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Working for the Dreaded Public Sector By Tony Smith These days, "public sector" is a dirty phrase among we up-and-coming Gen X/Y/Nexters. All of the Republicansâ whining and moaning about the inefficiency and bloatedness of our federal, state and city governments has insinuated itself into our collective subconscious. There is a discernible libertarian streak in the average voter, and we are too "busy" to fill out our Census forms. Ask a group of college graduates where they plan to work these days, and you will find that civil service is quite low on their list of ideal career paths. Unfortunately, allegations of governmental waste have more than a grain of truth. Far too many public sector positions across the country are filled by dead-eyed placeholders who are just waiting for the golden handshake and the boat at the Jersey Shore. The prospect of these types of co-workers makes public sector work extremely unattractive to anyone with anything approaching a pulse. And I don't blame these folks for steering clear. It's soul-numbing to work in this sort of environment. If you don't believe me, maybe a few anecdotes from my personal vault will convince you. For the past six months, I have been working an a Mayoral Cabinet Office in a large East Coast city that will remain Phil--er, un-named. Thankfully, I resigned my position last Thursday, never to set foot in the Municipal Services Building again, I hope. My office was staffed by an Acting Deputy Mayor, three Assistant Deputy Mayors, and two secretaries. I had a cubicle of my own, conveniently located at the intersection of three different offices, a prime location for\ overhearing the conversations of my fellow public servants. On the average workday, two secretaries over in the Street Lighting department provided a nigh-constant banter throughout most of the morning. Their topics ranged far and wide, but always revolved around a central theme:criticism of other, inferior, folks. Life was one big morality play for these two, and they always managed to be shaking their heads and clucking their tongues at one type of transgressor or another. One Thursday, it was folks who gave over too much of their homes to childrens' toys. The following Tuesday, it was women who thought they could keep a man by getting pregnant. But mostly, they mostly stuck to their favorite target: the seemingly endless stream of unemployed male relatives in their lives who thought they could simply raid their refrigerators and crash on their sofas. "They just don't want to work," the clucking pair proclaimed. I longed to yell some sarcastic remark over the maze of cubicles, questioning them as to what they accomplished on the average "work" day. Closer to my desk, the one-woman staff of the Mayor's Commission on People with Disabilities provided an annoyance that proved difficult to tune out: a loud, braying laugh that seemed to assault my ears at least 30 times a day. Words cannot describe the monumental annoyance this laugh could cause. It would last for twenty seconds at a time, and then slowly dissipate into a series of high-pitched grunts. Once in a while, she would even snort. I would silently cringe and consider the possibility of starting my own Commission on People with Barnyard Genes. Alternatively, I would root for her to leave early. I usually got my wish, but her departure would never come soon enough. The Assistant Deputy Mayor across the hall from me (a staffer from my own department, mind you, would sit in her office (a fairly spacious one, with a beautiful view of City Hall) and play Solitaire on the computer. She would become completely engrossed in her games, and rarely emerged except at lunchtime. There was so little movement in her office that her motion-sensor lights would automatically shut off, and remain that way until she left at the end of the day. She also listened to the radio at a volume loud enough to almost drown out the clucking moralizer-ladies. Whenever I knocked on her door to deliver mail, she would snap out of her trance, and greet me with the wild eyes and awkward, clipped phrases of someone who has spent the past month alone in a subterranean cavern, and has just been forcibly removed. My boss, another Assistant Deputy Mayor, spent most of his days reading the more tabloid-ish of the city's two daily newspapers. He tended to take two-hour lunch breaks, I noticed. When my work took me to other city offices, I was less than impressed. In the Tax Department, there is a bank of computers where civilians can look up records on properties within the city. This affords an excellent opportunity to listen to the office banter. Business has taken me to this department three times, and on each occasion the conversation seemed to be focused on food. None of the employees in the tax office are particularly svelte. On my first visit, they were discussing the various sorts of large, cheese-and-mayonnaise-rich sandwiches they most enjoyed. On the second, they were arguing about the relative merits of sour and hard candy. On the third, they complained that it was so hard to avoid snacking during the work day. I felt greasy and overweight simply from sitting in the same room as these people for twenty minutes. If I worked there, I'd be as big as a house, I'm sure. Apparently, pensions for firefighters here in this large East Coast city are based on the hourly pay rate of the last day the retiree worked. So it is common practice for outgoing firefighters to end their careers with a 36-hour shift, in order to be up to triple overtime rates by the time their last day ends. This gives them pensions that dwarf the rates they made while they were actually employed. There's a joke about how many workers in this city's airport it takes to change a light bulb. The answer is three, unfortunately, it's not a joke. Under current work rules, only electricians may handle light bulbs. A carpenter must fetch the ladder, and a janitor must be present in case the bulb falls and breaks on the floor. How does the City raise enough money to pay for these and countless other foibles? Well, it has a whopping 4.6% wage tax, which only encourages those with the means to move to suburbs. Have I convinced you not to work for the public sector yet? Actually, that's exactly the opposite of what I'm trying to do. You see, this situation will never improve without an influx of young, fresh talent. Government will either continue limping along in its current form,inefficient and ill-adapted to the needs of today's society, or it will be gutted by those with valid criticisms but ulterior motives. The new technologies that pervade our lives these days purport to empower us as individuals. "Where do you want to go today?" asks Microsoft. A TV commercial for a headset cell phone tells us that, even though we will appear as though we are babbling to ourselves like lunatics, with this new technology we will be better able to chase today's holy grail, a fat stock portfolio, while off in some solitary locale. We hear countless stories of young, hip hi-tech and financial wizards who make ungodly amounts of money by putting in 14-hour days in non-traditional workplaces where the beer flows freely, and the futons are well-patronized. It's easy to lose sight of (or interest in) the social and political framework within which all of these developments are taking place. You see, although we are as confident in our abilityto make a killing as ever have been, we feel less connected to the political process than at any other point in recent memory. Yet government's impact on our daily lives has not diminished. And its role in the future should be just as crucial, if not more so. It is the only mechanism we possess that is capable of defending our privacy against invasions by high-tech corporations, effectively addressing global environmental problems, and mitigating the sharp inequities caused by shifts in the economy. But it can and will do none of these if it is allowed to remain a wheezing, lumbering, inefficient, Byzantine creature of the past century. We don't need libertarian-leaning "reformers" to privatize our vital social infrastructure. But neither can we allow our government to remain a product of special interest lobbying, corruption inertia, and arcane arrangements whoe purposes have long been forgotten. Despite my discouraging experiences here in the Deputy Mayor's Office, I fully intend to continue working for the public sector. I have seen too many of my peers decide, based on an initial bad experience, that they are not cut out for public service. If these intelligent, well-intentioned City Planning students can't be persuaded to work for government, who can? Hopefully, those of you who have the desire to affect positive change, the intelligence to recognize the difference between a hopeless and a merely difficult situation, and the perseverance to struggle for reform, even if it doesn't come easily. Oh, and the health and vacation benefits aren't bad, either. Tony Smith is a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania. |
