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Government Employees Speak
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Government Employees Speak
This is a collection of messages contributed by government employees in response to a query that I sent to the Red Rock Eater News Service in late June. In most cases I have obscured the writers' identities. The messages are all copyrighted by their authors. Please do not forward them to anybody or clip single messages out of this package. I am not trying to make any special point by assembling these messages, other than the simple suggestion that people who work for the government are people and deserve to be heard like anyone else.
Phil Agre, 31 July 1995
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Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 22:38:49 JST From: [anonymous]
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I work for a branch of the Japanese government/bureaucracy within the Ministry of Finance. I am a native speaker of English (American), so I'm in charge of overseeing all forms of written materials that appear in English. I am to my knowledge the only person working in the Japanese government who does everything from home (a thatched-roof hundred year-old farmhouse two hours from Tokyo).
The stalwarts of the Japanese bureaucracy routinely pull all-nighters, so it's not unusual for me to get calls after midnight, requesting a last-minute check on this or that report that's due out the next morning. The reports are often big-league, to be read by the banksters of the IMF, the World Bank, and, occasionally, the G7 summiters themselves. I don't have a tv and the newspaper people won't deliver (too far up the mountain), so I often don't have a clue what they are talking about. I honestly don't mind this kind of work, given the freedom it engenders, but it never ceases to astonish me that teams of bureaucrats can be up at three in the morning, quibbling about whether to use the phrase "comprehensive reforms" or "thorough reforms." The smallest of "changes" like this requires a multilayered approval process from above, usually culminating in an eight a.m. final-read fax, typed out yet again by the lowest-ranking bureaucrat available (i.e., not asleep). I've tried to be disgusted with them but somehow they only end up endearing to me.
I've become exquisitely sensitive to what will and will not pass. If I'm feeling spunky and really care about the language, I'll bury their ambiguities ("we may wish to avoid the societal damage partially brought about by the not-improved economic situation")and start afresh, often adding bold color from my palette of hackneyed phrases ("increasing economic uncertainties tend to have an inauspicious impact on society"). I know that my flourishes will send my employers into paroxysms of anxiety, but I sadistically lay them on anyway, feigning indignity to the poor hack who's been instructed to persuade me to put back the original. At other times the beauty of my surroundings overwhelms, putting me in a blissed-out state of not caring about sentences like "It is necessary to promote domestic demand in a flexible manner, in order to clear the vagueness of the future prospects of the economy." I'll change vagueness to ambiguity and fax it back. My popularity around the office accordingly soars.
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 08:35:01 From: [anonymous]
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This didn't happen to me directly, but shows the effect of a nutty governor.
Last November libraries across the State of South Dakota almost lost funding, to the point of elimination of the State Library in the capital. When funding was restored, one thing that was not funded was an extensive collection of films (16mm, video) that is a special collection housed at the State Library. Without funding about $2.5 million dollars of films sit unused.
Now for the weird part. Our governor decides that he doesn't want to leave the films sitting, but he refuses to give the State Library money to fund the program. His solution? Ship the films from Pierre to Sioux Falls, and put them in the State Pen. The inmates can ship them in and out and make sure that the state has access.
Course, it was a "free" service that the State Library performed, now the Pen will be charging $5.00 per loan. How many small libraries will be borrowing films? Probably not many, they don't have the funding to afford to get films at $5.00 per. The program probably won't hurt the big institutions (like mine), but what a sad state of affairs.
I don't know if this is the type of story you are looking for, but there you have it.
Date: Tue, 27 Jun 1995 09:49:50 From: [anonymous]
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I drove to work today wondering how I could possibly make it through another 10 years of working for my city's government;and I spent most of the drive trying to think of strategies for reawakening a sense of enthusiasm for my work, because I don't want to become a 'burn out' case. Like many municipal employees, I don't want to waste anyone's tax dollars by doing less than a really good job. And, like many government workers, I stay at what I'm doing, because I really do care about the service that I'm providing, and I believe that what I'm doing makes a positive difference in this community.
We have a problem, however, at least in my city, in that everyone wants more services, but they don't want to raise any taxes to pay for them. When asked to make a choice, the choice has generally been to say that government employees must be really inefficent or they would somehow find a way to do everything, for less.
So, we have been doing everything for less - but the cost has been a heavy one,in terms of deferred maintenance, little quality control, and an increasingly superficial level of service. Many of us are doing a large portion of someone else's job, in addition to our own, because of 'right sizing'. As a result,it's takes much longer to get anything finished. From a personal level, there's also very little sense of accomplishment when something does get done, because there's a huge list of other tasks waiting in the wings.
I know that, to anyone outside of government service, that kind of statement immediately sounds like whining, about the work load, etc. And I do know that government employees are very lucky,in having some modicum of job security and a steady pay check. It's just that, we really want to be able to do a good job. So, maybe this is less a reflection on government service, than it is a plea, that as taxpayers, people start being willing to make some realistic choices. If you want a new park in your area, fine! If you want a major renovation of your streets, that's okay. A new branch library? That would be terrfic. But please, if you want all three, either vote to raise taxes, or start making some tough choices.
Date: Thu, 29 Jun 1995 17:38:01 From: [anonymous]
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I work at the National Institutes of Health (in the National Library of Medicine) doing basic research in computer science for biomedical applications. Although I am sometimes frustrated with the workplace rules, I enjoy my work situation, and I think my research makes a genuine contribution to the public good.
I consider my research position at NIH to be akin to a decent university job. I don't have spend time applying for grants, but then again, I don't get as many resources (or as much control over them) as a typical NIH grantee. I don't get to train post-docs or students as part of my job, so I took an adjunct faculty position at a local university. (I love teaching, and federal salaries are low compared to academia and industry, so I could use the extra money.) There are some good folks here, and some bad, and the office politics are typical of the stories I hear from friends in academia.
I haven't felt particularly oppressed as a government employee. NIH is spared most of the oprobrium that other government folks get, and we are also doing better than just about any other agency (except the military) in the budget wars. One of the reasons is that medical research is a genuine social good, and pretty popular with just about everyone. The other is that powerful people (both in government and in constituency groups) see themselves as personally benefiting from improved medical care.
The comment about "powerful people personally benefiting" may seem cynical, or too strong, but it's the only explanation I can find as to why there is government research on AIDS, but not government action on public health measures regarding AIDS (e.g. needle exchange programs). Or why NIH is more-or-less adequately funded (given the current budget-cutting context) and the Center for Disease Control is being destroyed. Or why publicly funded medical research is so much more politically potent than publicly funded medical care. Public health doesn't really seem to be the issue; it's the private health of the rich and powerful that matters.
There is one group that regularly attacks us at NIH: "animal rights" activists. We get major demonstrations several times a year, and lots of other "actions," including some really awful ones. The worst involve kidnapping animals that are part of medical experiments; the animals almost always die immediately when taken away from the experimental facilities, and years of careful research effort can be ruined in minutes. These attacks make the vandalism of researcher's homes and cars, and the stunts like throwing blood on researchers pale in comparison. These folks don't seem at all inclined towards honest discourse about their greivances, either. [In contrast to ACT-UP and other AIDS activists, who despite some heavy-handed actions have had, in my opinion, a positive effect on NIH, and are increasingly involved with research and research decisionmaking.]
Rather than write more about NIH, though, I'd like to take a moment to mention my impressions of living with the "inside the beltway" crowd. I've been in Washington more than 6 years now, and I have a lot of friends in fairly high places (especially while there's a Democrat in the White House). The more I see, the more shocked I am at the chasm between politics and policy. I'm just stunned at the ideological blindness of the politically skilled. So many people who have risen to power here know and care only about politics: counting the votes, figuring how it will play with the electorate, knowing who has juice this week, etc. Even among those precious few powerful people whose hearts really seem to be in the right place (from where I stand), they just don't seem to know or care nearly enough about the particulars of the issues that they wield enormous control over. All they know is "who is on which side," and "what move will cost who how much." It seems to me that they conceive of governing as a big game (recall Colin Powell's "welcome to the NFL," comment to Bernadine Healy?). It just breaks my heart to see well meaning people daily making important decisions based primarily on political considerations, rather than having (or sticking with) a clear analysis of what really matters. Republicans, as mouthpieces for their big money corporate patrons, at least know whose interests they are advancing with their disingenuous pronouncements. When Democrats do this, it seems to me that they are just being cravenly self-serving, believing somehow they have to do whatever they can to stay in power, (keeping the evil Republicans out), even at the expense of sacrificing nearly everything of progressive ideological significance.
This all makes me nostalgic for the political honesty of the Nixon era (!!), where at least political actors staked out contentful positions and took actions that were usually consonant with those stands. Some folks might say that we are now in a "post-ideological" society, but if so, how do we honestly determine what we as a society care about and hold valuable, and how we can best achieve our goals?
It's painful having front row seats to watch my homeland slide down the slippery slope towards third-world style authoritarianism, and see the theoretically more progressive political party in our two (or is it one?) party system try to figure out whether it wants to stake out ideological territory to the right of Barry Goldwater, or just give up on having any coherent ideology at all. What it is about our political system that places thoughtful analysis and discussion of policy matters so far beyond the pale? Sometimes I think it is the recently gained ability to "manufacture consent" so effectively, through technologies like polling, advertising, "public relations," and so on. These technologies are made even more effective by dismal quality of education, shortened attention spans, the centralized ownership of the means of cultural production and distribution, the reduction of "news" to 60 second videos interupted by enough commercials to pay for production and make a profit, etc. -- all the factors that mitigate against careful public analysis and discourse. But perhaps those are only the tools, not the cause. Perhaps it's just a symptom of the approaching total victory of corporate capital in governing America. As Jerry Brown liked to say, "Maybe it's the money."
Date: Mon, 10 Jul 1995 18:51:28 EDT From: jmhill@MIT.EDU
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Hi, Thank you for the opportunity to speak. I had a bad today, but I'm glad to be working for government nonetheless.
Government is asked to deal with the problems that are complex and difficult. I'm working on nonpoint source pollution, the runoff from streets & yards when it rains can be full of materials that pollute water resources. Thanks to 25 years of environmental laws that have cleaned up industrial discharges and municipal sewer systems, such pollution is now the primary cause of water pollution in many states. It takes education and the coordination of citizens, business, and government to prevent such problems. Government has a role in providing leadership to bring players to the table who can work together to solve problems. Not to tell people what to do. To assist in them in finding solutions collectively to our problems.
I take as one of my models the government's role in smoking policy. Thirty years ago the Surgeon General stated the facts about the effects of smoking. Today it less prevelant in the US. Lives have been improved because of government research, because of regulation, because of education campaigns. Yes, the government also pays tobacco farmers subsidies. Change does not happen overnight. Government can provide a structure for citizens to work through the shifts in technology so that balances that provide for mutual gains can be found as society moves. Unfortunately, the time required to find such options is not often spent. But after 30 years, there is less smoking.
I don't have government benefits, I'm a contract employee, as so many government workers are these days. As in the business world, downsizing happens. As I know it, working for state government means knowing you have the potential to make decisions that directly effect people's lives and are not paid well and work on peeling gray linoleum under flickering flourescent lights for the privilege. The bureaucracy can be ridiculous. But many of the people I work with agree, and are working to change the system from within with clear-eyed, pragmatic optimism.
I work for the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs and the Massachuetts Water Resources Authority as a Watershed Planner. Jennifer Hill
Date: Tue, 11 Jul 95 15:42:25 -0500 From: ldallair@sadis05.kelly.af.mil (LEE DALLAIRE - WEA42)
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FROM: Lee Dallaire Century Technologies, Inc. Government Contractor Defense Information Systems Agency Defense MegaCenter San Antonio Kelly Air Force Base, Texas
WORKING FOR THE GOVERNMENT (DOD)
For all practical purposes, being a full time contractor is the same as being a government employee. Fewer benefits, less security, and a lot less harassment. The main problem currently is the constant reorganization and or re-evaluation. The vast majority of government employees are very good and dedicated, however the multiple layers of management (4 managers for 1 worker, in some instances) can prove counter productive. The Federal practice of micro defining duties and functions creates frustration and waste. Each function is so narrow, pay and duties which are tied to a GS or GM grade, that when an employee becomes good enough at their job to rate a promotion they are no longer permitted to work at what they are good at. The other primary problem is giving oversight and control to areas and personel who do not have the least idea of what is involved. Two areas in particular stand out: Contracting clerks and Congress dealing with the "Internet".
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