Why are all government workers the same? (Bar the odd minority)

[Cel119]

By government workers i mean council, NHS, police, Ambulance.
Last night we had to go to A&E as relative was suffering from stroke symptoms. He didnt want to go alone so i accompanied. As he was being triaged the HCA asked for the blue folder and i handed it and she looked at me like i handed her a shit and said "ooooooo.... kkkkkk". I am type 1 diabetic and as relative was being assessed I started suffering a very bad hypo. I thought i was going to collapse. I think it was the combination of heat and insulin working too quickly. I said "im really sorry, im having a hypo and I need to sit" the HCA said "how do you know?" Considering I have had diabetes more than half my life I knew the symptoms and my sensor had alarmed me. But for some reason this hypo was making me feel really bad. She replied "if you want to be seen you will have to sign in" no compassion, empathy. Just stone cold nasty. I replied "I don't want to be seen i just need to sit" she did the same "oooo... kkkk" the room starting going really bright and I thought I need to get out. So I stumbled out holding the walls. I sat in a chair. The HCA asked a nurse to do my blood glucose(i think because she didnt believe me). The nurse came along grabbed my hand, didnt clean my hand, did blood glucose (from the wrong finger) and shoved my hand back at me then read out the glucose which were low. Then stomped off. I dont even know if she used a clean needle! I just sat and ate my jelly babies thinking please dont collapse as i didnt fancy that infront of a room full of strangers. It just seemed very harsh and cold to treat someone this way. I saw police treating another mental health patient the same. In my past I have had abhorrent behaviour from ambulance crew. Council workers are rude and dismissive of any issues anyone has. It's like the country has reached a massive disparity in power with the average working man being treated like a turd that would be better off dead. Why is everyone in these jobs like this? They don't think reasonably. You could explain a situation that seems completely reasonable and they will find a reason that it's not reasonable. I have had experiences like this time and again.
I have also worked as an qualified NHS worker(dietitian) and worked amongst them and they are some of the most cruel, uncaring and bullying type to work with. Towards patients and colleagues. It's a toxic environment. Full of bullies. Why? What fuels this? In a career where you are meant to care, you get people devoid of any humanity treating people in need. As I said, you get the odd person who clearly went into it because they want to help people, but not often.

I understand you are upset but to generalise dissatisfaction with certain individuals to encompass all public servants is grossly offensive and you know it.

Well, none of those people are actually employed by the government but hey, you do you....

Becauae they encounter so many fakes and drama llamas, they forget sometimes people are really struggling.

No smoke without fire. It's because they very rarely get sacked so can be as useless and nasty as they like. Productivity in the public sector is also shocking. As is the amount of tax we are paying for such shitty services.

What has the hypo got to do with a blue folder?

Maybe they assumed you were trying to get seen without waiting and were just at the end of their tether with rude chancers? A&E specifically get awful treatment from people, can you blame them for being desensitised.

gross generalisation though and horrible attitude toward some very underpaid and poorly treated people.

Absolutely.

YANBU. I am not from UK so to me HNS is a service like any other. People are being paid for doing their jobs, they chose their profession. They have good pensions, sick benefits, maternity packages. They should provide customer service. Many of them don't. They don't see it as a business and us as customers so they don't have to be nice or just simply profesional. Civil servants just want to get back to Covid and lockdown. Work productivity is down. Again, they almost unsackable so there is no motivation to be nice to people causing them problems and more work (customers).

Oh here we go again. More sweeping generalisations.

And we have another one making sweeping generalisations.

Echoing another poster, I understand that was a very upsetting experience, but equally I think it's very wrong to generalise. Most people working in the emergency services/ NHS (that’s who you’re talking about not government employees) I have found to be considerate and kind - or at the very least polite.

You refer to them as an HCA and (forgive me if I’m wrong) they are very junior in the ranking of HCPs - junior to nurses. So they’re probably getting paid bugger all to deal with a large bulk of the work. My perception is it’s a very thankless task, and probably not made easier by those there to support the patients declaring themselves unwell and in need of care. I’m sure you didn’t mean to say you needed care but that was probably the impression they got - they must be busy enough with the actual patients!

Also - those who work in the public sector are generally motivated to do so by a desire to help others. The pay is usually shit (edited autocorrect) and they sure as hell aren’t doing it because they can’t get another job - if anything it can be harder to get a PS job than private!

This is ludicrous. I am a civil servant and I loathed lockdown. Most of us worked harder than ever during it, had to care for children at the same time (few were initially classed as key workers but couldn’t be furloughed - although we had to pick up the furlough bill!) and many experienced isolation.

I don’t know any civil servants who enjoyed lockdown.

🙄

Nah. Opinions based on experience.

And the productivity thing, you can look that up very easily.

You do know this is all absolute nonsense.
Have you ever worked in the public sector? Do you actually know any civil servants? I do and they certainly don't want to go back to the pandemic! And neither are they unsackable.
As for public workers dealing with the public they often have to face a torrent of abuse from people they are actually trying to help and to carry on and help them regardless!
And those gold plated benefits honestly are not so gold plated at all

Very few people are cut out for dealing with members of the public, especially when they are dissatisfied. I work for a local authority but thankfully my role isn’t public facing (legal). I would like nothing less than listening to people whinge at me all day!

That said, we are very aware of the fact that we’re paid for out of the public purse (a purse that we pay into ourselves). We aren’t sat around scratching our arses, nor are we enjoying Christmas meals out paid for by our employer, bonuses, paid overtime etc. We can’t even get a jug of tap water in a meeting room 😂 and until I started WFH I would have to literally wipe mouse shit off my desk in the morning.

If you run into an asshole in the morning, you ran into an asshole. If you run into assholes all day, you're the asshole.

I think the first HCA was showing concern in her way. You might have known you just needed to sit, but she was concerned you were seriously ill and she'd be in trouble for not spotting it. "Relative dies in A&E waiting room" type headlines.

I had to call ambulances for DH many times and I have to say they've always been very compassionate.

I think the reception/triage staff do often leave something to be desired. I think that stems from the fact that they have to deal with so many awful people themselves, and that when it's all just another day's work to them, they forget they're seeing people in distress at their very worst time.

This week I have seen a lovely NHS dentist, a decent GP, a great ophthalmologist and an outstanding hospital MSK specialist physio s they really aren't all bad OP (I have an ongoing neurological health issue that is being a bit tricky) - I wouldn't say the amount of tax I paid this month (approx £700) is shocking for the health services I have received either, in fact I've had a good deal but this is not to say that the healthcare system is perfect to navigate btw but I'd say for value and productivity it's not that bad? I have been given some good exercises, some medication, a specific material on my teeth and been referred for another MRI since Monday. I also work on a national health team looking at a specific metric for care and 842,333 more patients received this healthcare intervention since 2019 (an increase of 64%) so something is happening?

The 'productivity' and 'shite services' tropes are really rolled out and repeated in discourse until it has become an accepted truth. I'd be interested to know how sound it really is. Whilst there are definitely parts public services and interventions that can be improved or changed I'm not sure it's all absolutely terrible and I'm pretty sure not every person working within that system is terrible either. Systems are messy, complex, hard to grip things with many moving parts. Look at how complex family systems are. Zoom out and add finances, political will and numbers to that and you will see the scale of what is being dealt with - it's a privilege that we have them there to moan about and an even bigger privilege if you only have to make sweeping generalisations about them and you can put them down and pick them up when you need them and not deal with them day in and day out IMO.

You're always saying the same thing. Forgive me if I don't take your opinions and prejudices very seriously.

Civil servants just want to get back to Covid and lockdown

What are you on about?

She's talking unfounded rubbish.

I don’t have an opinion on some of the professions you have mentioned, but I have to say that all the ambulance paramedics I have encountered (and due to an elderly mother fairly frequently needing hospital admission, there have been many these last few years) have been absolutely superb bar none. Certainly in my area, I would say the ambulance service is the outstanding part of the NHS and the paramedics are wonderful.

Don’t be daft. Of course they’re not.

Sorry you had a rough time.

Yes. More daily mail reading ingratitude. Public sector workers worked through lockdown. Many of them also gave up free time during evening and weekends to help with vital services. I have never encountered a rude council staff member. There are tens of thousands of them however, I wouldn't like to say they're all the same because how could they possibly be?

What should they have done with someone who says they're having a hypo? Ignored them? Left them on the floor? If you're telling them about it in A and E sign in and cooperate for goodness sake. The questions aren't to doubt you, they're to establish the facts in case they need to treat you. You alarmed them then didn't cooperate.

All public sector workers work for the goverment, whether that be central goverment departments, local authority councils, police, fire or NHS.