, of course. But apologies don’t pay the bills, man.
But I guess we should be glad we have jobs and never complain. Don’t complain aout our poor compensation. Don’t complain about our increased workloads due to hiring freezes. Don’t complain because everytime we listen to the public, they’re whining about how big government is and in the next breath complaining about how the government should be doing something about some problem or other. Because being a public servant apparently means being a public punching bag.
People would never dream of denegrading their kid’s teachers the way they denegrate the people who make sure their water, air, and food is safe and clean. Teachers are saints, but the other government employees are just eating from the “trough”…no better than welfare leaches.
I work in the private sector, but we had the same issue. According to the old-timers, the corporate office has never officially closed because of weather, but they will give the managers the option of letting their departments go home early. I took a day of leave. I was not going to drive home in a blizzard, and I only live about 4 miles from the office. One less day off for my birthday weekend, but whatever. I’ll live.
While I heartily support the rest of your rant, you must have missed the hundreds of posts around here in which people rail at teachers because “they only work 9 months out of the year, and they all suck, and they all need to be fired, and they’re overpaid anyway.” There have been tons of denigration of teachers on this board over the years.
One of our regular customers skipped entering orders into our system last week. Today they’re making up for lost time. Not a bad thing in itself, but this particular customer is set up such that every time an order is entered, an email goes out to our independent contractors notifying them it’s available. Again, not so bad, except that our general company account is copied on each and every email. This means that for every order placed, we receive 10-15 emails. And they’ve entered 78 orders today. My email has been tied up completely all morning just sorting through the chaff.
insert side grumble about using Outlook rather than Gmail
Wait. In your state, all state employees make $8/hr? Really?
Yeah, me too! The minute I hear that you work for “Big Government,” well, it just makes me want to spit on you. I mean, who do you think you are, driving that snowplow with a smirk on your face, instead of getting a real job like all us private sector schlubs?
The only reason I have not gotten into the Federal government workforce on several occasions where opportunities presented themselves after successful interviews, is simply because the salary was too low for the job they wanted done. I believe the gripe is legitimate, no doubt. There’s no substitute for job security, which can be a big intangible depending on the position. Unless he’s going to elaborate, I suspect that really is at the root of Femme’s issues with the public sector and possibly with SFG herself like she said: jealousy. But you still have to weigh the politics and coworker issues, which are much more intense than in the “real” world. I’ve seen both sides of that fence, even simultaneously while working as a government contractor.
I’m in the weekly fun-fest with my incompetent “team”. I’ve been getting by at work for many months now by just not participating and letting them do whatever they want.
Today I’m doing something different. Today I’m piping up every time they say something that doesn’t make sense. Then I can show them, in the product and the resources, that they’re wrong. Then they can’t argue with me. I’m just pointing out simple facts that they have wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong.
They are screwed without me. Let me show them how…
Being five weeks out from quitting is a sweet, sweet deal.