I have been a provincial silly servant for 30 years. I have seen governments come and go and many costly re-organizations that would magically make our debt go away. I have seen wage roll-backs, hiring freezes and wholesale slashing of jobs.
We get told from time to time that the cupboard is bare and that we must do more with less. The size of the civil service keeps diminishing and yet there seems to be a constant supply of managers, upper-managers, directors and executive directors. We have once again been told by our current government (the orange ones) that we must make a 10% cut to the ranks – oh the orange ones – the friends of the common man and the civil service, what happened to you?
I would like to make a suggestion- START CUTTING THE FAT-CAT USELESS MANAGEMENT, say by 30 percent. GET RID OF THE CONSULTANTS and get down to the business of serving the public with good hard working people. Not all “silly” servants are fat-cats, many of us work hard for wages that are BARELY above minimum wage.
If the government wants to make cuts then they should cut the bullshit and start cutting the fat where it really is – at the top.
—silly servant
This article appears in Nov 4-10, 2010.
I also worked for the province years back and agree wholeheartedly with everything you’ve said. Competent management is as rare as hens’ teeth and some senior staff are appalling. I know of one person who is paid over $100,000 to do a job he constantly fucks up and his minions have to correct his bonehead mistakes, including my Hub Unit. He has been complained about but to no avail. Upper management didn’t want to hear it. And look at CNS – Communications Nova Scotia – they’ve got over 50 people in that department and none of them earn less than $50,000 a year, most in the $70,000 range. Why the fuck does the government need so many PR people?? Listen, SS, I could write a book about these wasteful cocksuckers and maybe one day I will. They are all the same, regardless of stripe. Troughers one and all.
Free at last, free at last.
Thank God almighty, Baz is free at last?
I agree about the managers…for the most part. A minority are worth saving – they have tried valiantly to make necessary changes and have been suppressed or ignored.
But let’s not get all starry-eyed about the salt of the earth, hard-working, underpaid toiling masses either. If you want to be fair then maybe you should mention 20 days paid vacation per year after only 6 years of service (25 paid days after 16 years service), having a pension plan *at all*, some bargaining units having very dubious flex-time schemes that basically award them a day off every 3 weeks (so another 17 days of paid vacation per year), no shortage of incompetent people who can’t be fired, and a fair few people who have effectively refused to work and cannot be fired.
There isn’t a doubt in my mind that the provincial civil service could be slashed tomorrow by 25% and we could still get all our work done. Slash the managers by 50%, and cut the peons by about 20%, that’ll average out to about 25%.
Of course you are 100 percent correct and EVERYONE in NS knows it. Its been this way for ever and always will be. People have been saying this for DECADES. Nothing new. It will never change. Incompetence is the hallmark of life in NS. If we got rid of ‘the fat’ who would we be? Why would we exist? We are proud of no service, welfare for the rich, and zero growth. Move to NL. These people work for a living and are COMPETENT in a way that NSians only read about in text books. Once you get the perspective, you see how EMBARASSING it is. Ottawa needs to shut this shit down. Love the way we LIvE!!
so tell us silly servant, did they get rid of you? probly, cause you are here bitching, or maybe you really are just pissed. either way, i do agree with you, that a lot should be set adrift.
There definitely should be cuts, especially for the top heavy management in place – i.e. why in the fuck do we need a Protocol Office? Or a Lieutenant Governor for that matter? There is so much bullshit spending in government that outsiders never see, ridiculous stuff, especially when you reflect on past Community Service Ministers with cappacino machines in their office. Every department should be scrutinized and evaluated by the Auditor General. That’s the only guy in government who is doing his job and a fucking good one at that.
The provincial AG and his staff do a good job individually, except that with limited staff and time they can only scrutinize the operations in sufficient detail of a miniscule portion of government. Furthermore, as you might expect, bureaucrats have developed tactics for obfuscating and deflecting OAG audits.
I’ve seen OAG auditors work on site before – managers of the unit being audited carefully isolate the auditor(s) from the rank and file so they can’t talk to them casually. And one popular method for wasting the auditor’s time is the paper bomb: give them practically EVERYTHING – so much raw data on paper and in electronic form, that the auditor(s) can’t reasonably be expected to make heads nor tails of it.
The OAG also suffers from not being adequately skilled in all areas. It’s not capable – yet – of carrying out truly effective IT performance reviews, because the auditors are classically CA types, oriented to financials. It’s highlighted in the OAG’s 2010-11 business plan to improve capabilities in this area. However, until improvements are made in this regard you can safely assume that tens of millions of dollars are wasted by the province every year on unnecessary or badly managed IT projects or programs.
Point taken, Realist. Good post.
Ivan – not yet – November 15th is the day, save the Martin Luther King speech until then.
Now this is a valid bitch. I agree with you, OP, and extend that thought to A LOT of other organizations. On top of THAT most at the top haven’t done the work at the bottom and make all these decisions that, while they might LOOK ok on paper, don’t work in reality. That’s why I have no opposition to starting relatively low in an organization and working my way up because in the end, when I’m up there, I’ll know what the realities are at the bottom and know how to properly manage said realities because I’ve been there. A LOT of university grads, for example, in professional studies, again, for example, don’t have this mind set and expect a CEO position right at graduation. IT’s ridiculous!!!
Roger that Bill/Ben/Baz – Got a big smiley face for ya for 11-15 on my Scarface 2010 calendar. >: )
You’ve been government paid for thirty years, on the inside so-to-speak, but yet, still expect the bureaucracy to be bound by logic and common sense? Sorry my dear, but it’s time to finally take the red pill.
The thought of staying with the government for 30 years (I had ten on the inside, close to the action) would make me swandive into Halifax Harbour to do my best imitation of a boulder. I still know a lot of insiders and, believe me, it’s far worse than you can imagine. You could put a duck in any MLA’s chair and he’d be fudging the figures on his cracker allowance in record time.
Next election, the duck gets my vote.
At least you can eat the duck.
http://image.rakuten.co.jp/iki/cabinet/kam…
nom nom nom
i think the bitches are hungry today, especially for hot soupy/stewy/meaty stuff…snarf
Turbaconducken is by far the best poultry-based meal ever.
oh lord
I looked at the picture of a Turbaconducken and thought, wow that looks…heavy…. Then I read what it was…. I am not sure how to describe what I felt.
Bahaha I’ve never had it myself. I just know that it sounds amazing and that I want to try it before I die.
Just before you die, you mean. I mean, the thing sounds like you would get cursed by the Angry Birds if you eat it.
lol That’s a risk I’m willing to take. 🙂
😀 you brave, brave bitcher.
Some acquaintance came up to me a few years back (one of the swivel servants I worked with moons ago) and proudly told me how she shoplifted a turducken out of some grocery store – holy fuck, she’d have to walk like her uterus was resting on a rollerskate.
YES YES A THOUSAND TIMES YES!!! I too am a silly servant and am sick of this bullshit. They cut staff and we are expected to pick up the slack while they hire more managers who do not work the front lines? Add to the list of people that have got to go: the co-workers who do nothing. They play computer games 80% of the day, they are on facebook, take a 2 hour lunch and 45 minute coffee breaks – you know the ones. Get them out from under the protection of the union and fire their asses. Replace them with people who want to work. They are hard to find, but they’re out there. The union is the biggest waste of money ever because they do nothing.
Wait until Joanie hears that statement, it’s off to the gulag for you.
My late wife used to work for the Government and we were at a function and I was asked if I too worked for the Government, I replied “no, I have a real job”
Javagirl, right fucking on. I was non-union and we were the people who worked our collective pucker buttons off while some union trolls sat on their fat, padded asses and complained while they did fuck all. To this day, when I see the president of the NSGEU, I want to vomit with rage. Talk about troughers supported by another bunch of raging troughers. My Hub-Unit is union but only because he had no choice. There is hardly a day when he doesn’t curse them up, down and sideways. Like he says, it’s not who you know in government, it’s who you blow.