<p>Consolation, of course there were exceptions but data show that we are now working more hours for less. That’s not really debatable. I can’t link now because I’m on my phone but Google can back me up.</p>
<p>
Absolutely. Gov’t jobs (federal/state/sometimes local) jobs are something else. Overly-generous pensions, health insurance plans that are a bargain for the employee/dependents, questionable work ethic, etc. </p>
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<p>And we are among the worst for giving/taking vacation time off. No wonder we are so stressed out.</p>
<p>Both of my kids, millenials, have incredible work ethic as do their friends. If some younger adults have a bit of a skeptical view of their employers, and want to make sure that as employees, they are getting what they need out of a work situation (not just pay, but opportunities for career growth), good for them. May we remember that many of these young adults saw their parents laid off at what would have been the peak of their careers as those parents became too expensive for the employer. So, for some young adults, there may be less loyalty, and I think that is realistic and healthy. </p>
<p>On another vein, many government workers work hard … all pay taxes. I work for a government vendor, not directly for a public agency, but similar. Yes, we have a pension, but it is instead of social security, and the end amounts are very similar to social security. Yes, some public agencies have public pensions and social security but no company match to a 401k or similar retirement vehicle. At any rate, I work very hard for relatively pay on behalf of a vulnerable population.I’m not complaining about the pay, or hard work, etc; it’s what I chose, and it has its rewards in terms of helping people. But the lack of respect gets hard to take after a while. And in my job, people with advanced degrees are making so little money that they have to apply for reduced lunch for their kids (if single parents). People have left because of this, so note that not all government or publicly backed work is overpaid, underworked. I’m tired of all government workers being cast as publicly paid waistrels. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I know people in the private sector, whose companies send them and their significant others on expensive junkets to the Bahamas or other luxury locations as rewards for having done well during a particular quarter or year. Some of those companies may get public or government contracts, BTW, or are beneficiaries of tax loopholes for corporations, so also get benefits. Somehow, though, corporate workers are characterized as moral, hard working, and productive, and government or publicly-paid workers are characterized as parasites. Interesting that in my job, we don’t even get free coffee, and that is as it should be, since we’re on the public dime. But, just as an example</p>
<p>
Well thats a bit of an overgeneralization.</p>
<p>Around here, most every group (doctors, lawyers, teachers, ORMs, URMs, you name it…) feels they are being bashed. Welcome to the club 
That said (very tongue in cheek) no one is swiping all government workers with such a broad brush. I am self employed. No one pays me corporate matching or provides perks and benefits. DS#2 left his company after 2 years, where he was seriously overworked and underpaid, and because he wasnt fully vested they didn’t pay a penny of the corporate matching into his 401K. </p>
<p>A relative was a GS 14 or 15 (I forget), has a VERY sweet pension and guaranteed good health insurance (I think its for his entire family, and for life, IIRC) as part of his separation package. Guess the grass is always greener.</p>
<p>This seems apropos:</p>
<p><a href=“Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - 2014-09-06”>Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal - 2014-09-06;
<p>;)) </p>
<p>notrichenough, I love the cartoon!!</p>
<p>@jym: see post # 81-- No broad brush strokes there? </p>
<p>I guess we should just close all air traffic control, fire all cops, all public school teachers, all fda and environmental protection agency workers, all courts, all dmv,etc. Absolutely, get rid of all military personnel and all military contractors, since they are public sector workers. Just get rid of them (kill them all or at least kill their jobs) because, according to a bunch of you, not a one of these thousands and thousands and thousands (millions? :-)) of workers provide any service or value, and not a one of them works hard… </p>
<p>There are hard working and lazy people in all sectors. There are perks in many sectors (whether it is a stable pension or a junket to the Bahamas or corporate writeoffs). Small business owners, yes that is extremely hard, with the perk maybe being that you are your own boss, with the chance to grow a company that is your own. Look, my dad came from a country in which the wealthy lived very well with private schools, private security, private roads. There was a tiny middle class that chugged along, and the majority of the population was subsistence (so, third world). If a kid’s parents couldn’t afford a doctor for a serious illness, too bad, baby died. If they couldn’t afford to pay for schooling, they stayed illiterate .I don’t glorify government or government jobs or government workers. But, despite the problems, at least our society is a functional society, and government plays a role in that (not to say it couldn’t improve).</p>
<p>. I think the work world is particularly tough right now, with the ‘do more with less’ mantra. One person doing the job of two or three people for the pay of one, with largely flat wages. That is true for many middle class jobs. The working classes have seen their jobs outsourced or moved to part-time work (e.g., retail) in which workers cannot even predict their schedules week to week. Many full-time professional jobs have been moved to contract work positions, which are temporary and without benefits. They may provide more freedom, but also more economic stress.</p>
<p>I will be glad to see millenials gainfully employed, and I wish them much luck in their career growth, wherever that takes them. We can’t all be CEOS or own our own businesses. We still do need nurses, and lawyers, and teachers, and electricians, professors, engineers etc-- and yes, some people who work in for-profit sectors, some who work in the public sphere, and others in the non-profit world. And I for one wish them the best in whatever sector or sectors each individual young person chooses. I don’t wish for them the disrespect though that people who work in the public sector face (and especially teachers)…</p>
<p>Well,time to start the lawyer and doctor bashing again I guess 
We have all been targets of it.</p>
<p>Now that said, I will never forget when I worked as a low level staff person at a VA during grad school. I am a small person and I was carrying a large and heavy stack of charts. I asked one of the nurses if he could please get the door for me. He looked at me, said “I’m on break”, and just sat there. OK, N of 1. But still… And if you are taking suggestions, yes, wiping our local DMV slate clean and rehiring would be a good start :)</p>
<p>romani, people working more for less is not a new trend. And we are still working too.</p>
<p>What has obviously gotten dramatically worse in the last couple of decades is the number of people who are being deliberately restricted to short hours by employers who wish to avoid paying benefits. </p>
<p>BTW, I didn’t receive a dime from the retirement funds I “earned” from my first few employers, because I wasn’t vested. The laws have changed since then. Also BTW, when I was a Federal government employee I did not receive any benefits at all: no health insurance, no paid sick time or vacation, nothing.</p>
<p>But, do you really mean rehiring, or just actually prefer to let anarchy rein. If all government workers are worthless, and therefore anyone who applies to work in public sector is worthless, well then, those jobs should all be eliminated. I personally am not a fan of sheer anarchy. Look, you had a bad experience with a VA nurse. I can tell you that in my workplace people consistently help out one another, be it on a work need, or on a personal need. Not necessarily representative of public sector work places, but an amazing group of smart and caring people overall. But, so one VA nurse was more concerned about taking a break than helping out another human. But, what about a lazy, unproductive, or just plain mean retail worker, banker, real estate agent? Those people exist too, but somehow that fact doesn’t seem to lead others to state that all real estate agents, bankers, electricians, engineers should be fired. How many times do we read about CEOs who lay off staff, often the most experienced people, lose money for their companies, yet still make off like bandits with millions and millions in their pockets despite their failing performance? If the companies and they profited due to corporate tax loopholes, they are in a sense welfare recipients also. Never mind, society reveres the powerful and so they can be real jerks to their staff, to their shareholders, but somehow the bored DMV worker is going to be seen as a greater threat to society. Even problems like the Exon Valdes do not cause people to state we should not have any oil refineries or tankers or workers on such. And it shouldn’t, because that would be ridiculous. And, obviously, there are great CEOs that successfully lead their companies, make money for their shareholders, and actually also provide good corporate citizenship. My wish for you-- a child who grows up and works in public service, so that you might reconsider this deep disdain. On the other hand, I take it back. No young adult deserves to be on the receiving end of disregard, hatred, and disgust toward their profession and toward them as human beings, much less aimed at them from their parent.</p>
<p>wow. mamita, take a deep breath. Who said all government workers were worthless? </p>
<p>jym-- You yourself are essentially intimating, as are others, that people who work in public sector jobs are all or mostly all lazy (e.g., VA nurse), should all be fired (DMV), or are a plague to society by virtue of double dipping or other forms of unfair behavior. If a corporation fails to pay one penny of taxes in the US due to legal loopholes, well, that’s ok, because corporations make money so that we all can have jobs (in China) --and, it was legal. Yes, there are boring and irritating government jobs, and most states are enforcing some version of pension reform, to delimit legal double dipping or pensions that are too large, totally fair. But when one group gets continually vilified (teachers, county nurses, social workers, cops, firefighters, etc–because their paychecks come from public monies, which by the way, includes these workers’ taxes, I wonder how this vilification is different from racism or antisemitism or any other form of blaming one group for society’s ills. And, I do worry that people with these types of attitudes will start mass shootings or bombings at government facilities, schools, and other places due to the current hatred of any type of public servants that some sectors of society echo to one another. Think of Pol Pot and the Khmer Rouge – whole groups of people, primarily educated people and professionals, were slaughtered due to their background, even if they themselves were not wealthy. This is an extreme example of hatred based in part on professional background. So, to break your echo chamber, I chimed in. Now, I am chiming out, because I am usually a well-reasoned person wanting discourse, rather than to participate in hate bashing of any type of human being (by race, disability, ethnicity, religion, or profession). </p>
<p>"@jym: see post # 81-- No broad brush strokes there?"</p>
<p>Okay, that’s one post. No doubt the poster meant to say SOME government jobs. Not all. We have all heard of some of the scams that govt workers have pulled off, sometimes seen them firsthand. But I certainly don’t think that’s the majority of govt workers. The unions should be ashamed of some of the deals they’ve negotiated, bankrupting some cities, but they aren’t. It’s all about getting as much as they can, regardless of the damage. But that is a minority of govt workers. And that’s what makes the news.</p>
<p>really-- it would be helpful to step back and take a deep breath. Cant speak for others but you are severely overreacting to my comments about my experiences. I am not intimating anything–just sharing some frustrating experiences. Really. Chill. And fyi the DMV was an attempt at humor. One of us missed that.</p>
<p>if you are usually well reasoned, likening this to pol pot or the Khmer Rouge. is seriously over the top.</p>
<p>Busdriver’s post is well reasoned and well written. And makes for an open dialogue. Wild accusations, overstatements and analogies to mass murderers is, well, ridiculous.</p>
<p>Come on jym, it’s a bit disingenuous to say “nobody is saying all govt workers are lazy, but hey, let me tell you about this one lazy govt worker I once knew, but I’m not implying anything, nope, not me.” Think about how that would play if you were making a comment about some group that it’s less acceptable to bash.</p>
<p>I don’t personally hold any brief for public sector workers, who share the same good and bad traits as their private sector counterparts. But I see the govt worker bashing as something that’s being encouraged by those who would like to see the social safety nets provided by government programs dismantled. It’s in their interests for the average person to think of government workers as lazy slackers. I’ve heard conservative politicians say, literally, that government has NEVER created a single job. I have no idea who they think is running all the programs mamita mentioned.</p>
<p>And speaking as a lawyer, I hardly ever hear any lawyer-bashing going on. Maybe 20 years ago, but lawyer jokes are pretty old nowadays. And doctor bashing? What even is that?</p>
<p>Nonsense. If you or others going ballistic want to jump to wild overgeneralized conclusions from my or others’ personal experiences, well cant help you with that. Go for it. We all share an experience or two or three that we (or our cousins or friends of former roommates or bosses HS buddies) have had… all the time. Its not interpreted as a sweeping overgeneraliztion of the general populus. That argument seems to show a different kind of bias.</p>
<p>And if you havent seen lawyer bashing or Dr bashing or teacher bashing or ORM or URM bashing around these parts, well you need to do a bit more reading.</p>
<p>The difference is, dustypig, is that you and me are paying for the govt worker. If a private industry company wants to give their employees massive pensions, create mounds of busy work, be inefficient, earn salaries not commensurate with their work, it doesn’t affect the consumer too much. The consumer can choose to go elsewhere if the company raises their prices. If the companies bottom line is depleted too much, they go bankrupt or out of business. But when someone creates inefficient government positions, and people are overpaid (whether through salary or pension), we pay whether we want to or not. That is why people are outraged over public sector abuses.</p>
<p>I do not think govt pensions should disappear if the city/county/state can afford them, but realize that the majority of private pensions have. So naturally people who have lost them, or never had them can get aggravated about paying for people to retire early, or with overly high pensions.</p>
<p>Everything makes more sense when you ask the question, “Who is paying?”</p>
<p>Well said, busdriver. Thank you for being the voice of reason. Was beginning to wonder if/when someone would be invoking Godwin’s law in this thread. Pol pot and the Khmer Rouge is close enough.</p>
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<p>Oh boy, have you even been around for the past few years? What about the massive bank bailout that happened after overwhelming evidence that there was either incompetence or corruption at the highest levels? What choice did the consumer have there? Who owns your mortgage right now? What do you think of their corporate practices?</p>
<p>Can you choose to get your utilities elsewhere? </p>
<p>Did you know that only 10 companies own nearly every product you buy at the grocery store? I’m talking about brand-name products there; if we’re talking about the meat in the meat department, it probably came from one of only 4 companies. The idea of true competition in the market nowadays is pretty dead.</p>
<p>And here’s the REAL difference between the public and the private sector: the public sector DOES have accountability. Anyone can submit a FOIA request and get government info about how much govt workers are paid. You can’t do that with a private company. If I think my municipal government is spending too much on parks and not enough on police, I can go down to city hall and make a stink, and if my stink is loud enough I will get listened to. If you think a private company will put up with me trying to do that, you’re mistaken.</p>
<p>But you, and many other people, think it’s all okay because somehow we have the power of the consumer! Tell me, what are the corporate practices of the companies who manufactured the last, say, 10 things that you bought recently? Did you research them before you made your purchases? If you did, you’re in the rare minority. And even if you did and decided to boycott that product, your lone boycott would not make any difference. You’d have to get others involved and start a movement – but even then, most companies manage to survive those boycotts. Nestle has been the target of a boycott for years, but they seem to be doing fine. </p>