My Fellow government workers-past and present.

[mostpost]

There is a pervasive belief on this forum that all government is bad; that government workers are lazy, uncooperative and incompetent. There are a number of posters in Off Topic who had government jobs; either as a career or as a stop on the road to some other career. People like NJ Stinks, Overlay, and-think-Ocala Mike. JustRalph was a cop and maybe CJ'sDad??????
Clocker said he had a government job if memory serves.

What I am looking for is anyone who had a government job for a reasonable period of time to contribute your take on the people you worked with and for, both good and bad. Were you co-workers dedicated or disinterested.

I will start so you can see what I am looking for and I will start with the bad.
We had a carrier in Bellwood, Il, who delivered mail to bushes, under porches and just generally not into mailboxes. He was fired.

We also had carriers who made it their business to regularly check in on their patron who were physically handicapped to make sure they were OK. We had carriers who would pay postage due out of their own pocket to ensure important mail was delivered on time. That's a small thing, I know, but it indicates dedication to one's customers.

[Tom]

hcap says we can't use anecdotal evidence anymore.
Just the other day, as a matter of fact.

[Saratoga_Mike]

hcap says we can't use anecdotal evidence anymore.
Just the other day, as a matter of fact.

"I am presenting emperical evidence that many people are out of work and have been for a long time. You are presenting anecdotal evidence that someone you know cannot find a qualified worker for a particular position."

Someone else looked down on anecdotal evidence just a few months ago....any guesses who that might have been?

[HUSKER55]

haven't a clue......

[hcap]

hcap says we can't use anecdotal evidence anymore.
Just the other day, as a matter of fact.Not all anecdotal evidence just your anecdotal evidence mostly because that's all ya got, and I,m not even sure you remember the details accurately grampa :)

[mostpost]

"I am presenting emperical evidence that many people are out of work and have been for a long time. You are presenting anecdotal evidence that someone you know cannot find a qualified worker for a particular position."

Someone else looked down on anecdotal evidence just a few months ago....any guesses who that might have been?

That's me!!! In the Obama Care Ruling thread. My contention there-and elsewhere-was that empirical evidence out weighs anecdotal evidence. That does not mean there is no place for anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence that matches empirical evidence can be used as a highlight of that evidence.

I was inspired to start this thread by something that was posted in the thread titled, "The Entire AMA Weighs In On ObamaCare." Husker55 posted that no program run by the government has ever succeeded. My opinion was that there were many government agencies that do a fine job. I presented some of them.

As I was doing so, I was thinking of my own experiences working for the United States Postal Service and how those experiences so infrequently took me into contact with the stereotype of government workers so popular on these pages. I wondered if the same held true for other government workers who post here.

This is not an attempt to prove that government workers are any better or any worse than other workers. There is plenty of empirical proof of that. Nor is this an attempt to prove that a government agency is more or less efficient than a private company. There is also plenty of empirical proof of that.

[Overlay]

What I am looking for is anyone who had a government job for a reasonable period of time to contribute your take on the people you worked with and for, both good and bad. Were you co-workers dedicated or disinterested.
Three factors associated with my particular Army civilian career program (Quality Assurance Specialist (Ammunition Surveillance)) tended to weed out the "non-hackers" fairly quickly: 1) that it was such an "off-the-beaten-path" choice for a life's work; 2) that it required all careerists to relocate at periodic intervals to any of a worldwide variety of duty locations; and 3) that it could potentially place you "in harm's way" if you were deployed to support combat troops in a theater of operations (not to mention the risks involved just in working with ammunition on a daily basis, no matter where you were).

At the time that I joined up (May, 1978), despite the high overall unemployment rate then prevailing, my career program had to go begging for applicants, because people would either turn down a slot if offered, or else get out in short order by joining up, but then (once they were in the Civil Service system) using the job as a stepping stone to find other government work that would allow them to stay in one place, or that was not so potentially hazardous. (During the course of my career, only 15 of the 31 people who started out with my intern group for the introductory two-year classroom and on-the-job training that we all had to go through stayed with the program for the majority of their careers, and only 11 of the 15 stayed in the career program until the end of their working lives (either retirement or (non-job-related) death.)

As I think would be the case with any job or career, there were a few "bad apples" (chronic complainers; incompetents who had made it through the training but who were just not a good fit for the day-to-day demands of the job; and people who always wanted to "stir the pot" to create controversy, as well as to divert attention from their own generally substandard performance). (I particularly became aware of such individuals when I had to deal with them in a supervisory capacity.) However, they tended not to last too long, either through disciplinary action (as unpleasant and complicated as it was to administer), or through voluntary withdrawal. (I always had the impression that I would have had more supervisory authority and latitude, and not so many bureaucratic hoops to jump through, in disciplining or firing such people, if I had been in the private sector, but I can't say for sure.) The people who remained (in my personal experience) may not have all been absolutely perfect, but they were conscientious, competent, and hard-working individuals who gave their best effort, put in a full day's work for a full day's pay, and tried to get along with both co-workers and their supervisory chain. (I hope that my former co-workers and supervisors remember me the same way!)

[Saratoga_Mike]

That's me!!! In the Obama Care Ruling thread. My contention there-and elsewhere-was that empirical evidence out weighs anecdotal evidence. That does not mean there is no place for anecdotal evidence. Anecdotal evidence that matches empirical evidence can be used as a highlight of that evidence.

.

I think anecdotal evidence works best when it supports a liberal position - don't you?

[mostpost]

Three factors associated with my particular Army civilian career program (Quality Assurance Specialist (Ammunition Surveillance)) tended to weed out the "non-hackers" fairly quickly: 1) that it was such an "off-the-beaten-path" choice for a life's work; 2) that it required all careerists to relocate at periodic intervals to any of a worldwide variety of duty locations; and 3) that it could potentially place you "in harm's way" if you were deployed to support combat troops in a theater of operations (not to mention the risks involved just in working with ammunition on a daily basis, no matter where you were).

At the time that I joined up (May, 1978), despite the high overall unemployment rate then prevailing, my career program had to go begging for applicants, because people would either turn down a slot if offered, or else get out in short order by joining up, but then (once they were in the Civil Service system) using the job as a stepping stone to find other government work that would allow them to stay in one place, or that was not so potentially hazardous. (During the course of my career, only 15 of the 31 people who started out with my intern group for the introductory two-year classroom and on-the-job training that we all had to go through stayed with the program for the majority of their careers, and only 11 of the 15 stayed in the career program until the end of their working lives (either retirement or (non-job-related) death.)

As I think would be the case with any job or career, there were a few "bad apples" (chronic complainers; incompetents who had made it through the training but who were just not a good fit for the day-to-day demands of the job; and people who always wanted to "stir the pot" to create controversy, as well as to divert attention from their own generally substandard performance). (I particularly became aware of such individuals when I had to deal with them in a supervisory capacity.) However, they tended not to last too long, either through disciplinary action (as unpleasant and complicated as it was to administer), or through voluntary withdrawal. (I always had the impression that I would have had more supervisory authority and latitude, and not so many bureaucratic hoops to jump through, in disciplining or firing such people, if I had been in the private sector, but I can't say for sure.) The people who remained (in my personal experience) may not have all been absolutely perfect, but they were conscientious, competent, and hard-working individuals who gave their best effort, put in a full day's work for a full day's pay, and tried to get along with both co-workers and their supervisory chain. (I hope that my former co-workers and supervisors remember me the same way!)
My experience is similar to yours in that there were a few bad apples but most were as you say, "conscientious, competent, and hard-working individuals who gave their best effort, put in a full day's work for a full day's pay, and tried to get along with both co-workers and their supervisory chain."

Of course you don't have to answer, but I am curious. Where and how much time did you spend out of country; were you ever in Korea-particularly the Taegu area. Maybe you answered some of these questions in another thread, but memory fails me.

[Overlay]

My experience is similar to yours in that there were a few bad apples but most were as you say, "conscientious, competent, and hard-working individuals who gave their best effort, put in a full day's work for a full day's pay, and tried to get along with both co-workers and their supervisory chain."

Of course you don't have to answer, but I am curious. Where and how much time did you spend out of country; were you ever in Korea-particularly the Taegu area. Maybe you answered some of these questions in another thread, but memory fails me.
I was atypical for our career program. In 35 years, I only had one three-year overseas tour (in a non-supervisory position at Vilseck (Ammunition Supply Point Number 1)/Grafenwoehr (Grafenwoehr Training Area), Germany). I could have extended for another two years, but I had a one-year-old child at the time, plus I was being told that I needed supervisory experience to further my career progression, and I would have had to move anyway (within Europe)(Miesau Army Depot) to be able to get that. So I figured that I might just as well return to the US.

Many people in my career program loved being overseas, and actively requested or volunteered for such tours, so the program never had a problem filling those slots (especially as the number of available overseas positions downsized due to budget cuts and the end of the Cold War).

The only other place outside the US that I was ever assigned in a duty-related capacity was with a team that deployed from Europe (while I was stationed in Germany) to go on temporary duty to Subic Bay Naval Base in the Philippines (when we still had a military presence there) to inspect and classify the ammunition stored on one of the Rapid Deployment Force vessels that are kept out at sea to be available in case of a conflict breaking out somewhere, but that come into port periodically for maintenance. (When I returned to Germany after the end of my temporary duty, they had space-available seats that they needed to fill. So, instead of flying me back to Germany the reverse of the way that I had come (Frankfurt-Karachi-Bangkok-Manila), they routed me from Manila to Seoul, Seoul to Los Angeles, and Los Angeles to Frankfurt. That brief stopover in Seoul was the only time that I have ever been in Korea -- and I didn't even get off the plane!)

I also never volunteered for any of the various deployments that began with Desert Shield/Storm in 1991, continuing through all the various post-9/11 actions. I never asked not to be selected, nor would I have refused any such assignment, but I figured that I'd give first dibs to the volunteers and the single folks. As it happened, I never got the call.

[Ocala Mike]

were you ever in Korea-particularly the Taegu area.



Mostie, you have a pretty good memory. I had 25 years in with NY State, another 3 with Florida, not to mention 4 years in the AF and another 4 years working for companies like Collins Radio and Grumman on government (military) contracts, which was practically like being a civil servant (without the benefits). I don't have too much in the way of anecdotal evidence, other than the observation that there are good workers and bad workers encountered on every job.

I remember many years ago remarking that one of my AF assignments was as an advisor to the ROKAF at Taejon, Korea (K-5), a couple of hours NW of Taegu. My boss, a LtCol (I was an O-2 at the time), had his family in quarters down at Taegu while he shacked up with his girl friend up in Taejon.

[johnhannibalsmith]

I started to write out a long synopsis of my tenure with the NYS Senate. But I realized that the more detailed it got, the more it sounded like I was deliberately trying to contradict mostpost with stories of lazy, indifferent co-workers, many of whom were there simply because of their pedigree and knew that it was a paycheck, not work.

So, I'll just say - it wasn't for me. I moved positions a couple of times trying to find something that felt mildly rewarding and didn't feel as though I was the black sheep like a teacher's pet for actually wanting to spend my day working.

I know that my experience isn't a template for all of government work, but let me tell you, I did have one of the most (negative) stereotypical periods of employment there. I quit - a nice salary, benefits, weeks and weeks of stockpiled paid time off - to deliver pizza at night and make sandwiches in the day - just to feel like I was actually doing something at work.

[ElKabong]

The term 'going postal' has its roots in....

a) post office worker, gone beserk
b) small business owner gunning down his employees
c) middle manager of a private company turning to drugs, returning in memory to his days with 'the choom gang'

[mostpost]

I started to write out a long synopsis of my tenure with the NYS Senate. But I realized that the more detailed it got, the more it sounded like I was deliberately trying to contradict mostpost with stories of lazy, indifferent co-workers, many of whom were there simply because of their pedigree and knew that it was a paycheck, not work.

So, I'll just say - it wasn't for me. I moved positions a couple of times trying to find something that felt mildly rewarding and didn't feel as though I was the black sheep like a teacher's pet for actually wanting to spend my day working.

I know that my experience isn't a template for all of government work, but let me tell you, I did have one of the most (negative) stereotypical periods of employment there. I quit - a nice salary, benefits, weeks and weeks of stockpiled paid time off - to deliver pizza at night and make sandwiches in the day - just to feel like I was actually doing something at work.

Was yours a civil service job or a patronage job? Did you work for a specific Senator or for the Senate as a whole? I think there is a difference between the job I perceive you as having and a job with the IRS or USPS.

I did what you did. I went from an easy but unrewarding job to a more difficult but rewarding job-not to mention much more profitable. Except, I went from the private to the public sector.

In the early 70's I had a good job with a good company. Unfortunately the company went out of business. It wasn't my fault!!
After a few weeks of unemployment, I got a job with a much smaller company in the same field. To this day, I do not know why I was hired or why I was kept on. There was no work for me. On a good day I did two hours of work. I was basically a receptionist and file clerk with no one to recept and nothing to file.

One of my jobs was to pick up the mail from our box at the post office in the morning and drop off the outgoing mail in the evening. During one of my sojourns I noticed a poster announcing an upcoming test for employment at the Post Office. I filled out the application, took the test, did well and a few months later when I went to pick up the mail, the Postmaster opened his office door and said "I understand you want to work for the Post Office."
I replied in the affirmative and two weeks later went for a job in which I rarely worked ten hours in a week to one in which I frequently worked ten hours in a day. And I enjoyed it much more.

[newtothegame]

Mostly, if I may! I think you have pegged many of us against unions as being against union workers.
Let's cut the chit...I will be as honest as I can here. I held a union job I
At the railroad. Job was fun and I felt like a kid with a train set. But, one thing I found was that the longer an employee was there, the more lazy they got. They learned the "rules" laid down by the union. Now granted, this was one local and one union. There have been other videos showing this same work habit in other union jobs.
But, make no mistake about it...I don't blame the workers. I blame the union!
In particular, public unions. The reason I despise public unions so much is you always talk about "fair" negotiations. The right to collectively bargain.....
What is fair about bargaining with state reps who are NOT on the hook for the bill and tax payers are? Those who are negotiating should be on the hook for the bill. This is the same problem in Washington now days. They can spend like drunken sailors because they do not have to pay for it.
Next, I look at the success of the company or entity which employs the union members. If a company is successful and maintains a union, then more power to them! I believe Cotsco is a good example.
I really don't think you should ever use a public entity such as the USPS. you can sit here all day long and tell us how great the workers are and all I will say is how profitable is that entity?
Not many government entities come in under budget or even on time. Here locally, we have a bridge that is being painted. It started in March. It was originally scheduled to be finished in August. Then , they said September due to some rains that happened. Then oct.....now November.....you get the idea.
Over time over budget and we haven't had that much damn rain!!,,!
Is it possible to run your house on an unlimited budget? If so, I need access to your bank accounts. We all have budgets and constraints to live within.
Why is the government any different??? It's different because they do not have to worry about paying for it. As a matter of fact, you know just like I do if they were to come in under budget, those dollars are usually subtracted the following year in budget. So the point is to use every dollar and then some!

Anyway, I will leave you with this thought...union workers are not bad people. They work within the systems they are given. If they are allowed to smoke weed outside the gm plant on break, he'll more power to them. I don't blame them, I blame the union.....by the way, I don't think they got fired for that.... :bang:

[johnhannibalsmith]

Was yours a civil service job or a patronage job? Did you work for a specific Senator or for the Senate as a whole? I think there is a difference between the job I perceive you as having and a job with the IRS or USPS.

...

It's a little hard to answer the question in a simple, direct way. One of the conditions I had when I was asked centered on wanting to work in as apolitical position as I could. I specifically wanted to work "for the Senate as a whole" and not as a water carrier for someone specific.

Basically, that's what I did. The bulk of my time there was spent on what was known as SOAP - a fairly cutting edge system at the time for managing constituent relations that automated almost everything and networked the entire department together.

It was a department that serviced the entire Senate, but it was made clear that the majority had priority. Technically, I worked at the discretion of the majority leader.

So, on the one hand, the positions that I was willing to work were definitely not typical patronage type jobs that you would expect, but the nature of the terms of employment make it just that. But, my mother was a career civil servant and I think that her experience would largely mirror my own (with the exception that she didn't have the luxury of just walking away from it). I know that she too was often frustrated by the apathy, especially later in her career before death when she was working to preserve historical sites and parks, something that she was passionate about and really enjoyed, always feeling hamstrung and frustrated by co-workers that didn't take much pride in the job.

As I said, I wouldn't take those two experiences and assume that it reflects "government jobs" as a whole. But at the same time, I couldn't personally fight very hard against someone promoting the stereotype. I was literally in nearly constant annoyance with the waste and lack of productivity for no reason. I caught myself trying to figure out one day in the midst of a 7 hour workday with no work for the umpteenth consecutive day just how early I could retire. I realized the number of years I had left to endure and that pretty much convinced me (along with a few other events) that I was definitely in the wrong business.

[NJ Stinks]

I was one of 47 agents hired by the IRS at the same time in 1973. Here's a couple of nuggets to start things off:

1. All 47 of us were men.
2. During our training sessions, men smoked cigarettes and pipes in the classroom. Nobody gagged and nobody moaned about the smoke either. (I did not smoke at that time.)
3. The Nixon Administration hired a lot of IRS agents in the early ‘70’s – including me.

Anyway, one part of qualifying for the job was to get a security clearance. That background check (which included having your own personal Form 1040 audited) eliminated about 15 of the 47 before the end of the first year. Most of those 15 were fired for lying on their application and a few were let go for filing "improper" returns. One guy had been arrested for embezzling when he worked at a bank. (He spent time in jail – how the hell was he going to survive a background check!) And the best student in our training classes grade-wise was fired because he and his brother were arrested for storing gasoline in drums in a basement of a vacant house in Trenton and the house blew up! (This was during the energy crisis when there was a gas shortage.) One other notable casualty of the background checks was a guy who was told to stay away from an 8th grader but didn't. Yea, we were a diverse group alright.

By the end of my career there were about 8 of the original 47 still working for the IRS. And I'd say most of the guys who left over the years did so for a better paying job in private industry. Or they were just sick of working for a bureaucracy.

I worked with all kinds over the years. I remember one nitwit who actually took his family to have dinner on a Saturday night with the guy’s family he was examining. The reason? He was hoping to be offered a bribe and thought it might happen outside the guy's office in a social setting. (If one wanted to climb the career ladder fast in the IRS at that time, either nail people for fraud, report bribe offers, or just be willing to move all over the country. I'm not saying this was written policy because it wasn't.) The point is that a few yahoos thought they uncovered fraud everywhere they went or they thought they were being bribed repeatedly.

[FYI, don't ever say to an IRS agent "What do you need to finish this audit?" Because some idiot may interpret that to be a bribe overture. (See. You’re learning something in this thread. :) ) Anyway, my way of doing the job was to never let the taxpayer think for a second that I was approachable. It's easy to convey unless the agent doesn’t want to convey it.]

Another guy I worked with was perhaps the most ambitious. The guy (“Joe”) would come into the office every day at 8:15am and be out by 9:00am to do an audit at a taxpayer’s place of business. This guy was closing cases faster than the rest of us in our group and my boss at the time told me while reviewing my work that I should be more like “Joe”. Mainly because Joe was more organized than I was and Joe certainly knew how to plan his work schedule better. About 4 months later Joe was fired. Apparently, Joe wasn’t that good a planner because he was “working” full time for the IRS while simultaneously working from 9:30am to 5:00pm for a CPA firm in the suburbs! Hey, the guy held down two full time jobs at the same time for at least 6 months! Tea Party types would have marveled at Joe’s go get’em work ethic! Cause Joe was definitely not sitting home watching TV all day while on the dole! :)

Moving on, like Overlay, I worked with all types of employees. Some were outstanding, most were adequate, and some were either lazy, dumb, or just plain indifferent about their work. Bosses covered the same spectrum. I found the same spectrum in private industry. I audited federal excise tax returns exclusively. Most taxpayers I examined were represented by accountants, lawyers, the company controller, or the chief financial officer. Almost all these folks were great with the BS but few knew anything about my specialty tax area - federal excise taxes. Let’s just say it made my job a lot easier than other agents who examined income tax returns. Because I found most of the accountant and lawyer reps were too busy/lazy to do much tax law research. They were much more interested in billing their clients for a certain number of hours and then wrap up the audit no matter what the outcome for their clients. But I digress. Today we are talking about government workers – not those pillars of private industry who live to bill. :jump:

I could go on when it comes to stories about people I worked with. But I guess this thought about bribes kind of says it all. Some took bribes, some reported bribes, some discouraged bribe offers, and some never did enough digging to ever be offered a bribe.

[Saratoga_Mike]

Stinks,

I appreciate your honesty; Most may not!

[Capper Al]

Good topic. I work for the DoD. I also worked setting up data warehouses for many Fortune 500 companies and had a chance to observe these companies inner working first hand. The cultures were more similar with the size of the outfit verses the government or private division. The larger the outfit, the more the Tower of Babble effect takes hold.

[Tom]

This thread points out that there are good people in any organization.
We could start one that shows there are bad people, too.

The underlying presumption of the thread is off center, though.
There were brave Frenchmen in WWII. There were Nazis who were sickened by the death camps. It is not about the people, it is about the agencies themselves, and government itself, growing ever larger and more intrusive into our lives. Just because a clerk is very goo doesn't mean the MVB is an efficient outfit.