Civil Servant Bashing

GemJar_2

chunter wrote: »

"Civil Servant Bashing"

Seen the title and thought it was some new addition to the Winter Olympics.
Now there's a sport I'd watch.

Hahahaha me too :A

thriftyminx13

GemJar wrote: »

I work for the civil service in one of their 'lower jobs' as a court usher. The pay is awful. I certainly don't sit around and chat for half an hour, have a brew, read the paper or go to the office and chat to a friend. I get on with my work, as I would with any other job. I work for 32 hours a week, lunch breaks are unpaid and an hour long (this is to suit the judges, not us- trust me!), unless I am sitting out with a deliberating jury over the one hour lunch, in which case I am paid for half an hour. When I go for a cig break I clock out and am not paid for it, as in any other job. Theres a constant threat of redundency hanging over our heads and they aren't re-hiring staff which means every time an usher leaves theres more work for us to do. I have had a week off this year due to an operation though and they were wonderful about it, I'm thankful for that.

However, people on higher pay bands, managers especially do sh*t all. They're off for weeks 'ill' and then the other managers that have managed to drag their lazy !!!!!! into work have the cheek to send round a collection for flowers for said 'sick' manager, I can't afford this (i'm on just under £800 a month) but find it embarrassing to skip the envolope with everyone looking at me, it drives me insane.

I've worked there a year and a half and I've been looking for a new job for a year

Is this in Northern Ireland or Manchester? I really don't think this culture exists in the majority of the NICS - I really don't.

thriftyminx13

pgilc1 wrote: »

He works in one of the IT departments around Stormont. I'd have no problems getting the details.

I take it the annual leave goes UP?

Lets assume you can work up a days flexi per time period, which i assume to be every four weeks - should be too difficult - if you work 40 hrs a week like the rest of us, you'll get a day off worked up no probs.

So thats 13 days flexi over the year. Add to that say 11 stats = 24. Add to that your 25 days A/L, thats 49.

So basically you work a four day week on average over the year.

And thats before you take into account all the previous generation contract people around you who have amassed a massive annual leave allowance for every year.

Nice work if you can get it.

My BIL narrowly missed being able to retire at 50 out of the civil service on a FINAL SALARY BASED PENSION, and now will 'have' to work on until hes 55 - Nightmare, eh?

I can't do anything about people who have been in the service for decades and are able to retire early on FINAL SALARY BASED PENSION - does this not happen in the private sector? my dad works in the bank and he will be able to retire early because he has worked their since he was 17.

Also as mentioned the pensions changed so many of us are on are on the premium or nuvos schemes and they are based on very different premises.

#and why shouldn't I get flexi if I work over my hours because they won't give us the resources to complete the job in a day? I don't begrudge anybody getting flexi - private or public. And there are rules as mentioned in earlier posts that time limits these.

Annual leave goes up after 15 years.

elliemoo

I'm married with 3 kids, work full time, have been in the service for 20 years, haven't had a sick day in 6 years. I have no problem taking home my pay at the end of the month, I work damn hard for it.

I think every occupation has people who take advantage but there are some very hard working staff in the NICS at all grades.

MrsE_2

pgilc1 wrote: »

Lets assume you can work up a days flexi per time period, which i assume to be every four weeks - should be too difficult - if you work 40 hrs a week like the rest of us, you'll get a day off worked up no probs.

So thats 13 days flexi over the year. Add to that say 11 stats = 24. Add to that your 25 days A/L, thats 49.

So basically you work a four day week on average over the year.

I do flexi, I do a 9 day fortnight.

So I do 261 days - 8 days BHs, - 24 days AL = 229

Out of those with flexi I get an extra 23 days off, but I can't take them all together & I can't tag them onto hols.

But they are NOT extra hols anyway, I still do my full time hours, i just spread them different.

motorguy

i!!!!!!!!!!! wrote: »

Well to the person who said their friend did the it consultency for - it quite obviously wasn't my department - It really annoys the life out of me when people slag off civil servants - I work damn hard for the money I earn and the abuse the general public are happy to lash out and take great exception to hearing about what a holiday camp the civil service is. Its simply not the case -Again i've been there 7 years now and been on 2 days sick and my entire team is similar so dont see that the claims about sick leave is true

I've no doubt it was your department. But it DOES happen in the civil service and people are allowed to get away with it.

A friend of mine is in the civil service - we were getting the train down from moira to belfast and there was a breakdown. I offered her a lift down as my car was in the car park. Her response - 'no its ok, if i say the train broke down then its not my fault i was late so i wont have to work the time up, so i'll just wait an hour or so here until the next one comes along'.

How on earth would a real company survive if thats the way its employees got on?

Sorry you work in a tough department, sorry you're getting tarred with other peoples brushes, but there is STILL a massive amount of slack in the civil service, and we're ALL paying for it.

Paula202

pgilc1 wrote: »

He works in one of the IT departments around Stormont. I'd have no problems getting the details.

My husband works in one of those IT Departments around Stormont and I think your mate may be telling you porkies, how does he know what hours people work, and what they do all day, surely if he was busy doing his own job he wouldn't have time to monitor other people. As someone else said staff are allowed to work flexi hours so they can start up to 10am if they want and in NICS flexi is strictly monitored.

As with everywhere you will get slackers who give everyone else a bad reputation. Unfortunately in the past in NICS and NHS it was almost impossible to get rid of dead wood but this is changing - thank goodness.

motorguy

Paula202 wrote: »

pgilc1 wrote: »

He works in one of the IT departments around Stormont. I'd have no problems getting the details.

My husband works in one of those IT Departments around Stormont and I think your mate may be telling you porkies, how does he know what hours people work, and what they do all day, surely if he was busy doing his own job he wouldn't have time to monitor other people. As someone else said staff are allowed to work flexi hours so they can start up to 10am if they want and in NICS flexi is strictly monitored.

As with everywhere you will get slackers who give everyone else a bad reputation. Unfortunately in the past in NICS and NHS it was almost impossible to get rid of dead wood but this is changing - thank goodness.

I have no reason to believe he is - he has no vested interest in lying to me.

NAR

I work taking care of the interests of 18,500+ Civil Servants. I won't say where but those who work in the service will probably guess. I have worked in 5 different Depts in my many years (36) and I would think the number of slackers number about 500. Bad management has not rooted them out - fact of life, due to over-promoted people not capable of doing their managerial duties.

Snoozle

My husband also works in a civil service IT job. He gets paid a pittance in comparison to a similar job in the private sector, but that is a trade off that he has conciously made, as he feels his better pension arrangements will go some way to compensating him for that in the long run (although he is not old enough to have joined the civil service in the days when the pension arrangements meant retirement at 50 or whatever).

But he works hard, often at weekends, and I can't remember the last time he was off sick. And the job his team does is important - if he and his colleagues weren't doing it, people would soon notice and there would be pages of ranting on here about how incompetent the civil service is. As I have never seen a thread of that nature on here, I can only conclude that they actually must be competent and efficient. But thats the thing isn't it? When things go well, no-one notices, its only when people screw up that it comes to light....

The civil service has slackers and bad management, but I have worked in both the private and public sectors and I've seen plenty of slacking in both. Hopefully over time they will be able to remove the lazy and incompetent civil servants (as they should), and it will be for the benefit of everyone.