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?

Payroll, working from home. Then OP has been recognised as a key worker - she wasn’t furloughed. The resentment and ignorance in her post is palpable.

Don't people get a choice in what career they choose, can't they change jobs if it's so bad, I'm sick of hearing about teachers and how hard done by they are, just leave then, no one forces anyone to go into those jobs.

The public sector is a shit show right now and I have nothing but sympathy for them. I do however also believe there are many, many over worked and under paid private sector employees that don't get anywhere near as much press. I've worked for a couple of private companies who have absolutely taken the piss with what they have expected from me and what they have been willing to pay. It doesnt just happen in the public sector. I think that's where some people get tired of hearing about it.

Oh, and I also have a part time weekend job to subsidise my public sector salary to enable me to actually live

I was referring to it starting, lockdown was March 2020, so 4 years and 7 months ago if we’re going to be precise.

Grating? What did you want applause too? My DH and I were both key workers, unrecognised. Never crossed our minds that we deserved recognition. We were just grateful to be able to work and bring home a wage.

They can and many do. But surely it's not something we would want to encourage (for obvious reasons).

They are leaving. In droves. Can’t imagine it’s something you want to encourage given the consequences.

My skills weren't really something that were easily transferable to the private sector. Unless you know any organization that wanted homeless officers?

Teachers often feel a deep responsibility to their pupils, their colleagues and their school. But many are voting with their feet and leaving. There is a huge crisis. So it’s incredibly important to talk about it.
I also think it’s wrong to group together those in very challenging public sector roles nurses, teachers, police officers and those in other public sector jobs that may have lots of advantages like hybrid working.
Having said that we want good people running our country. We don’t want a race to the bottom.
I do wish the rules around pensions were more equitable but not cutting public sector pensions- requiring companies to make much larger contributions.

Yes!

I would have said a payroll person was a key worker, just my opinion and I don’t work in payroll. Key workers were people who were needed to keep a basic level of services going, it is about what happens if thst person doesn’t work. Presumably all the other key workers wanted to get paid, plus even people on furlough needed money to buy food etc. lots of jobs could be done from home throughout Covid that weren’t key worker, key worker is more about what happens on a fundamental basis if people stop doing that job

OP you are getting your arse handed to you on a plate here. The point about key workers has overshadowed your fundamental complaint which was about public sector workers generally.

I’m sorry to say the tone of some of the posts on here nicely illustrates the problematic mentality in the public sector. They are allowed to complain loudly and incessantly but they will not tolerate any push back.

This has made me laugh - you have described perfectly the highly corporate, commercial global business I work for. On paper could not have been further away from public sector, in reality - sounds the same.

Plenty of third sector organisations. But no generous sick leave and no pension.

Retired now but towards the end of my working life I was in Local Government. It paid reasonably well in comparison to the private sector in the lower paid admin roles, but the hierarchy obsession really resonates, as do the number of workshy. The time servers drove me nuts, hanging in for the pension, but really not doing the job, and constantly talking about the way things WERE done. Similarly those who regularly wrung every drop of sick pay out of the system, but were magically back at work once it stopped. And not forgetting those with close ties to the councillors.

The Public Sector however is not an amorphous mass, the various parts bearing no resemblance to each other.

You are right. Final salary pensions, countless days of full paid sick leave, full pay maternity package. It's being discussed at the moment that private employees will have to pay NI on their pension contributions - public sector and their big pensions will be spared. Working from home is not working in public sector and everyone knows it but it is impossible to get rid of those not doing their job.

Yep. Like my job

I do Accounts & Payroll (for approx 300 employees all furloughed while’s I wasn’t), Hence I do realise my perspective might not be the same.

I also had a teen at home preparing for GCSE’s at the time.

Sounds like you're pissed off for not being furloughed.

I'm a university academic and had to carry on teaching my full timetable which had to be adapted to online delivery. I also had a 5 year old at home who I was supposed to be home schooling. It was awful but I don't feel the need to moan about other people's jobs.

Lots of people who were furloughed are now unemployed because their sectors didn't recover.

I could earn 2-10x as much if I worked in the private sector doing my role. I wouldn't begrudge me my pension. Without that it would cost the PS a lot more to get my work done as they would have to hire consultants etc.

I often work so hard (at home) that I don't manage a lunch break and some days I don't even manage to get to the loo. Yes there are pockets of laziness but there are also plenty of people skating close to burnout they work so hard

What’s changed so much? Err, over a decade of ‘austerity’ cuts, biggest (in 2010 emergency budget) to local authorities and social housing (60% each). Not to mention Universal Credit, including 5 week wait, household benefit cap, frozen housing benefit rates and sanctions.

Public services have been picking up the pieces. NHS dealing valiantly with health and social care crisis caused by stress on people. Councils struggling to house homeless families (record number) and tackle ruthless landlords. Schools dealing with tons of kids traumatised by insecure, squalid housing, frequent moves and no money at home (despite parents working) for even a basic social life or holidays.

Then came Brexit, a pandemic and rampant inflation. Not to mention impact of social media and online gaming on kids.

High cost of family homes (both to buy and rent) means schools and other public sector employers are struggling to recruit and retain experienced staff.

Add in pay freezes, stressful working conditions (due to kids with higher needs and high turnover of staff) and a loss of respect from politicians, media and the public for public servants on the frontline, when they do our most vital jobs. Plus, endless political and managerial tampering with systems, exams, curriculums, funding streams etc etc.

Is it any wonder morale’s at rock bottom?

And I’m not a teacher. But have the utmost respect for them. So many of my kids’ teachers care deeply, work above and beyond to support them, show they believe in them and have inspired them for life.

I think that your little experience or exposure to public sector working is really shining through here.

Yet you're agreeing your frustrations at being a ‘key worker’ and feeling unrecognised, similar to those of us who were not able to live in our own homes during the pandemic because of the risk of infecting our children because we made a decision to keep going to work. I think you said you work in payroll so I guess your efforts haven’t been recognised in the sense of directly working with unwell people, although of course that may be a wrong assumption.

I constantly feel that my efforts go unrecognised pre post and during the pandemic. I don’t really ever complain about it , I just think about it sometimes. I got a small additional payment for my work in the pandemic.

I trained for 10 years in my field and hold responsibility and patient risk. I love my job but I despise that most of my friends get paid more than I do for way, way less stress and responsibility. We don’t do it for the money (obviously) but I’ve actually had a systematically engineered pay loss over the past 15 years and I am much worse off than I should be. Lots of people have had this experience, but also lots of people don’t have incorrect media making their profession sound like ‘scroungers’ or trying to take more and more. It’s dressed up as a pay rise - the 5% uplift for instance, but it’s not really.

I don’t understand your comment about sick pay. I get paid if I’m off work sick for a couple of days and I thought that was pretty normal, but sounds like I’m wrong. I don’t know anyone taking the piss with sick leave and I know hundreds of people working in the sector, I think those people would be very rare to come across.

So you think you had it worse than doctors and nurses (i.e. public sector workers) during the pandemic?? Did you listen to any of the testimony at the Covid Enquiry?

Public sector workers have it SO much easier than private sector. You can work in the local council or the NHS, be off “sick” every other day, grossly incompetent - and they’ll still be begging you to do extra shifts. Never ever fired. Whereas private sector - you’d be fired within days.

Please sign up to be a teacher if you think it's a great job. We are very very short of them at the moment and pretty much take all comers.

I fully understand your feelings about being an unrecognised key worker, as I was in school throughout the pandemic. Looking after other peoples children so they could very rightly save lives. Oh and did you know that Covid used to refuse to go up the nostrils of children so schools were safe places where no one could catch it and it didn't matter if they did 'because everyone is young'. I was 50. And my friend was 42 but died from covid in the Oct, after schools went back with no protection at all. She'll never get that pension, which is not final salary anymore.

Oh and if a teacher takes a day off sick they still have to set 6 hours of cover work. Most of us just go in anyway as it's easier.

And yesterday a 6 foot student threw a brick at my head. He missed. I'm teaching him again in half an hour.

Walk a mile in my shoes. I'm tired. Teachers only moan when people claim our job is really easy and we should all just be so grateful to be doing it that we don't deserve to paid.

I believe similar applies to nurses and doctors. Who risked their own lives to save yours in lockdown, not stay at home on a computer. Who deserve fair pay NOW, not in 60 years when or if they get to retire. Pensions don't pay your rent when you're 25.