government employees

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kriskros

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over the years i have met many government" employees" ..... has anyone ever met a government "worker".. i understand they are very rare and usualy kept inb back rooms...not for public use.........A number years ago a prime minister 's election platform stated that he weould make major reductions in the civil servce staff... he actualy kept his promise!!... couldnt be done :!: ....in a letter to the editors page of a Toronto newspaper, one of the larger Canadian employment agencies, gave the reason why.....THE LEVEL OF ACHIEVMENT OF A VERY LARGE PERCENTAGE OF CIVIL SERVANTS[i forget the exact nhumbers}WAS SO LOW THAT IT WOULD DIFFICULT,IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE TO PLACE THEM IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR :roll: SO,instead, we just keep adding more...if one person cant do the job,maybe two can .or three.or four:?: .. IS THERE ANY GOVERNMENT ,at any level,THATHIS DOES NOT APPLY TO????
 
I was a government employee for 38 years until I retired recently..............

Jeremy
 
Me too! 35 years with DOD and another agency... 10 hour days were the norm, and work always came home with me.
 
Yep, me too. 7 years as a System and Application Programmer for San Mateo County in the 1970's. Lots of unpaid overtime. Lots of trips to San Francisco to check out stuff using IBM's computers before we could upgrade. In those days 100K bytes of memory was considered a big upgrade. :D

When we decided to return to Oregon, I got a job with a privately held company where the owner/founder from 40 years earlier still came in to work every day. Suprising part was there was a lot more "politics" going on at the private company than at the county government. Still stayed there for 25 years until retirement.
 
my reference is to "clerks"...there is no doubt that people of ability levels of those of you replied would be a welcome asset in any organization . since you asll really "worked" for governments,you know who i mean... you had your problems with them as much or morethan the rest of us... unfortunately my dealins with civil service stafff was the :clerk" type...forms,rulings,variances ect... many useless,time wasting meetings.... the only thing that was certain to be agreed on was"we will consider this matter and arrange another meeting"..no offense meant bto people of your levels of achievment :oops:
 
The thing about government workers is the same as high wages. If you are one you worked damn hard and if your wage is high you deserve it cause you work hard. Of course your definition of working hard compared to a day laborer who gets paid peanuts is another thing.

Of course lazy incompetent do nothings are just as bad in the private sector, it just depends on how bloated that private sector is and how badly infected they are with HR people(once you catch that disease it's almost always fatal for the patient).
 
Pay certainly has a bearing here on the people working in government who the general public are likely to come into contact with. Low grade government admin workers here are very poorly paid, not much over the legal minimum wage, and have few, if any, job benefits, now that their pensions have been eroded and their already low pay frozen for the next two years. Needless to say they aren't exactly motivated to do anything more than the bare minimum.

The problem here is that the majority of people working at higher levels in government get tarred with the same brush and all of us used to get portrayed in the media as chinless wonders, even when the media know full well this isn't the case. I used to get sick and tired of civil servants being portrayed in the media as being a waste of space. As others have said, the majority of us worked bloody hard for rewards that were a fraction of those we would have received in the private sector.

If you want a good example of the media treatment of civil servants here, look at the cartoon of me below that appeared in one of our big national Sunday newspapers a few years ago. They had a library photo of me sitting in my old aeroplane that they published, so they knew full well what I looked like. Nevertheless the cartoonist chose to portray me as one of the chinless wonder, pinstrip suit brigade that are universally seen as being a waste of space, despite the positive comments in the article itself.

Mail on Sunday article - small.jpg


Jeremy
 
I'm a guberment employee - the most feared in any government organization - an auditor. The gubers run when they see me coming, as I make their life as much a living hell as possible if I'm called in to investigate. Its like shooting fish in a barrel. We have a lot of good employees, however they are like diamonds in a huge pile of broken glass. And yes, we throw bodies at any chore, necessary or not. Too much waste.

Government should be like corporations. It should pay dividends to their citizens with the left over tax revenue from the previous fiscal year. That way the market would dictate which cities are the best to live in, because they are managed better.

Too many vested interests..... :roll:
 
Canadian civil servants dont want for money or benefits... all they have to do is call another strike.... note on tv news this morning...phine ins from the public re 573 reports of city hall employees misconduct....yyuuukkkk
 
There's an illusion here (fostered by the media hatred of public servants) that we're the same, that all government workers are massively over-paid and under worked when compared to people working in the private sector.

Years ago, around the time that newspaper article was written, I was chatting to a friend who worked in industry. He was managing a building project with a value of around £200M, had a team of around 200 people and was paid about £250,000 a year, plus a company car, private healthcare and a full company pension after 30 years. At the time I was running a politicly sensitive helicopter procurement programme with a value of £1,382M, with a team of around 50 and being subjected to personal scrutiny from a government minister once a month. I was being paid around £60,000, with no car and no private healthcare, plus to get my pension I needed to work 40 years.

Jeremy
 
WOW... civil service in Canada is a lot different than the UK,,, there was a report a while ago about the number of civil servants[pencil pusher types] earning over $100,00 a year,,, hundreds of them.... many years ago i worked for Caxton press here and in the USa...While detailing marine engineering staff on the great lakes i8 ran across british chief engineer with a deep sea ticket ans holding an AMI MECH E degree[i hope i got that degree right,it was a long time ago]... his salary equivalent was about $400.00 a month. canadian.. an OILER on a US lakeboat was paid$375.00 per month... a chief engineer was paid a min$1000.00 and bonus... i didnt have the heart to tell him
 


Top Notch my friend! I loved your heroic act in the article. :)

To avoid having to sit on someone, google "rear-naked-choke", and learn it.
2-3 seconds of pure panic as their brain thinks it's dying (it's a blood choke, so it's instant), then unconsciousness. Hold it for a few seconds after they go limp if you want them to stay out for a bit. After they come-to, it takes a few minute before they can stand/walk/talk again afterwards, as the essentially just had a full-brain-stroke if you did it right. No lasting ill-effects, easy to do, and if you can lock the choke in, there is no defense for it, but keep your face off to the side so they can't bump your nose with the back of their head as they thrash about a bit.

Even professional world-class fighters are helpless if someone gets a rear-naked-choke sunk in properly, they can tap to submit or enter dreamland. An average Joe doesn't have a snow-balls chance against the RNC if you managed to take the persons back on the ground.
 
over the years i have met many government" employees" ..... has anyone ever met a government "worker".. i understand they are very rare and usualy kept inb back rooms...not for public use.........A number years ago a prime minister 's election platform stated that he weould make major reductions in the civil servce staff... he actualy kept his promise!!... couldnt be done :!: ....in a letter to the editors page of a Toronto newspaper, one of the larger Canadian employment agencies, gave the reason why.....THE LEVEL OF ACHIEVMENT OF A VERY LARGE PERCENTAGE OF CIVIL SERVANTS[i forget the exact nhumbers}WAS SO LOW THAT IT WOULD DIFFICULT,IF NOT IMPOSSIBLE TO PLACE THEM IN THE PRIVATE SECTOR :roll: SO,instead, we just keep adding more...if one person cant do the job,maybe two can .or three.or four:?: .. IS THERE ANY GOVERNMENT ,at any level,THATHIS DOES NOT APPLY TO????
Click to expand...
Be careful you might be accused of being a libertarian! Then they will call you an anarchist then they will jail you, because you believe in free markets! Then you might be the one throwing tea over the ship. 8) 8) 8) 8)
 
liveforphysics said:
Top Notch my friend! I loved your heroic act in the article. :)

To avoid having to sit on someone, google "rear-naked-choke", and learn it.
2-3 seconds of pure panic as their brain thinks it's dying (it's a blood choke, so it's instant), then unconsciousness. Hold it for a few seconds after they go limp if you want them to stay out for a bit. After they come-to, it takes a few minute before they can stand/walk/talk again afterwards, as the essentially just had a full-brain-stroke if you did it right. No lasting ill-effects, easy to do, and if you can lock the choke in, there is no defense for it, but keep your face off to the side so they can't bump your nose with the back of their head as they thrash about a bit.

Even professional world-class fighters are helpless if someone gets a rear-naked-choke sunk in properly, they can tap to submit or enter dreamland. An average Joe doesn't have a snow-balls chance against the RNC if you managed to take the persons back on the ground.
Click to expand...

Thanks, LFP, and for that "rear-naked-choke" a useful tip, but I've no intention of doing anything like this again. They even had me on daytime television after this, plus goodness knows how many newspaper articles, would you believe.

The closing shot has to be that the armed robber, who had £42,000 (around $68,000) worth of jewellery in his hand when caught, walked away from court with no conviction. He pleaded that he had been forced to do the crime by someone he met in a pub, who threatened him. He believed that the man who threatened him was a police informant, and if he reported the threats to the police they wouldn't be taken seriously. His defence demanded that the police confirm or deny that the other man was a police informant. As police policy is to never reveal such information the judge threw the case out, on the basis that the defence were being denied material evidence by the police. Needless to say this caused more full page spreads in the papers and yet more notoriety for me. I still get recognised around town from that blasted incident, even now, seven years on.

BTW, I think I prefer the "near-naked choke", looks like it'd be far more fun than trying to wrestle a 200lb, fairly angry, coloured guy to the ground....................

Back on topic of government workers and pay. My wife still works for the government, at a military medical centre as a nurse receptionist (she's a qualified nurse). She's paid around £1,200 (about $1900) a month, and now has around 30 years experience. I don't know how that compares with Canada and the US. I do know that if she did the same job here in the private sector her pay would be around 50% higher, but she likes working with the military.

Jeremy
 
"Myth 4: Most [US] federal workers are paper-pushing clerks.

The vast majority of federal workers hold white-collar professional, administrative and technical jobs, and aren't just college dropouts archiving triplicates of your tax return. Approximately 20 percent of federal workers have a master's degree, professional degree or doctorate, vs. 13 percent in the private sector. Fifty-one percent of federal employees have at least a college degree, compared with 35 percent in the private sector.

Remarkably, more than 50 current or former federal employees have received Nobel Prizes. In fact, about one in four American Nobel laureates have been federal workers. Their contributions have included the eradication of polio, the mapping of the human genome and the harnessing of atomic energy. Federal employees protect our food and drug supplies, manage airline traffic, foil terrorist attacks, care for our wounded veterans, and make sure the elderly and those with disabilities get their Medicare and Social Security benefits. This is hardly paper-pushing."

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/12/03/AR2010120303160.html
 
k on topic of government workers and pay. My wife still works for the government, at a military medical centre as a nurse receptionist (she's a qualified nurse). She's paid around £1,200 (about $1900) a month, and now has around 30 years experience. I don't know how that compares with Canada and the US. I do know that if she did the same job here in the private sector her pay would be around 50% higher, but she likes working with the military.

Jeremy[/quote]
i think[not absolutelysure] that Canadian nurses earn in the neighbourhood of $4000.00a month... my younger sister became a nurse...at that time the training period was four =years to the day.. if you took a weeks haoliday you made it up... the shifts were 12 hours a day ,sixdays a week... first year no pay,second year$25.00 a month.. i forget what the rest was.. but not very much... there were no nurses aides then... the trainees did everything
 
American civil servantswould seem to have a higher level of achievement than Canadian ..... one notable achievemnt for Canadfian civil servants is successful strikes for higher pay ,shorter hours and job security ... it is almost impossible to fire a civil servant...incompetance,laziness ect are not valid reasons..... E.G...several years ago some civil servant [federal] decided that all privately owned guns should be registered.. this woould make it easier to solve and control gun related crime.. POLICE, rest easy mam, we know exactly where and when the gun that killed your husband was stolen :!: ... cost was estimated to be approx two to three million dollars.... about $200.000,000 or more later[and many angry and stubborn gun owner complaints] it is being quietly altered if not shelved[ i believe it now only applies to handguns...and even that is not being seriously enforced except at time of purchase] RUMOUR... now that the gun problem has been solved[civil service opinion] the drug addiction problem is next on the list.......all diabetics will have to register their needles :roll: .... PS iam not a gun owner,nor an advocate of same
 
I believe the US postal service gets a bad rap, I have been pleased with their service, and I have seen the postal service of several foreign counties in person. The contrast was brutal.

A friend mentioned that if you wanted to mail two shoes to a friend, you had to first mail one shoe with a note that "here is the shoe you left at our house" (as if the other shoe was already with the recipient). Then, after a couple weeks you were relatively safe to mail the other shoe. Here in the US, I have been quite pleased to use the fixed-rate boxes, "if it fits, it ships" for a standard rate, regardless of weight.

On the other hand, I spent 1986-90 working in the UAW at McDonnel-Douglas on the military C-17 cargo plane hydraulics. Another situation where a "union brother" pretty much had to kill someone to get fired, lots of lazyness.

Progress on everything was slow to ensure there were heaps of weekend overtime available ($20/hr workers getting $30/hr to sit around on Saturday and read newspapers). I was berated and cast under a constant suspicious eye for doing good work. There were frequent jokes about our department being filled with "dairy farmers" who were milking a government contract.

No surprise when Boeing bought them out...
 
spinningmagnets said:
I believe the US postal service gets a bad rap, I have been pleased with their service, and I have seen the postal service of several foreign counties in person. The contrast was brutal.

A friend mentioned that if you wanted to mail two shoes to a friend, you had to first mail one shoe with a note that "here is the shoe you left at our house" (as if the other shoe was already with the recipient). Then, after a couple weeks you were relatively safe to mail the other shoe. Here in the US, I have been quite pleased to use the fixed-rate boxes, "if it fits, it ships" for a standard rate, regardless of weight.
Click to expand...

As someone who doesn't live in the US, but who frequently receives stuff from there, my personal view is that the USPS is outstandingly good. It's way more reliable, and cheaper, than any of the shipping companies like Fed Ex, UPS or whoever, from my position as a recipient. I never get charged at my end for USPS parcels, but Fed Ex, UPS and the rest frequently hit me with an "import handling charge" of around $20 or so before they deliver the parcel to me.

If I lived in the US I'd support your federal postal service, from my perspective it seems to do a pretty good job.

Jeremy
 
Jeremy Harris said:
spinningmagnets said:
I believe the US postal service gets a bad rap, I have been pleased with their service, and I have seen the postal service of several foreign counties in person. The contrast was brutal.

A friend mentioned that if you wanted to mail two shoes to a friend, you had to first mail one shoe with a note that "here is the shoe you left at our house" (as if the other shoe was already with the recipient). Then, after a couple weeks you were relatively safe to mail the other shoe. Here in the US, I have been quite pleased to use the fixed-rate boxes, "if it fits, it ships" for a standard rate, regardless of weight.
Click to expand...

As someone who doesn't live in the US, but who frequently receives stuff from there, my personal view is that the USPS is outstandingly good. It's way more reliable, and cheaper, than any of the shipping companies like Fed Ex, UPS or whoever, from my position as a recipient. I never get charged at my end for USPS parcels, but Fed Ex, UPS and the rest frequently hit me with an "import handling charge" of around $20 or so before they deliver the parcel to me.

If I lived in the US I'd support your federal postal service, from my perspective it seems to do a pretty good job.

Jeremy
Click to expand...

Jeremy,

I'll pass this on to my Father and Uncle(his brother) who have both worked at the USPS since the 60's. Although, they have witnessed a few fellow employees go "postal". All incidents ended peacefully, but they did pack heat. More often workers fall over dead and my dad and his coworkers watch as they are body bagged and taken away. :shock: My dad says your family gets more money that way, go figure. He literally plans to die at work himself, seriously.
 
anything i buy from the US i always have shipped usps... fedex and ups hit me with a "brokerage
' charge...the last time a package came ups i was charged$12.00 for a $19.00 item... sincethen if the shipper wont use usps i wont buy... good,quick service... Canada Post is ok except for local mail... a sstreet i lived had east and west designations... my opposite number on the east and I had to meet and exchange mail frequently... the same with many of neighbors.... i stopped the mailman one day asked him WHY?.. his reply"i dunno ,if you dont li8ke it call the office"..i tried,the phone line was always busy.. fortunately we eventualy got a new mailman and the problem was alm ost elimanated When postage was 3 cents a letter,if you mailed before noon it would be delivered [within about a 50 mile radius] the nexy day... six cents.airmail ,coast toi coast three days max... When the postage became 17 cents a letter it would take[as it does noww]about 4to 5 days localy... as a friend of mine put it "the extra 14 cents is folr storage time"
 
In my 42 years I've never had anything lost coming or going through the U.S. mail.

The reason it's struggling financially these days is due to the fact that they have offices just about every small town.

But I stand up for the USPS. Fantastic service. Like I said, never a failure with anything I've sent or received.
 
I regularly had items stolen from parcels shipped USPS during the holiday season. Try sending yourself a letter with an empty giftcard in December.
 
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