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idk why you're invoking "career public servants" here except as some kind of ideological shibboleth; much of the money spent here in Australia (YMMV, but I woul

idk why you're invoking "career public servants" here except as some kind of ideological shibboleth; much of the money spent here in Australia (YMMV, but I would imagine this is true in much of the world) goes to outsourced service providers to "gatekeep poor people from the services they need".

MisterBastahrd 5y ago
Because their jobs would almost always be handled better via automation. Their departments are hilariously understaffed, inefficient, and force people who have benefits to spend hours every week on the phone during daytime working hours.
- glangdale 5y ago
  A lot of places - I don't know where you are - pretty much intentionally understaff these sort of services and make them inconvenient, with the goal being to reduce the use of the services. "Inefficiency" is not always an accident here. In Australia, we have a lot of outsourcing and automation ("robodebt" was a recent scandal, where automated overpayment clawbacks were sent out to thousands of people, sometimes incorrectly). This hasn't improved matters. The problem is not particularly connected to "public servants" - it's clearly possible to screw up this kind of thing whether private/public or in-person/automated. It's a matter of policy and attitude, not the delivery method. If you build a system with the intent to humiliate and deter its users, it will waste everyone's time regardless of who provides it and how.
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    You're missing the point. These public servants work public servant hours, aka, a very small subset of the total day during which a lot of people who are on public assistance are either working or are being pressured into finding work. They literally are not available when a lot of people on public assistance are free to communicate with them. The companies that limit their customer service hours to normal working hours are usually either small or financial institutions. Everyone else handles customers whenever customers have issues.

MisterBastahrd 5y ago

Because their jobs would almost always be handled better via automation. Their departments are hilariously understaffed, inefficient, and force people who have benefits to spend hours every week on the phone during daytime working hours.

glangdale 5y ago
A lot of places - I don't know where you are - pretty much intentionally understaff these sort of services and make them inconvenient, with the goal being to reduce the use of the services. "Inefficiency" is not always an accident here. In Australia, we have a lot of outsourcing and automation ("robodebt" was a recent scandal, where automated overpayment clawbacks were sent out to thousands of people, sometimes incorrectly). This hasn't improved matters. The problem is not particularly connected to "public servants" - it's clearly possible to screw up this kind of thing whether private/public or in-person/automated. It's a matter of policy and attitude, not the delivery method. If you build a system with the intent to humiliate and deter its users, it will waste everyone's time regardless of who provides it and how.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  You're missing the point. These public servants work public servant hours, aka, a very small subset of the total day during which a lot of people who are on public assistance are either working or are being pressured into finding work. They literally are not available when a lot of people on public assistance are free to communicate with them. The companies that limit their customer service hours to normal working hours are usually either small or financial institutions. Everyone else handles customers whenever customers have issues.