Lately, people sure have been bellyaching about Chairman Maobama’s many socialized intentions for their tax dollars. People don’t seem to want universal healthcare, or bank bailouts, or government nationalization of the auto industry.
But before we start tackling those big issues, I think we need to go back to the beginning and take some baby steps as we walk through how our tax dollars are being spent — like employing slackers.
I remember when I got out of the service and returned home. One of the first jobs I tried in my return to civilian life was as a Security Guard at the U.S. Census Bureau in Jeffersonville, IN. The job was simple — walking around, relieving guards who checked employees' ID cards, so they, the guards, could go to lunch. It also let me see all of the various work areas at the Bureau.
The Census Bureau has a lot of unique machines, made especially for their mission. And when those machines break, special parts have to be ordered and people can’t work. Do they send those people home? Nope. They pay them to sit around, playing cards, reading books and chatting on the phone.
Chatting on the phone instead of doing the job taxpayers are paying you to do isn’t confined to just Federal government either. I worked for years in County Government, and our receptionist was — and still is, I hear — a master of slackery. She sits with her back to the lobby, hunched over her phone, a hand held up to cover her mouth as she conspiratorially shares gossip with the other old biddies in the building (when she isn’t actually hanging out in their offices, doing it in person). And being in local government, she’s heavy into politics and involved in a lot of elections. Twice, I overheard her planning campaign functions when she should be working for her elected official — not other folks seeking election. This was in between all the dozen or so personal calls she would take during the day. It's a wonder any office calls ever got answered.
As if all that wasn’t enough, the receptionist also was a master at watching TV at her desk when she was supposed to be working — a small black and white 5″ TV tucked under the counter (what will she do now, that Analog is dead?). She also liked to come in a half hour early and then leave work early as well. Unfortunately, instead of working that early half hour, she would sit in the break room sipping coffee (and gossiping), or paint her nails at her desk, ignoring those before-hours calls from the public.
This still isn’t all the slackery that goes on in government. There’s the half-hour smoke breaks where nicotine addicts sneak away and congregate in forbidden basement corridors, rotting their lungs and gossiping. There’s the hour-and-a-half lunch hours, where gaggles of female workers go shopping instead of eating. For hourly employees, they have to make this up. Salaried workers however seem to magically neglect that 40 hours they agreed to work.
For men, there’s the afternoon golf game in the summer, or yakking about some ball game they saw last night for a half hour in the morning. Oh, sure, stress at work requires a little goofing off now and then, or those government employees will go crazy. Most believe they are underpaid, after all.
And I’m sure these kind of things go on in private industry. But that’s private. Employers could view it as an unofficial benefit — overlooking slackerism as a way to say thanks to people that maybe work hard at other times. But what about government?
Has our government been working hard for us? Should we, as taxpayers, be content that our elected officials and their staffs blow off early to go to the track, or go home for an early start on that three day weekend? We don’t have a choice when it comes to paying our taxes. And the only say we get in the performance of elected officials is on election day. That just doesn’t seem fair.
The Federal government has a big program targeted at eliminating Fraud, Waste and Abuse. They have hotlines that Federal employees can call with money saving ideas, and they give out bonuses for folks whose ideas work. Why then is there not a push to eliminate slackers? All levels of government are constantly preaching about sexual harassment in the work place. So, why not hammer slackeral avoidance on government employees as well?
Here’s my idea to reduce Fraud, Waste and Abuse in the government workplace: cut the dead wood, and put my tax dollars to work, instead of at work.
I’m a sucker for online contests. I enter them all the time. Despite the fact I never win anything. And every time I lose, even though I fully expected it, I get mad. Then I begin to wonder- was any prize really given out?