6 ms·

The government is one of the few places where you can get a job in your twenties and retire comfortably in your 60s having made a decent, but certainly not outs

by munk-a 5y ago

The government is one of the few places where you can get a job in your twenties and retire comfortably in your 60s having made a decent, but certainly not outstanding, amount of money with consistent raises and cost of living adjustments. What some people will call government waste - other people will call ethical employee treatment... sure there are a lot of other sources of inefficiency outside of your comment - but complaining about overpaid government bureaucrats is essentially advocating for the same race-to-the-bottom that has stagnated wages in large parts of the labour pool.

fallingknife 5y ago
It's not that they're paid too much. It's that they do too little useful work.
- munk-a 5y ago
  A relative of mine works for a state level LEO targeting financial crimes - they've spoken often about how "smaller government" advocating politicians have repeatedly hamstrung the organization when it tries to go after large corporations. They've still managed to do good work going after smaller scale offenders that fleece investors - but I wouldn't put the blame on those employees for doing work you don't find useful... it's mostly up to politics.
  - notreallyserio 5y ago
    That's the whole point. Powerful proponents of small government want to do anything and everything with no consequences. They've duped a lot of less-wealthy suckers into believing that having fewer public services will benefit them somehow, and/or that the only thing standing in the way of personal success is the government. They talk a lot about figures like word count in legislation and other easy to understand concepts (even to folks with low education).
- andybak 5y ago
  I've worked public and private sector and know plenty of people in both and I've not noticed a huge difference in the number of people just coasting vs those who really try to make a difference. What makes you think government is that much worse than the private sector in this regard?
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    > What makes you think government is that much worse than the private sector in this regard? Sure a lot of people coast in the private sector, hiding in the corners of their organizations. But if the business allows too much of that to happen, they go bust. In government, they just go get a tax increase.
    - scaramanga 5y ago
      They do not go bust, they just find ways to bilk their employees, or customers, or the general public, or they find a way to make the government nanny them by shredding regulations or what not. You seem to think that people cannot escape the consequences of their actions, and that consequences arrive swiftly and fairly. But I should think a quick look around the world we actually live in will disabuse you of that notion in short order. Especially when it comes to gigantic centres of power with vast reserves of cash and well protected revenue streams. And if you've worked in any tech company, you've probably already seen that the people who coast do not "hide in corners" they make up an entire class, called "management", especially "middle management", they're front and centre because they have no productive work to do so they can devote the majority of their time to extravagant displays justifying their existence and their elevated positions and compensation.
      - hnick 5y ago
        One place I worked, was a Big Company providing overpriced services to other Big Companies. There were loads of low skilled IT workers, taking too long, making mistakes. Adding a BA and/or PM to drive every project when a competent dev could've done it solo a few years ago. But when you keep getting issues, you keep adding process and now every job is 1000+ hours. But eventually the work got done and we kept getting work because Big Companies buy from other Big Companies. You're not going to risk tendering to a 3 man office who gets it done faster, cheaper, better because if it doesn't happen questions will be asked. Unfortunately there are a lot of talented small businesses out there but they just don't get the work due to this.
- iosvansis 5y ago
  Any govt office, focusing on the US here, seems to have a huge back log and understaffed like the IRS, Immigration services, DMV etc. For e.g. earliest appointment I can get is perhaps a month or two out. A huge backlog and understaffed makes a case of overworked employees. Surely, they are doing work, and so I can only think that by "they do too little useful work", you mean that the work itself that they do is of little use. Are they? Seems like getting my driver's license or tax refund is pretty useful, no?
  - 1123581321 5y ago
    It's actually not sure that they are doing work. There are backlogs because the employees and management are slow, inefficient, and don't make changes that would be made by a private organization either staying up to date or being replaced by a competitor. (There are complexities and counter-examples that moderate this generally true statement.)
    - iosvansis 5y ago
      While I myself am frustrated with the bureaucracy and inefficiencies of govts, but I am not sure if its entirely fair to compare a govt with a private company/org - at least based on the scale they operate on and the profit motive, which make it very different. > It's actually not sure that they are doing work. > (There are complexities and counter-examples that moderate this generally true statement.) Guess, based on that I cannot really have a counter argument here :)
      - 1123581321 5y ago
        > Guess, based on that I cannot really have a counter argument here :) Hah, sorry. If you don't qualify a general statement, you'll get jumped on by people supplying the qualifier for you. I wish it weren't like that. Relative size is a good point, certainly. We can look to several huge companies to see frustrating interaction points (hence my qualifier.)
    - scaramanga 5y ago
      This is just victim-blaming. Defund the organisation to point of total chaos and near-collapse. Blame employees for collapse in work quality. Here are some more generally true statements: Increase profits and improve efficiency by cutting out maintenance tasks and firing the people who do them. Blame accidents or outages on employees, customers, bystanders. People die? Company goes bust? Who cares? Even if there are consequences, the executives/officials to blame have already taken the money and moved on to the next thing. You can't prosecute them or get the money back (unless they were stupendously dumb and got directly involved and stayed on 'til the bitter end and centres of power were so affected that prosecutors can't ignore it: see Theranos, Enron, etc.).
WalterBright 5y ago
I complain about getting a lifetime pension after 20 years of service. A career is 22-65 or 43 years.
- alistairSH 5y ago
  (Most) Bureaucrats don’t get a pension after 20 years, so that’s a bit of a red herring. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Employees_Retirement_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Employees_Retirement...
  - jjeaff 5y ago
    That might be the case for federal, but a lot of state employees like teachers can get substantial retirement after 20 years.
    - buck4roo 5y ago
      Please don't conflate State Public Employee retirement systems with State Teacher retirement systems. They each have their own rules. The teacher retirement systems I know of have rules like (age + years_worked)>=80 ==> full pension benefits. Retiring after 20y will earn you a smaller monthly and is only possible (under that rule-of-80 above) if you start teaching at age 40. Teachers are much more likely to retire after 25+y (age_start=30, age_retire=55).

by munk-a 5y ago

fallingknife 5y ago

It's not that they're paid too much. It's that they do too little useful work.

munk-a 5y ago
A relative of mine works for a state level LEO targeting financial crimes - they've spoken often about how "smaller government" advocating politicians have repeatedly hamstrung the organization when it tries to go after large corporations. They've still managed to do good work going after smaller scale offenders that fleece investors - but I wouldn't put the blame on those employees for doing work you don't find useful... it's mostly up to politics.
- notreallyserio 5y ago
  That's the whole point. Powerful proponents of small government want to do anything and everything with no consequences. They've duped a lot of less-wealthy suckers into believing that having fewer public services will benefit them somehow, and/or that the only thing standing in the way of personal success is the government. They talk a lot about figures like word count in legislation and other easy to understand concepts (even to folks with low education).
andybak 5y ago
I've worked public and private sector and know plenty of people in both and I've not noticed a huge difference in the number of people just coasting vs those who really try to make a difference. What makes you think government is that much worse than the private sector in this regard?
- WalterBright 5y ago
  > What makes you think government is that much worse than the private sector in this regard? Sure a lot of people coast in the private sector, hiding in the corners of their organizations. But if the business allows too much of that to happen, they go bust. In government, they just go get a tax increase.
  - scaramanga 5y ago
    They do not go bust, they just find ways to bilk their employees, or customers, or the general public, or they find a way to make the government nanny them by shredding regulations or what not. You seem to think that people cannot escape the consequences of their actions, and that consequences arrive swiftly and fairly. But I should think a quick look around the world we actually live in will disabuse you of that notion in short order. Especially when it comes to gigantic centres of power with vast reserves of cash and well protected revenue streams. And if you've worked in any tech company, you've probably already seen that the people who coast do not "hide in corners" they make up an entire class, called "management", especially "middle management", they're front and centre because they have no productive work to do so they can devote the majority of their time to extravagant displays justifying their existence and their elevated positions and compensation.
    - hnick 5y ago
      One place I worked, was a Big Company providing overpriced services to other Big Companies. There were loads of low skilled IT workers, taking too long, making mistakes. Adding a BA and/or PM to drive every project when a competent dev could've done it solo a few years ago. But when you keep getting issues, you keep adding process and now every job is 1000+ hours. But eventually the work got done and we kept getting work because Big Companies buy from other Big Companies. You're not going to risk tendering to a 3 man office who gets it done faster, cheaper, better because if it doesn't happen questions will be asked. Unfortunately there are a lot of talented small businesses out there but they just don't get the work due to this.
iosvansis 5y ago
Any govt office, focusing on the US here, seems to have a huge back log and understaffed like the IRS, Immigration services, DMV etc. For e.g. earliest appointment I can get is perhaps a month or two out. A huge backlog and understaffed makes a case of overworked employees. Surely, they are doing work, and so I can only think that by "they do too little useful work", you mean that the work itself that they do is of little use. Are they? Seems like getting my driver's license or tax refund is pretty useful, no?
- 1123581321 5y ago
  It's actually not sure that they are doing work. There are backlogs because the employees and management are slow, inefficient, and don't make changes that would be made by a private organization either staying up to date or being replaced by a competitor. (There are complexities and counter-examples that moderate this generally true statement.)
  - iosvansis 5y ago
    While I myself am frustrated with the bureaucracy and inefficiencies of govts, but I am not sure if its entirely fair to compare a govt with a private company/org - at least based on the scale they operate on and the profit motive, which make it very different. > It's actually not sure that they are doing work. > (There are complexities and counter-examples that moderate this generally true statement.) Guess, based on that I cannot really have a counter argument here :)
    - 1123581321 5y ago
      > Guess, based on that I cannot really have a counter argument here :) Hah, sorry. If you don't qualify a general statement, you'll get jumped on by people supplying the qualifier for you. I wish it weren't like that. Relative size is a good point, certainly. We can look to several huge companies to see frustrating interaction points (hence my qualifier.)
  - scaramanga 5y ago
    This is just victim-blaming. Defund the organisation to point of total chaos and near-collapse. Blame employees for collapse in work quality. Here are some more generally true statements: Increase profits and improve efficiency by cutting out maintenance tasks and firing the people who do them. Blame accidents or outages on employees, customers, bystanders. People die? Company goes bust? Who cares? Even if there are consequences, the executives/officials to blame have already taken the money and moved on to the next thing. You can't prosecute them or get the money back (unless they were stupendously dumb and got directly involved and stayed on 'til the bitter end and centres of power were so affected that prosecutors can't ignore it: see Theranos, Enron, etc.).

WalterBright 5y ago

I complain about getting a lifetime pension after 20 years of service. A career is 22-65 or 43 years.

alistairSH 5y ago
(Most) Bureaucrats don’t get a pension after 20 years, so that’s a bit of a red herring. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Employees_Retirement_System https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Employees_Retirement...
- jjeaff 5y ago
  That might be the case for federal, but a lot of state employees like teachers can get substantial retirement after 20 years.
  - buck4roo 5y ago
    Please don't conflate State Public Employee retirement systems with State Teacher retirement systems. They each have their own rules. The teacher retirement systems I know of have rules like (age + years_worked)>=80 ==> full pension benefits. Retiring after 20y will earn you a smaller monthly and is only possible (under that rule-of-80 above) if you start teaching at age 40. Teachers are much more likely to retire after 25+y (age_start=30, age_retire=55).