As a customer what is acceptable to you?

[tradosaurus]

Our municipality is all unionized, including office staff.
Saddest example of union results I've seen was the head of personnel at the front door, key in hand, staring at his watch B4 inserting the key! What a shame to even enter your work area early!.

Then the backhoe with a 1/2 bucket load parked as is where is because it was quitting time, or again don't leave early to do a job 1 hour away but have a vehicle come to drive U back in time for that 1.5 hr lunch break then drive U back to the work site. An 8 hr day is lucky to produce a bare 4 hrs real work, maybe!

Oh ask me if I like unions! IMHO any real needs have long passed.
When a unionized employee reads the a procedures manual it is not to learn how to do but to learn what he does not have to do.

Once observed a municipal union protest and each and every worker was very overweight from lack of physical activity. Rakes and shovels are never used anymore, service trucks are all equipped with mini cranes. Shop has huge lifts but they hire outside help to change tires due to weight.

City grader was ordered with central automatic greasing system but drivers refused to activate as it is not in the driver job description so they have to pay a mechanic overtime to grease that grader and naturally with a city vehicle if that grader is remotely stationed.
Next AM they drive the operator to fetch that grader in order to bring it back to the municipal garage.
Making it worst one driver managed to fatally damage that central lube mechanism. i.e., problem solved.

Unionized plow driver will drive thru 2 feet of snow to go plow his assigned street.

Bah, humbug!
LOL, guess I'm showing my age.

I would take the "bad" that goes along with a union considering the way employees are treated by non union companies. I worked for 9 years for a company as an engineer that had mfg plant in various locations in the U.S. I was laid off in the late 90's to make the numbers look good while the union employees were protected by seniority. Hard to buy a house and settle down when you don't know how long you'll be at a certain location. So yeah, I wouldn't give a company a minute more of my time unless I was compensated. And companies expect you to give 2 weeks notice when they will get rid of you before the end of the day. I told my kids to look out for you because no one else will.

 

[Jstpssng]

Lemme guess, another post about Everything Attachment lead times.

Mine is about another company, which keeps pushing my build date back. If they are lacking something like water bottles, does that mean the entire company is shut down?
Funny thing, people here and on other sites are saying they got their delivery ahead of schedule. Granted they are buying a higher level of product; yet if the company doesn't want my business they should just say so. Pushing the date back from mid-July to Mid-August, then to the end of October makes me wonder how badly I need a BSM... at least from that company.
If they'd at least shown the courtesy of telling me when they pushed the date back again, instead finding out after the date has passed, when I'd spent time preparing a site for it, I would be a lot more patient. As it is I won't be able to use it until well over a year after making my deposit... even by current projected date it will be snowing by the time I receive it... and need to sell the trees I had planned to saw so that I can buy the lumber I was buying the mill for.

I just went to their website and can buy the part right now which they claim they are waiting on...

 

[IndyJay]

I saw a lot of changes during my 25 years in a union. Early on I saw lot of self-policing within the Union to maintain high standards of quality and performance. "That is why we make the big money, we are worth it". Slackers were warned and sometimes had the snot kicked out of them if they didn't straighten up. Contract negotiations seemed predicated on "the lowest common denominator" so low performers were driven out.

When I started there, there were 25-30 "yard laborers" who did the tasks nobody else wanted to do. You moved around the plant a lot an got to see what the other jobs were like, jobs that you might aspire to once you got enough whiskers. The senior guys wound up in jobs that were great to retire from; very little physical work but required a lot of experience. At some point, the company started offering overtime to these guys to do clean-up type stuff they normally would refuse to do. It was usually kept hush-hush so the yard crew wouldn't find out and file a grievance for one of them to get paid. Over the next few years the yard crew dwindled to a few people and the senior guys were doing labor work on straight time. "If you can do it on overtime, you can do it on your regular shift". This soon then included loading their own trucks and railcars, dumping bags, and other hard physical work if you were in your sixties or older. Before long there was no longer any "nice easy job" for the old guys to retire from.

Another nail in the coffin for the laborer job was when they started contracting out some of the labor related work, but would assign a laborer to "watch" them. I once asked one of them how long they thought the company was going to pay them to watch someone else do their job... she replied "But I can't do it". I told her to find another job that she could do. Within a year there was no labor crew. In many cases, the unions have sealed their own fate. The only place where unions are still successful is where they have partnered with the company to improve production and quality.

 

[Steppenwolfe]

Our municipality is all unionized, including office staff.
Saddest example of union results I've seen was the head of personnel at the front door, key in hand, staring at his watch B4 inserting the key! What a shame to even enter your work area early!.

Then the backhoe with a 1/2 bucket load parked as is where is because it was quitting time, or again don't leave early to do a job 1 hour away but have a vehicle come to drive U back in time for that 1.5 hr lunch break then drive U back to the work site. An 8 hr day is lucky to produce a bare 4 hrs real work, maybe!

Oh ask me if I like unions! IMHO any real needs have long passed.
When a unionized employee reads the a procedures manual it is not to learn how to do but to learn what he does not have to do.

Once observed a municipal union protest and each and every worker was very overweight from lack of physical activity. Rakes and shovels are never used anymore, service trucks are all equipped with mini cranes. Shop has huge lifts but they hire outside help to change tires due to weight.

City grader was ordered with central automatic greasing system but drivers refused to activate as it is not in the driver job description so they have to pay a mechanic overtime to grease that grader and naturally with a city vehicle if that grader is remotely stationed.
Next AM they drive the operator to fetch that grader in order to bring it back to the municipal garage.
Making it worst one driver managed to fatally damage that central lube mechanism. i.e., problem solved.

Unionized plow driver will drive thru 2 feet of snow to go plow his assigned street.

Bah, humbug!
LOL, guess I'm showing my age.

Blah, blah, blah... I once worked with a couple Canadian dudes... all lazy as h ell and not very bright. I guess all Canadians must be like that.

 

[Pixguy]

Blah, blah, blah... I once worked with a couple Canadian dudes... all lazy as h ell and not very bright. I guess all Canadians must be like that.

Mace worked with you?

 

[Steppenwolfe]

Mace worked with you?

Now that was a low blow... I have no doubt Mace is an outstanding Canuck.

 

[Frankenkubota]

Our municipality is all unionized, including office staff.
Saddest example of union results I've seen was the head of personnel at the front door, key in hand, staring at his watch B4 inserting the key! What a shame to even enter your work area early!.

Then the backhoe with a 1/2 bucket load parked as is where is because it was quitting time, or again don't leave early to do a job 1 hour away but have a vehicle come to drive U back in time for that 1.5 hr lunch break then drive U back to the work site. An 8 hr day is lucky to produce a bare 4 hrs real work, maybe!

Oh ask me if I like unions! IMHO any real needs have long passed.
When a unionized employee reads the a procedures manual it is not to learn how to do but to learn what he does not have to do.

Once observed a municipal union protest and each and every worker was very overweight from lack of physical activity. Rakes and shovels are never used anymore, service trucks are all equipped with mini cranes. Shop has huge lifts but they hire outside help to change tires due to weight.

City grader was ordered with central automatic greasing system but drivers refused to activate as it is not in the driver job description so they have to pay a mechanic overtime to grease that grader and naturally with a city vehicle if that grader is remotely stationed.
Next AM they drive the operator to fetch that grader in order to bring it back to the municipal garage.
Making it worst one driver managed to fatally damage that central lube mechanism. i.e., problem solved.

Unionized plow driver will drive thru 2 feet of snow to go plow his assigned street.

Bah, humbug!
LOL, guess I'm showing my age.

unions in public employment make no sence, unless you are in the union. i was in a big time union and i was a strike director, been there, done that.

quick example....

i know a guy who has a pretty good sized metal fab in the midwest. they build big big stuff for highway maintenance etc and are a union shop.

when contract time comes he sits on one side of the desk and the union sits on the other side and they negotiate, him with the interests and the well being of the co in mind and the union with the interests of their members in mind. everybody has something at stake.

with the govt union negotiations.....on one side of the table are a bunch of lawyers hired by the union to do their best for the members of the union. They are interested in billing hours. On the other side of the table are a bunch of govt lawyers, who couldn't get a job anywhere else and i gotta believe, couldn't care less, and probably a bunch of consultants, they got nothin in it.

it's a little bit like china investigating the virus lab.

it ain't gonna change, virtually everybody knows and/or is related to a govt employee.

 

[Torvy]

I think most unelected federal employees should have to be part of the military. Make them all meet the same standards and expectations. If you have the skill set for an administrative MOS, you do that work. You also get moved around every 3 or 4 years and may get deployed as needed. Moving them around helps prevent malfeasance. Up or out promotions, just like the rest of the military. No one stays in more than 30 years, most don't make it to 20.

 

[jjp8182]

I think most unelected federal employees should have to be part of the military. Make them all meet the same standards and expectations. If you have the skill set for an administrative MOS, you do that work. You also get moved around every 3 or 4 years and may get deployed as needed. Moving them around helps prevent malfeasance. Up or out promotions, just like the rest of the military. No one stays in more than 30 years, most don't make it to 20.

That may work in jobs where little to no competence is required, as it also tends to prevent gaining of any real competence in certain fields (particularly anything that's technical - or highly specialized). It also tends to create a total lack of accountability when incompetent self-serving decisions come to fruition years later (which can be very evident in large acquisition/development programs as well as corporations that have high turnover rates) --- usually long after the individual has departed the position where they made the decisions.

Have run across more than a few individuals who've made a career of hopping from position to position always avoiding the consequences of their decisions. ...basically the same sort of behavior of some short lived corporations.

 

[CausticUrbanCoast]

I think most unelected federal employees should have to be part of the military. Make them all meet the same standards and expectations. If you have the skill set for an administrative MOS, you do that work. You also get moved around every 3 or 4 years and may get deployed as needed. Moving them around helps prevent malfeasance. Up or out promotions, just like the rest of the military. No one stays in more than 30 years, most don't make it to 20.

There are serious misconceptions if you think the military is a better environment than any union/association run company field. There is a reason almost 1/3rd of military arsenal ends up on the black market.

Most military members are half starved, we treat active military very badly.

 

[Torvy]

There are serious misconceptions if you think the military is a better environment than any union/association run company field. There is a reason almost 1/3rd of military arsenal ends up on the black market.

Most military members are half starved, we treat active military very badly.

My dad spent 22 years enlisted. My brother spent 20 as an officer and is now working as a GS 15 for the USAF. I know more than most, less than some.

You partially make my point. We treat civilian bureaucrats better than our troops. I am saying treat them 100% the same. They are supposed to be serving their country, not serving themselves or some union bosses. Most of our troops understand service=sacrifice. I think we should do better by them. We can pay them better if we stop feeding the bureaucracy and it's union leeches.

 

[ericm979]

I'd have been very pleased to get VA and Tricare for life and a pension after 20 years as a federal fire fighter. A lot more folks would sign up for that job and stick with it if they got those benefits.

The only serving myself that I did on fire crew was C-rats from the back of the truck when we were on the line all day and I was starving.

 

[Torvy]

Thanks for your service. Firefighters are not bureaucrats.

 

[Jstpssng]

If you treat your employees like servants you get what you deserve. That goes for government as well as private employees. Rather than treating civil employees the way that we treat our military, perhaps we should treat our military the way that we would expect to be treated.

I also believe that our elected officials should have the same insurance coverage as the rest of our employees.

 

[Whidbey]

I think most unelected federal employees should have to be part of the military. Make them all meet the same standards and expectations. If you have the skill set for an administrative MOS, you do that work. You also get moved around every 3 or 4 years and may get deployed as needed. Moving them around helps prevent malfeasance. Up or out promotions, just like the rest of the military. No one stays in more than 30 years, most don't make it to 20.

That will not work very well. Think about having the bulk of your workforce being replaced every thre years. Some of these positions take a year to fully grasp the duties required. As a former civil servent who moved around a fair amount I can tell you from experience there was a huge difference between what the job description stated and the actual work.

 

[jjp8182]

That will not work very well. Think about having the bulk of your workforce being replaced every thre years. Some of these positions take a year to fully grasp the duties required. As a former civil servent who moved around a fair amount I can tell you from experience there was a huge difference between what the job description stated and the actual work.

In some cases, it'd take even longer than a year for them to grasp the role and even longer to actually become productive ...

For example: those positions that combine technical knowledge with policy/regulatory requirements may quite a bit longer since even if the person comes in with an appropriate level of technical understanding they still need to learn the regulatory aspects (and usually well enough to be able to teach/explain/defend them) ....in addition to learning how to manage the additional bureaucracy that's been imposed in the name/interest of Congressional oversight.

Swapping them around would be about like expecting an English professor or math professor to start teaching collegiate level economics -- and given not even all types of engineers/scientists are necessarily interchangeable.

So given the US government employs a large number of scientists and engineers directly (the FDA, the FAA, the DoD, the various national labs, etc) I'm not seeing how rotations would be helpful particularly when it comes to those technical positions that involve oversight of private industry

...and given how much chaos can be caused by the rotation of military leadership in DoD procurement/development programs (which can be rather like a business changing leadership/owners every 3 to 4 years).

 

[Jstpssng]

That will not work very well. Think about having the bulk of your workforce being replaced every thre years. Some of these positions take a year to fully grasp the duties required. As a former civil servent who moved around a fair amount I can tell you from experience there was a huge difference between what the job description stated and the actual work.

That's the same argument against term limits. However, while I believe that to attract the best candidates for many government positions you need to offer job security, when it comes to our elected officials I'm beginning to see the need for the latter.

In case it isn't obvious, in my roundabout way I"m agreeing with you.

 

[tradosaurus]

I think most unelected federal employees should have to be part of the military. Make them all meet the same standards and expectations. If you have the skill set for an administrative MOS, you do that work. You also get moved around every 3 or 4 years and may get deployed as needed. Moving them around helps prevent malfeasance. Up or out promotions, just like the rest of the military. No one stays in more than 30 years, most don't make it to 20.

Good luck with that. There is a 75 yo man that works in our group that can barely see his computer screen. Can't do anything. He could retire with full benefits (48 yr federal employee) but comes to work because he has nothing else to do.

 

[DieselBound]

Good luck with that. There is a 75 yo man that works in our group that can barely see his computer screen. Can't do anything. He could retire with full benefits (48 yr federal employee) but comes to work because he has nothing else to do.

I'm laughing, which should tell you I understand what you're saying! (the movie Office Space is apropos) While our minds struggle to get wrapped around this kind of behavior we should note that some folks have struggles that we just cannot comprehend (and which tend to cause us to make fun of others; and while fun can be made, I'm not immune, I feel me must maintain a sense of empathy lest we loose what it really means to be human).

I spent a few years in military service and can tell you it's a good place to locate people who shouldn't be out in the public. As one of my superiors told me: "This is as close to communism as you're going to get." Just ironic that a system that is so much like communism is revered by those who abhor communism (flag-wavers): I like to point out that if communism is such a bad system, which I believe is so, then how could it become dominant given that nature doesn't allow bad systems to exist for very long. NOTE: I'm speaking from a US-centric point of view (I'm well aware of what things are like elsewhere; I don't paint with broad strokes). NOTE2: I try to refrain from exposing myself as a vet as I do NOT expect to be treated as "special" (I totally detest the notion of feeling entitled)- please do not feed me, do not thank me for my "service"- I enlisted, it was MY CHOICE.

 

[Whidbey]

That's the same argument against term limits. However, while I believe that to attract the best candidates for many government positions you need to offer job security, when it comes to our elected officials I'm beginning to see the need for the latter.

In case it isn't obvious, in my roundabout way I"m agreeing with you.

Exactly. Just think about your experience and what you learned after you left college. There are many things you learn on the job, some of them the hard way. Your education is a starting point not the end of your learning. Your work seems to be a classic example of that.