Apparently, this makes me:
- lazy
- unsuitable for to work in the private sector ever again
- guaranteed not to be accepted onto temping agency books
- looked down upon by private sector colleagues in the same job roles
- behind the times
- incapable of maintaining my own self development
- incapable of keeping up with the 'real hard working people' over in the private sector
I work for a start up once. It had about 15 people or so when I started. 1 person in Payroll, no Finance, no HR, a few internal ICT support guys. No management structure to speak of. I started as a 1st line support technician, I loved my job and I worked my ass off. I worked so damn hard I blew the targets out of the water.
2 years later the company employed 500 people, had a HR, Finance and internal support team. It was contemplating floating and investment was flying in. There was a proper management team, internal training and support and a fierce team spirit which saw us all drinking, socialising and in some cases, my case actually, living together with some of the people we worked with. I was a Team Leader in my early 20's managing 15 1st line technicians and a 2nd line tech too.
A year later the dot com bubble burst. The owner is now being investigated, quietly, for fraud, judging by emails I've received from American reporters a few years ago.
I've worked in the public sector since about 2003. 7 years. I've never been promoted above Administrator. I don't drink with my colleagues. I don't receive bonuses, or training to develop me in new directions, only to make me more useful to the organisation. There is no rest room to go and sit in with quiet music and pool tables. There is rarely laughter, there is no money, there is no opportunity of promotion because no one leaves the public sector until they retire or they're forced to.
Don't tar me and every other person who you know who works in the public sector with the same brush. Some of us have work ethics. Some of us don't go home at 5pm on the dot. Some of us will work until 10pm if asked and most of us for the kind of pay you wouldn't even get out of bed for.
I chose to be here because I believed I could make a difference. But don't you dare be so arrogant as to presume you are better than me because you work over in private.
This post brought to you, not by any one person, or conversation, or situation, but from years, and I do mean years of feeling like a second class citizen for having some ethics I wanted to work by.
Aye, you are so right. We should never judge anyone until we know them well enough, and even then we shouldn't judge, or tar them with the same brush. I have known a few like you. But I also know a few of the other sort. The jobsworths. The ones who aren't paid to think. I can suss them out fairly well now, but I always give them the benefit of the doubt until proved wrong.
ReplyDeletekeep rockin. don't let the b*s drag you down.
chris
I really, really feel for you. Having just left the public sector myself, I have an inkling of how you must be feeling.
ReplyDeleteHowever, your post makes me ask this question: if you felt you could make a difference and you can't why do you stay? Moreover, since you have demonstrated that you *can* make a difference in the private sector, why do you allow yourself to waste your talent?
I really, really feel for you. Having just left the public sector myself, I have an inkling of how you must be feeling.
ReplyDeleteHowever, your post makes me ask this question: if you felt you could make a difference and you can't why do you stay? Moreover, since you have demonstrated that you *can* make a difference in the private sector, why do you allow yourself to waste your talent?
A difficult post to respond too. To do so effectively requires separating the individual from the role.
ReplyDeleteSadly the attitudes to local authority workers are not entirely without foundation, as I am sure you can testify to.
What you highlight is probably something of which we are guilty of at some level. Which is judging people without knowing them.
I was at an academic event last year at which every one in the corporate world of software was described as "a shark driving a porsche".
Generalisations happen. All we can do is buck the trend.
Great post! Here are some people who'd appreciate you (not) - http://wp.me/pYgKk-nY
ReplyDeleteWhy is this an 'Us and Them' issue, all of a sudden? When did 'You' (i.e. me, us the people who read your blog) become your enemy?
ReplyDeleteDuring the seven or eight months I've been following you on Twitter,and clicking through to tyhis blog from time to time, you have tweeted regularly about the frustrations of your current job. About people who patronise you, who don't take you seriously, who judge you by your job grade rather than your talent and the quality of your ideas, who make unreasonable demands on you, who ignore your advice and don't appreciate your hard work.
I got the impression these people were colleagues in your current job. That you were doing the best you could to uphold an ethics that wasn't shared by everybody the organisation. And I wasn't judging you on that; I was reading a personal narrative about a committed individual who was trying to do good things in a big, flawed organisation. "All views expressed here are my own" and that. But now it seems like the problem lies with 'Us'.
I'll get me coat...
@all - many thanks for the understanding. And I acknowledge totally that there are jobsworths. Totally. And should have said that, perhaps, in my post.
ReplyDeleteGordon - the problem is not 'you', the problem is Joe Public. I could even go further than that and perhaps say Daily Mail readers though I'm not sure. The problem is people who judge all public sector workers to be the same, i.e. lazy and I thought I'd made that perfectly clear - if you don't think all public sector workers are lazy, then this post is not aimed at you.
I know Louise and with that comes my gratitude that there are people like her being paid by my council tax. She certainly does make a difference; a difference that also gives great improvements. I am most definitely private sector and would happily employ Louise if I had a position that would keep her busy for 70 hours a week or so and keep her challenged. Keep up the good work LouLouK.
ReplyDeleteOne problem with local gov'ts image to the ordinary person is that compared to the private sector, getting rid of the people who don't make a difference in these organisations is nigh-on impossible thanks to the stupid ethic that has built up around being a local government employee.
ReplyDeleteThe "perks" (i.e. the idea that a job in it is a job for life, "gold-plated" pensions whatever you take that to mean - I take it simply to mean a good final salary pension scheme, super-flexible flexi-time, redundancy packages), enjoyed by LG employees are generally MUCH better than the private sector yet LG employees still have higher rates of sick-leave than the private sector.
I think people are jealous of LG employees, and to be honest I think they are rightly so.