You’re not the boss of me!
Well, yes, actually, I am.
I hear this attitude a lot from government employees, and it always torques me off.
If you run a business, you know damned well that you have to cater to the customer, and that means at the individual customer level. Sometimes that means going far beyond the norm for an individual customer who has gone out of his way to be cranky that day, and sometimes it means losing money on a customer to keep them happy.
In realworldland, this happens all the time. Any time a business is dependent upon it’s customers to make payroll, everyone works a bit harder and goes the extra mile to make sure that each customer is satisfied, and that goes double for the “Problem” customers. Sure, you take care of the good customers, who aren’t assholes, but you pay extra special attention to the problem children, because they make up a good portion of your income as well. Difficult customers are the prodigal sons of free enterprise, to be pampered and coddled and welcomed back into the fold whenever they return. because they will return. And they carry something with them that you will, if you run a business, go through a good deal of shit for. Ca$h.
The larger a company gets, the more likely you are to have a group of people who will be tickled to spend their workday fucking off, but will go out of their way to make sure they look busy and appear to be accomplishing things when anyone important is around. In small business these don’t last long, as a general rule, because sooner or later someone is going to rat them out to the boss- and unless it’s the boss’ layabout nephew, that employee will be looking for a new gig. In bigger businesses, generations of professional layabouts have been warning one another to ‘look busy!” when the boss is headed their way, and by making sure they are never caught fucking off, they have avoided dismissal. Think of this as the Homer Simpson syndrome. Eventually, unions came along and turned fucking off into a lucrative occupation, with great benefits and an excellent retirement package.
In the early days of this country, people understood that civil service was a duty that would not be lucrative or popular, but it had to get done. And because of the poor pay, decent benefits (Which were inexpensive at the time) and modest retirement programs were put in place to incentivise people who would not otherwise choose that sort of job.
Eventually those civil servants learned something. Since they had gotten their gigs, a lot of the time, by being politically connected to someone, they discovered they could be surly, inefficient, lazy, and keep their gigs. Sure, a lot of people would complain, and they basked in the satisfaction of being out of reach of those people whose lives they made hell. And this situation is at it’s very pinnacle today.
Certainly, there are civil servants who do an excellent job, who take their jobs seriously, and what runs in the government runs because of them. Based on the amount of work getting done, though, and the people being employed to do it, it certainly seems that the vast majority is of the “Fuck off even if we get caught because the people who pay our salary can’t do a damned thing about it” variety. Most estimates I have heard put this in the 2/3 range. I expect that is conservative.
The attitude that people can be like that and nobody can do a thing about it is part and parcel of the predominant ills of the nation as it exists now. People want something for nothing, or they want a low-work high dollar job where they can rely on their political connections to protect them from the forces of the market that would otherwise see them out on their ears. if you speak to one of these drones- even the ones who are fastidious about doing their job properly- they will repeat to you over and over again the mantra of their race: you’re not my boss.
yes. Yes I am. The fact that the mass of civil servants ahve not only forgotten this but done everything they can to make it NOT so does not change that. And most people don’t think about the fact that when the “Low information” folks riot, they attack the people they assume are ‘Exploiting” them- the businesses and stores- and protect the government employees they see as being their allies. Most of America is not like this, and if Mr Middle America goes up in arms, he won’t be breaking into Farm and Fleet and stealing tractor parts, he will show up at City Hall and when he gets there he will be looking for the government drones who have made his life hell for a very long time. He will find them, and they will not fare well. This is how it happens, this is how it has always happened. As the government here becomes more and more of a parasite on it’s employers- taxpayers- the employers, the people who foot the bill, who are already very dissatisfied, will become lethally dissatisfied. I’m not your boss? Well, explain that to the mob when they come for you. I’m sure once you tell them that they’ll go away peacefully.
13 comments Og | Uncategorized
“Aincho slave!” is how they usually phrase it Down South. I’m heartily sick of it.
Yeah, things are getting close to the point they are going to find out we ARE their bosses…
I would posit the government we have is catering to its whinist customers. They are the layabout nephew who wants to layabout.
They see the cars we drive and the houses we live in and they want it. That is the definition of greed. You have it, I want it, the parent will make you give it to me.
We have 2 yearolds in the daycare that have made a science of the process.
We are so fxxxxd.
CNN ran an article about the FBI employee mismanagement. Seems they were using all that high tech equipment to spy on their bosses and each other, using the information gleaned for gawd knows what. FBI says that they are among the lowest instances of disciplinary issues of the entire federal government (go figure!)
If it’s happening in the FBI, you can bet your bottom dollar it’s happening at the ATF, HSA, TSA, HUD, SSA, BLRB, FAA et al. They acknowledge employees are using their investigative powers to further their own selfish and/or political agendas.
So knowing this, do you really think they can see far enough ahead of them to see the train wreck that is about to happen?
Absolutely spot on analysis. And it does feel like this country is at the tipping point. Nice piece Og!
They won’t have to explain squat. They’ll put ranks and ranks of cops and soldiers between them and the mob. When the ‘splain’ will come — or be attempted at any rate — is when the cops and soldiers turn on them.
As they will.
‘Cause, you know, THAT’s always happened, too.
M
Government employees work for us, but the customer service department isn’t worth shit.
I wonder why some government programs like NASA or the DoD can do some good work, like the lunar mission or making the best armaments and vehicles in the world, but some are the pits you describe. Some post offices are quite good at what they do, while others are on the event horizon of the black hole of inertia.
Indiana BMV used to be the home of the lazy who acted more annoyed at your coming in than a hipster at an indie cafe in a gentrifying neighborhood, with all the charm of a Soviet run turnip store, and I always got Oscar the Grouch’s twin sister, but since they ended party affiliation (governing party used to get all the BMV profits), my dealings with the BMV have always been efficient and quick, even if not always to my liking (whaddya mean I can’t re-plate my truck at a higher GVW to dodge emissions???). Someone has to know why the good was good in spite of being a government program.
My very first full-time job after college was for the area’s Very Large Municipality in the Mayor’s Office of Operations as computer programmer. My hiring was delayed two weeks because the person who handled the paperwork would periodically (as in once a month or so) to take a few days to not work while at work, he’d literally sit there all day and read the newspaper, letting his work pile up, then he’d decide to honor the city with his brilliance and start working.
I stayed at that job 18 months, took my first consulting gig at a 70% increase in salary, and have never paid union dues again.
No. You’re not. Saying it again doesn’t make it so. Wanting it to be so doesn’t make it so. Thinking it ought to be so doesn’t make it so.
No, it being the fact makes it so.,
I’ll give you one more example, but I know you are stuborn and are not going to change your mind about this.
because I’m correct.
A local police officer (paid by your tax dollars) pulls over a car for speeding.
IS that what I am? a criminal? Answer that before you say another word.
I don’t know. Are you? That’s more than I know about you.
But in any case, the criminal and the non-criminal are both customers to the police officer. Both are entitled to be treated with equal courtesy in the performance of his duties. But it is his duty to the non-criminal which must be satisfied over the objections of the criminal being his boss.
customers to the police officer
No.
Hale: You’re a smarter than average guy. Are you really this convinced of the validity of this position? because it can be easily proven to be false, by a child. Just because something has always been a specific way, does that make it correct? because you got used to something being a specific way, does that make it right? people once believed the earth was flat. Did that ever make the earth flat? Reason dictates this: When someone pays for something, they expect what they pay for to have a specific value, and if that value does not exist, the person who provided that item or service must answer for the lack of value. How can it be that anyone of normal intelligence cannot understand that this needs to be true of governance more than of anything else.?