State workers still enjoy advantage over private employees

Jamie_Carter

hildosaver wrote: »

Sorry what evidence do you have for this? I've had a similar experience within my job in the Public sector and I was expected back in work within a matter of days. Indeed a colleague of mine was violently assaulted while on duty in work and returned to work within a few days. I realise that not everybody in the public services work in a place that expects you to deal with challenging and quite often violent behaviour in work, but where I work does and the vast majority of people here who have been unfortunate enough to get hurt while on duty have had an expectation that it is part of the job and to get on with it.

Once again it's just broad assumptions and accusations.

And what Condad says is actually a myth. Most public sector employees would be expected to return to work on light duties as soon as they are able to do so.

A._Badger

hildosaver wrote: »

Yes in many ways being a nurse, paramedic, social worker, teacher, etc are neither challenging nor worthy of any respect as jobs. .

I'm glad to see others beat me to it with the observation of how absurdly selective your list is.

And even then, I'm far from sure about the saintly virtues of teachers and social workers.

N1AK

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Being a 'boomer' has nothing to do with it! Us boomers did quite well (thank you very much) with a public sector (and cost thereof) that was a mere fraction of what it is today.

This is a pretty ignorant response. That small public sector you grew up with was the one paying for hospital care and pensions for your parents (who did make do with very little). Now that Boomers are getting old the costs of providing them with the healthcare and pensions they've voted for (but not paid for) mean the cost has increased.

Boomers have treated the public purse as a ponzi scheme and are relying on the current generation to continue the con and try and pass it on to their children.

chewmylegoff

Jamie_Carter wrote: »

And what Condad says is actually a myth. Most public sector employees would be expected to return to work on light duties as soon as they are able to do so.

i think there is an element of truth in it, having worked in both public and private. in either sector, you need to be able to demonstrate that you are not fit for work in order to not go to work, i.e. you will need a doctors' note for any continuous absence longer than a few days, usually 5.

however, my experience is that the public sector has much better sickness pay. in the private sector, i had 20 days paid sick leave a year, plus another 20 at half pay. in the public sector i could be off for a year at full pay before any reduction kicks in.

obviously, if you know you are going to get paid, you are more likely to go and sit in the doctors surgery and say that you are not fit to work - at which point they will sign you off work to make you go away. if you're only going to be paid for 20 days, and then SSP, you're more likely to make an effort to go to work on crutches than hop to the doctor's surgery to get signed off.

but as you say, there are plenty of people in the public sector who don't take the p!ss, but there are plenty who do.

StevieJ

A._Badger wrote: »

Self-respect? The need for a challenge?

You mean like EDF, I have been with them a year now and still not got a correct opening reading on my Gas account, who is the challenge for? The Customer

chewmylegoff

StevieJ wrote: »

You mean like EDF, I have been with them a year now and still not got a correct opening reading on my Gas account, who is the challenge for? The Customer

Well, to be fair, you should probably be answering the phone calls from irate customers whose bill is wrong, rather than trying to hack into your own gas account to fiddle the reading. I'm surprised EDF haven't sacked you to be honest.

hildosaver

A._Badger wrote: »

I'm glad to see others beat me to it with the observation of how absurdly selective your list is.

And even then, I'm far from sure about the saintly virtues of teachers and social workers.

I can be as selective as I choose because I was responding to broad comments about the 'Public Sector'. I can be selective because in doing so it points out how utterly ridiculous it is to make broad sweeping statements which condemn everybody when actually I'm pointing out that it's not right to do so. That is entirely the point I was trying to make.

Also, at what point did I make any reference to anybody having saintly virtues, people are people and not everybody is good at their job/has a good attitude/care about what they are doing, thats a simply fact so yes some Social Workers/Teachers/anybody else will be awful but thats true in Public Sector too. Honestly, trying to just be balanced in here is difficult when people assume things about what you are saying, without actually reading it.

perthperson

ruggedtoast wrote: »

To my knowledge both the private and public sectors are staffed by people, and people are generally awful.

There are many differences within the public sector as to make the distinction almost meaningless. Someone whose job is data entry in the council is a public sector worker, as is a paramedic trying to stop a child bleeding to death amidst the carnage of a road traffic accident.

I worked for a government organisation for a while as a temp. The floor I worked on was probably like everything people hear about public sector waste and get angry about. People would spend all day on the internet, have meetings to discuss meetings, turn up hours late and go home early. One guy spent every evening sitting at his terminal until 8 building up overtime at time and a half to extend a long holiday he wanted to take.

The floor above us was manic, constantly short staffed, people working unpaid overtime, working at home, they were doing a really important job and trying not to screw it up under the oversight of politically appointed managers that would have been funny were they not so inept and vindictive.

Very few of any of us were on more than £20k a year. Then the inevitable yearly restructure came around and after months of chaos none of the senior managers were touched, the operational staff had their workloads doubled and the organisation became very top heavy with highly paid people waiting to draw their pensions, while offloading work to much more junior people and constantly searching for ways to pay them less. A pattern I see repeated all over the public sector now.

Did you work where I work??? This is pretty much a description of what happens here - except I would say that pretty much all the ordinary troops are in the incredibly busy understaffed bit n. We've just gone through a restructure that played out exactly as above. (public sector)

Having worked in private and public sector and also voluntary organisations, there's good and bad in all - this public v private is just part of divide and rule that's going on now.

FTBFun

Jamie_Carter wrote: »

My mate is a fireman and earns about £28000 per year after 20 years service. He works a 42 hour week, which works out at about £12.80 per hour. He also works nights, and bank holidays (including Christmas day). And he does a highly skilled and dangerous job.

Given that the fire-service never has any trouble finding recruits, they can't be paid that badly.

According to this £28k amounts to quite a junior position in the fire service:

http://www.hantsfire.gov.uk/salary

Andy_L

FTBFun wrote: »

There are more civil servants at the MOD than infantry soldiers in the British Army.

Seeing as how the Infantry makes up about 25% of the Army & the MoD (made of of both Millitary & civillians) supports all 3 services thats a true, but a fairly meaningless factoid.