AIBU Public sector workers generally

[Privatesectorworkers]

I’ve changed user names for this…..

I read a post today regarding public sector workers & how hard done by they feel. This instance its Teachers (just an example). I feel increasingly frustrated how these workers (general, not just teachers) harp on about how hard done by they are.

I appreciate it’s a hard job but you couldn’t get away with it in our sector.

I do also know that a lot of my hostility lies over being an unrecognised key worker during covid so perhaps this is tainting my view.

I don’t understand how much they get away with. In terms of absence, pay etc.

Some people work unfortunately in not so well paid, qualified positions (as I do) but there are other factors that keep me in my place of work. I am lucky to have good colleagues, work close to home etc.

Can they not just find some consolidation that they are in the career of their choosing, I would hope they wanted to have a positive impact in the education & enjoy the caring nature of this role?

I don’t understand what has changed so much AIBU?

Lockdown was ages ago and was rubbish for everyone. Even for the people who said it wasn't rubbish for them. Eg we had a new manager joining us shortly after and she was going on about how she spent it in her kids' paddling pool in the garden drinking prosecco. Well shit I'm glad I was working if that's supposed to be a blissful lockdown, going full Sophie from Peepshow in ballpool mode.

@OneLoftyFish OP cited teachers and referenced GCSEs 🙄

ODFOD...

It's ridiculous
They tried to argue with me that impending cauda equina didn't mean I needed urgent surgery
Then afterwards asked how I was going to improve my sickness
Try not to get cauda equina again?!

We’ve had no annual increments in pay in my public sector org in the 25 years I’ve been here. Under the Tories, austerity meant no rises at all for 7 years, and even then the others were well below inflation. Salaries are worth huge amounts less than they should be because rises fell so far behind inflation. Pensions are worth way less than 20 years ago, and you have to work much longer to get them.

Teachers in schools around me especially at Secondary have to suffer all kids of abuse on a daily basis. The nearby local Asda has now had to ban any child coming in wearing the local school uniform because they congregate outside threatening people, if they come in store then they shoplift or knock multiple items off the shelves like it's funny. They also threaten staff members daily. But of course the parent are all over social media claiming "ITS FUCKIN DISCUSTING" apparently they've contacted the local MP and the media. Cant wait to see the sad faces online. The police will get a better view of the kids faces than they do when they're in balaclavas and setting houses on fire.

Two words - sour grapes!

I’m sure some people’s idea of the public sector is left over from the 70s. I’m a council worker. Our pay is pitiful, perks non existent, holiday less than I’ve had working in other organisations, safety of the workforce is not a consideration, employer pension contributions are minimal and we’re all on temporary contracts not knowing if we’ll have a job year to year because of funding. And like others, if you take a sick day you have to have a meeting where you’re reminded that you’ve let the team and service down (I took a sick day 18 months ago because I could neither speak nor hear but still got the scripted “chat”).
I’m really dedicated to public service, always have been but I feel like a bit of a mug.

I worked for council in a services role, I get abused by the public and contractors on a weekly basis, and I have often have members public crying in my office. Last month I had a contractor screaming down the phone.

Every year before Christmas I do hours and hours of overtime because everyone wants their consent before the break.

Oh and I work 9-5 five days a week.

Cushy, my arse.

Yeah I do agree and I am a nurse. The pension and the leave is good and I don’t think it is appreciated.I felt in lockdown it was all about medical workers when people were also working in supermarkets for example. There are a lot of downsides in terms of pettiness for example and difficult work colleagues. But in terms of benefits I think we have a good deal.

Thanks for enlightening us. The OP was aimed at teachers.

Can they not just find some consolidation that they are in the career of their choosing, I would hope they wanted to have a positive impact in the education & enjoy the caring nature of this role?

Do you mean consolation?

You're showing a really ignorant albeit typically stereotyping attitude to female-dominated professions such as teaching and nursing. If you haven't worked in the public sector then you don't know what you're talking about, and if you think it's so cushy, why don't you work in the public sector? And what positive impact do you have if your main interest in your job is having good colleagues and working close to home? Why are you not caring? Why don't you try to have a positive impact?

I can agree in some part with relation to my county SEN team. CWD socail worker and therefore team don't even do bear minium child in need meetings. They don't follow the law. Same for the sen team, they don't follow the law, had to raise a stage two complaint to get a tribunal order turned into a ehcp. It has a legal timeframe of five weeks, took six months. Even a stage two of a official complaint my case officer couldn't get it right. He is incompetent and his manhunt manage him. I'd be sacked a,1000 times over in my field. He is so shit, but they can only recruit and retain the shit staff so they don't want to disapline him. Instead I go to the LGO who has to force them to compensate me for lost provision. My LA are practically bankrupt. The job he had to do required very basic IT skills to format a document. A office temp could have done it one day 1 with no prior experience of SEN in a few hours if that. I get they are overworked but a court order is not something the LA can't ignore

What’s the definition of a public sector worker? We’re not all teachers, police, fire or NHS you know.

We work in the civil service, in arm’s length bodies, and in local government delivering services across a huge variety of roles at all levels and probably in any arena of work, professional and academic endeavour you care to name. Legal professionals, engineers, IT specialists, you name it, you’ll find us in the public sector in some capacity. We do work that’s needed, wherever it is needed.

I had a nod of recognition at the statutory services delivered in a niche specialist role at an ALB mentioned by @SlightUnivallateHillfort because I too have a similar role. There’s even fewer people undertaking my specialism! Who knows, we might even work for the same organisation! 😀

We believe in what we do, we work hard to deliver it, we’re always mindful we’re public servants, and we do it often for less money than we could earn elsewhere or that accurately reflects our qualifications.

I ink you are not wrong, OP, but also not right.

Working in the public sector can be terrible. The expectations are idiotic, the bureaucracy. It's often deeply frustrating for those who care about their work.

At the same time, the degree of piss taking is huge, and a lot of it would not be countenanced in a business environment.

I have people in my workplace - management level - who basically take the piss all day. The level of entitlement is shocking and covid made it worse. This is not a large employer either, their non-productivity really matters, it makes everyone elses job harder.

If they were in a business environment it would never be tolerated.

Another teacher-bashing thread in the guise of attacking public service in general.

Although to be fair the OP's OP is so garbled and ill-constructed it's hard to see what point she's making. Apart from still pissing and moaning about lockdown.

Agreed I went from a small local charity where everyone worked their socks off, to a national charity everything London centric. Aigghh the zoom meetings, the dropping in from HQ, the bonding sessions, making frogging chocolate for three days in a hotel. Arguing that what works in London doesn't work up north, Wales or Scotland.

I also worked in the public sector for five years, the deadwood, the sickness rate, the awful pecking order.

I've family in law, NHS, public sector, teaching. They all say the same the workers carry the brunt of it. The shirkers get away with it.

I think using words like not being recognised as a " keyworker " smacks of bitterness. I worked 12 hour nightshifts all through covid and never fell into the government and media trap of "keyworker " as I was just doing my job

Every single person had to cope with the pandemic and its affected people in different ways but as a public sector worker who cannot strike even If i wanted to (which I dont anyway) I dont think anyone has it easy in this post pandemic cosy of living. Maybe stop and think about how the supermarkets are profiteering off the back of covid and wars etc and how the governments we have had are inept and direct your anger and bitterness towards them than fellow workers.

I actually don’t understand what you are complaining about.

So I take it you are an accountant for a private company? With a decent salary? And you can take on another role in another company if you wanted to increase your pay or something …

Private sector work, with the right company, can be a little flexible and you can eat loads for doing the bare minimum- not everyone - but some.

Im sure you get the same in the public sector - strange that you chose to coaling about teachers.

Also I’d say the biggest complaint is how children are badly behaved. We all know there is a rise in mental health problems and behavioural problems - and parenting has soften up - teachers are doing a stressful job, whilst having to manage people’s poorly behaved kids - I can’t stand being in the park for 1 hour with other peoples badly behaved children.

I’ve worked in various public and private sector jobs, but as this seems to be a teacher bashing post, I’ll explain why it was the “worst” job I’ve ever done.

7am - arrive at work, mark some books from night before, finish creating worksheets for the day (no textbooks because education budget is appalling), do some printing for the first lessons, can’t do the rest because there’s a queue for the printer and there’s only one printer (education budget). Trying to get this done for 5/6 different subjects for this one day.
9am-12pm - teaching, produces 30 books to mark x 3 lessons (5-10 mins each book)
12-12.45pm - lunch eaten while desperately trying to get books marked. Mark about 5 books, kids running into the classroom, distractions etc.
12.45-3.30pm - teaching, produces 30 books to mark x 3 lessons
3.30-4.00pm - can’t get any work done, seeing kids out, parents late to collect etc.
4-6pm - marking books. 24 books marked, 6 done earlier in the day.
6-6.45pm - sitting in traffic
7pm - just 150 books to mark this evening
7-7.30pm - dinner
7.30-11.30pm - 40 books marked if you don’t lose the will to live. Just 110 to go.
11.30pm - lost the will, go to bed
5.45am - do it all again

Worksheets, presentations, lesson plans, school reports, extra work for ECHPs, pastoral work, “making the classroom look pretty”, OFSTED prep, classroom tidying, hundreds of admin tasks all to be done on weekends and those “holidays” teachers apparently have so many of. Haven’t included time lost in long staff meetings, parents evenings, spontaneous other meetings and time lost to playtime duty. Should also mention mental strain of safeguarding work, being on high alert for children in difficult family situations, children who aren’t getting enough to eat at home, physical abuse, children with severe allergies, truancy issues, being a first aider, being a subject lead, planning school trips etc.

“Absence” also isn’t a “thing”. Of course it is legally, but in practice they expect you to have planned, printed and left several days of work, spanning several subjects, in your classroom for a cover teacher, which is nigh on impossible to prepare for. You can’t leave anything you need to teach the children properly because it simply won’t get done by a supply teacher. So the children suffer if you’re off and you come into work on death’s door to avoid the whole mess.

All of this for significantly less money and many many more (unpaid) hours than the private sector.

Like me, most people probably went into teaching to make a difference and because they care about the betterment of today’s youth. Like me, I imagine many have become disillusioned when realising the job is 80% a paper pushing exercise to appease OFSTED, battling against low budgets and obnoxious public perception of a job they haven’t done five minutes of research into. But yay for “the caring nature of the role” I guess.

Edited to add - undiagnosed issues with the students, behavioural issues, physical intimidation and abuse by students and sometimes parents. But you know… I’m sure that’s standard in most jobs.

Sounds like you’re jealous but also misinformed.

Much has changed. Changes in working conditions, pay and recruitment freezes, additional responsibilities, mountains of paperwork and lots more over the years meaning many are not in the jobs they originally applied for. So not a case of “ they knew what they were getting into when they chose that career path”

The Civil Service is good for being family friendly & flexible working, but if you are a clerical grade, the pay is rubbish. When the National Minimum Wage came in, we had to have a pay increase because we were way under the amount of it.

You're not going to win this OP because you'll get jumped on by public sector workers and their families.

For the first half of my career I worked in the private sector, now I'm in the public sector. I definitely don't get paid fairly for the work but that's because I'm doing the work of 3 people (other 2 on long term sick leave). The level above me should be 3 people but they're paying for 5 of which only 1 comes in and that's for a 4 day week. The rest are on sick leave - so I pick up their work too. I'm on my knees to be honest. I've never worked with so many workshy people who wouldn't survive a week in the private sector.

There's an obsession with hierarchy and managing up/looking for the next promotion (and then going off sick). Very few people seem to care about the point of the service we're providing. It's dysfunctional. But I'm sticking it out for the pension if the stress doesn't kill me first!

I do also know that a lot of my hostility lies over being an unrecognised key worker during covid so perhaps this is tainting my view

You weren't an "unrecognised key worker". You were just someone who was able to carry on working throughout lockdown. The key workers were those who kept schools, hospitals, doctors surgeries, supermarkets, care homes etc going. In other words, those who kept the country going.

I don't know why people compare public and private sector, because they're too vague terms, really. There's a huge range of roles in the public sector.

I've worked for councils as a lifeguard, a swimming teacher, a library assistant. I've worked in universities. I've done exactly the same role as a Unix systems administrator for government organisations, small private sector and multi nationals. I reckon there's more similarity between a huge organisation like a major hospital and a large corporate company than there is between the hospital and a small branch library (not that there are many of those these days.) Private covers everything from a sole trader to worldwide companies like Amazon. My local, independent family-run corner shop is not like Tesco, though they both sell groceries.

People get away with crap in any large organisation, public or private. You also get really good people in public and private. Public services fo need more funding, but there are many private companies struggling, too.