Slight rant you can call it!

[Bambi]

MAW...lol...aren't we all.
I can see you as a Walmart greeter actually....
Actually MEC has greeters now too (found this out on the weekend) so you could be a "green, eco-friendly" greeter!

MAW as a Wal-Mart greeter is a great idea. Maybe Kat could go get pictures.

And MAW I can assure you that in our little branch of health care there is neither excess nor useless spending. 90% of it goes to salary and the rest to operations.

[Marko]

Also being a freelancer...I can see MAW's POV easily. Who is paying for government workers to take their days off? It's you and me....(isn't it?)
Given that we freelancers also pay and pay and pay...it might be nice if WE also had paid holidays.

In terms how much all this costs....(sorry for the threadjack) I was curious...what is the largest expense that taxpayers pay for?
I was thinking about this the other day...
How much does medicare cost?
How much does the Canada pension plan cost
How much does unemployment insurance cost

and do those costs pale in comparisson to how much it costs to run the government itself...all the salaries of likely hundreds of thousand of employees in all departments....ok

[Bambi]

well the truth is that everyone is paying for everyone. I also pay taxes so am contributing to my own salary. When I buy a product I am paying towards many people's salary as well.

Picking on government workers is almost too easy. Most work very hard and are underpaid compared to those that work in the corporate world. However, it provides more time with families so in that regard, it's worth it.

[Marko]

Most work very hard and are underpaid compared to those that work in the corporate world. However, it provides more time with families so in that regard, it's worth it.

I cannot speak with authority about any particular government worker, but i would highly highly doubt that most work very hard.....I'm gonna get myself in trouble....but....there is no real reason for most government workers to work hard. Why? because it's Very difficult, if not impossible to fire a full time government worker that is mediocre. Their union is too strong. They may get transferred to a new department many times during their careers but they won't ever get fired for being mediocre. If there is no serious consequence for doing mediocre work, VERY few people will step up to be better than average.

I'm sure you are NOT one of these workers bambi, but I would be very very very surprised if you disagree with the above premise.

My (past) experience with unions and unionized workers is that the majority or my colleagues did mediocre work at best. Many did horrible work...but they never beat anyone up, or sexually harassed anyone so they could not get fired. I see no reason at all why government workers should differ from this pattern on average.

[Iguanasan]

As a government worker I have to agree with you, Marko. There is a small percentage. About 5% maybe, that work quite hard to keep everything running well. There are about 15% that keep the wheels moving with a good effort, 60% that do just enough to keep everyone happy and 20% that are just complete and utter deadwood. This is one of the reasons I left government service 9 years ago for a career in the private sector.

But after 7 1/2 years of chasing the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow, working 10, 12, 14 hour days and only a few days off a year I decided that a change of career was a good idea and I wanted to do something that let me clock out at the end of the day and not take my work home with me.

That turned out to be another government job However, for the 7.5 hours a day I am at the office I am productive and I try to worry less about what others do. This keeps me sane and employed

[Michaelaw]

A little observation from me over the past ten years. When I work with corporate conferences the attendees are attentive, organized, well dressed for the event and seem to know exactly what's going on through the number of days the event lasts. A conference put on by CUPE is completely the opposite. If you invited all the homeless to meet in a posh downtown hotel you'd have almost the same dress code as a CUPE conference. Even with signs pointing the way to every event and function, I spend all day being stopped by attendees..."Where's lunch?" "Where's the Rainbow room?" "where's the washrooms? It's as though they need to be given instructions for every move they make. Corporate function attendees might ask if they can get photo copies made at the business center but that's about it, they know where they're eating, where their next function room is and when not to wear that T-shirt with the big dayglow pot leaf on it

[Bambi]

I don't know. Maybe my agency is exceptional or maybe it's because it's in healthcare but 99% of the staff I supervise work incredibly hard. In fact I get after them about working unpaid overtime (no budget for that ) but they put in the time for free of their own free will.

As for overpaid. They have the same amount of education as physicians and get less then half of the salary.

of course we're just recently unionized so perhaps it will change. I am not unionized as I am management. But when I was I still worked really hard.

I see the same in hospitals. there is deadwood, no question but they are outnumbered by those who work hard.

And IMO I don't see any beauty in someone working 70 hours a week so she can own a BMW and a yacht.

In the end we pick our careers and there's good and bad in all. As Iggy said, we need to worry about how hard we work and not everyone else because that will drive you nutty. There are consequences to being self-employed. But you chose it and so I think that there must be some nice things about it. Whether you get weekends off or not.

[Greg_Nuspel]

The only government workers that deserve to be picked on are the politicians. Put them on a spit and roast them and I'll brush on the sauce.

[Michaelaw]

I'll bring the beer

[casil403]

I dunno...while I can see your points here I have to add that people such as Nurses, Therapists, Teachers, military personel overseas fighting are all government workers and I defy anybody to tell me these people are lazy and overpaid.

Another one...my Mum who worked as a purchasing agent for the government for years had to deal with all the verbal shoite and abuse from angry people (many of them freelancers I might add) who lost the contract they had bid on...99.99% of the time it was the bidder's fault to not practicing due diligence in making sure the paperwork was properly completed both in full and on time.
Of course never their fault though...it was always that the Government/my Mother was corrupt and dishonest and they would direct all their anger and abuse at her.
And she was not the only one in her department I might add.

So see their are 2 sides to the coin. Please be careful when pigeonholing/stereotyping people.