I didn't say it was a justification for dossing in the Public Sector. I am just fed up of some of the smug private sector workers on here who seem to be under the illusion that you're all wonderful and inefficiencies and laziness only occur in the public sector. It's just not true and, as I said, shopping around doesn't seem to noticeably reduce the crap level of service and standard of goods that we so often experience.
French Civil Servant suspended for telling truth.
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I didn't say it was a justification for dossing in the Public Sector. I am just fed up of some of the smug private sector workers on here who seem to be under the illusion that you're all wonderful and inefficiencies and laziness only occur in the public sector. It's just not true and, as I said, shopping around doesn't seem to noticeably reduce the crap level of service and standard of goods that we so often experience.
Thats what you would be ledt to believe but it certainly does happen
I can't argue with that.
Maybe you are secretly impressed they managed to claim visits to prostitutes as travel expenses.
Maybe you are secretly impressed they managed to claim visits to prostitutes as travel expenses.
well yes, there is that...
Of course inefficiences occur in the private sector. The difference is that taxes raised by the private sector (plus a shedload of borrowing) pay for the wages in the public sector. Therefore, naturally if you're paying for something and you think it's crap you're not going to be happy.
Apart from Management Agents for housing estates.
If the housing estate committe are unhappy with their management company can they not change?
By way of an example:
A (The government) agrees to pay B (public sector worker) 100 euro.
B agrees to pay A back 20 euro of this upon receipt for payment (paye). The net effect is that A still needs to find 80 euro for every public sector worker
A has two choices:
A can take even more money from C (private sector) .
A can borrow from D (ECB/Foreign Markets).
Or A can just increase income taxes thus reducing the net cost of B and increasing the amount it has to pay that reduced net cost.
The point is that each individual public sector worker is paying tax at the same rate as everyone else, (and probably a lot more than some non paye workers in the private sector) so these constant posts inferring that only private sector workers pay tax are very annoying. Anyway, we're pulling this thread off topic.
To go back to the topic, was the civil servant's account of her time in the public sector verified? Someone, on their first day in a job, asking their boss if they were joking when they gave her a deadline of a week to do a job sounds a bit dodgy. If it was me I would be thinking
'I've obviously missed something here or misunderstood what I've been asked to do'.
Maybe her boss's version is:
'this arrogant young one arrived in to the office, only half listened to what I was asking her to do with a superior sneer on her face, and arrived back an hour and a half later with only a tiny part of the task done. She then got miffed when I asked someone else to do it properly and spent the next few months flouncing around the office talking about her qualifications, doing very little and sitting around with a bored look on her face while her colleagues were working away. She then had the nerve to write a book about how the job was beneath her, including calling the colleagues who had been carrying her for months names like Dozy and Dopey. I hope we've seen the back of her forever'.
All said in a lovely French accent of course.
I was being slightly glib with the Management Agent bit, but there's a point in there.
The issue is well discussed, but I've never worked in any employment that doesn't carry lazy, inefficient or incompetent people. I've never worked in any company where this is ever a significant concern in the "good times". They are carried and in some cases promoted to get them out the way. We get performance reviews, but the net effect is you have to be really bad in order to ever suffer the consequences at those things.
It's bad management, but then whether a manager works for the public or private sector, they're still just a person, a human prone to the same old issues and mistakes we can all make. Plus, the private sector is just as bad at promoting based on length of service rather than ability. We hardly ever select the right manager for the job.
In my experience a lot of managers in all sectors don't have the competence or the confidence to deal with poor performance. They're scared of a case being brought against them and it's easier to ignore the problem.
And yes, we do have a choice with the private sector, but let's face it only really if you can afford it. Sure I can go to the spar rather than centra, but that's hardly on a par with what we're comparing in the services provided.
In general, if you want a better efficient service you have to hand over more money. That's not real competition, that's not real choice. But isn't that the same for most of the public sector (not all granted)? It's only those who can't afford it who rely on the service, those who can afford it don't need to use or can afford to hand over money for a "better" private service. If I can't afford the VHI clinic or wherever, I'm stuck in the queue at A&E. If I can't afford AerLingus, I'm stuck beaten in to a Ryanair flight having foced all my luggage into a carrier bag.
I could provide equally poor and equally shocking examples of employee carry on from any job I've worked in. I can provide equally shocking examples of poor management. Just it's from the private sector. Dod our customers go elsewhere? I don't recall any.
The issue is well discussed, but I've never worked in any employment that doesn't carry lazy, inefficient or incompetent people. I've never worked in any company where this is ever a significant concern in the "good times". They are carried and in some cases promoted to get them out the way. We get performance reviews, but the net effect is you have to be really bad in order to ever suffer the consequences at those things.
It's bad management, but then whether a manager works for the public or private sector, they're still just a person, a human prone to the same old issues and mistakes we can all make. Plus, the private sector is just as bad at promoting based on length of service rather than ability. We hardly ever select the right manager for the job.
In my experience a lot of managers in all sectors don't have the competence or the confidence to deal with poor performance. They're scared of a case being brought against them and it's easier to ignore the problem.
And yes, we do have a choice with the private sector, but let's face it only really if you can afford it. Sure I can go to the spar rather than centra, but that's hardly on a par with what we're comparing in the services provided.
In general, if you want a better efficient service you have to hand over more money. That's not real competition, that's not real choice. But isn't that the same for most of the public sector (not all granted)? It's only those who can't afford it who rely on the service, those who can afford it don't need to use or can afford to hand over money for a "better" private service. If I can't afford the VHI clinic or wherever, I'm stuck in the queue at A&E. If I can't afford AerLingus, I'm stuck beaten in to a Ryanair flight having foced all my luggage into a carrier bag.
I could provide equally poor and equally shocking examples of employee carry on from any job I've worked in. I can provide equally shocking examples of poor management. Just it's from the private sector. Dod our customers go elsewhere? I don't recall any.
I suppose the point is they can shop somewhere else. Take watching the tv for example. I can hop from RTE to TV3 to BBC as much as I like with an arial on the back of my tv. If I want to get Sky and Sky Sports, then I have to pay more but the choice is mine. However, in all cases I still have to subsidise RTE via a licence fee - no choice about that. Same goes if I want a passport..no choice on the provider. Apologies if I've steered this off topic.
Bill Struth
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So whatever the employee needs to buy with his/her remaining 80 euro is bought tax free?
There are examples of public services where there is no choice, I stated that. Motor tax, passports, few others I can't recall now. But then I only need a passport every ten years and to be honest, on that point I never leave it to the last minute before getting a replacement. Motor tax I can do in a few seconds online and it's sorted.
But where you talk about choice, it isn't really comparing like with like. The TV one is different to just flicking channels. If you don't like the programming on the standard 4 then unless you can pay for Sky, UPC, or setting up freeview then you're stuck with them.
The point is, the principles of a free market are great and mean competition, choice, better standards etc, but this is rarely the true case. Either we have very limited competition and choice (as we do or at least have had for a long time) or if you want a better service you have to dip into your pocket.
Granted, the private sector is able to turn around quicker in a recession. It's able to shed costs and to change operations. But let's be honest, in many cases it took the recession to bring on that change, for years we were ripped off paying for the excesses of the private sector in what we had to buy. In a lot of cases there was no competition because the good ol' boys in some cases had price fixing, or the state allows a fixed number of service providers and we can't shop around, or we were just charged more by everyone because we had more money.
The notion of competition in this country seemed to involve matching the prices of the highest charger rather than looking for a better service.
Complainer
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It's only funny it you are bitter and cynical.