Tief Head: What I am Worth
This entry is a continuation of Tief Head. Read it when you get the chance and you will understand why my posts tapered of in early 2009.
Life in the Public Service has been sucking me dry.
What could have provoked me into blogging again? Earthquakes and tsunamis? RATT? KamJack? Property tax? Mystery church behind God’s back?
Nah…
Money!
What else?!
Contending with the work-ethic and accountability issues is one thing.
[Absences without adequate notice; three-day work weeks; 9 a.m. – 10 a.m. arrivals; breakfast; hour and a half lunches for shopping and beauty treatments; KFC eating after the hour and a half lunches; eyes glued to pc screen checking out YouTube and Facebook; ears stuck to office telephone for convos with boo, ma, cuz, bff; radio blaring; three weeks to complete three-day tasks; need to leave office to do “sumting”; days spent completing home-work, community work, second wuk, not work work; 2:30 p.m. departures; refusal to sign in / out on attendance book].
However, when I discover that after over a year of changing jobs (from supervising no one and dealing with a potential client-base of less than 35 persons, to supervising 3-4 persons and dealing with a potential client-base of more than 1000 persons) that all I get is a lousy $1500 increase (that is taken up by tax anyway!), I have to ask myself what is the point?
Money is not everything, but it certainly takes the sting out of dealing with certain work-place shenanigans.
If I do not get adequate monetary compensation, will I eventually resort to deriving my compensation in kind (flexi-hours, flexi-resources, flexi-work)?
I hope not.
I remain yours truly, committed to excellence (motivated by doing a job well done, not by money),
Mango
Note:
~ The work-ethic and accountability issues (bad-behaviour!) described cannot be attributed to all employees in the Public Service. However, in my own lil Department, I have witnessed all of them.
~ I enjoy my job (I just do not enjoy…)
Mango and Mosquito 
Glad to see you’re back…
I think eventually you will, move on.
But it is a nice job to have if you want to study part time.
I agree, I think that it is a nice job to have if you want to study part-time, if you want to do all sorts of things part-time. This is why, at least in my opinion, the “Service” has attracted certain types of personalities.
However, it should not be that way. Why should someone be “studying part time” on the job and earning the same salary as someone is “working all day” on the job (and hard at it too)? I recently had an encounter with a staff member who took umbrage to the fact that I identified his / her propensity (in a performance appraisal) to use office hours to do all sorts of activities outside of the current job portfolio. The individual’s claim was that he/she had finished what had been assigned, had not been assigned enough to do.
Did the individual do the assigned tasks well and with a good attitude?
The bare minimum concept comes to mind. No less, no more.
Trinidad and Tobago would be in a much better position if people stopped tiefin productive time and using it for personal purposes. Think of how much could be achieved if people showed initiative, demonstrated innovation… I have finished what I have been assigned, could I ask for more tasks, could I take it upon myself to perform other tasks?
I guess that I could be touching on practices by those who live in foreign galaxies, light years away, but it seems to have worked for me so far.
Three (3) years down the line and I have moved up the ladder (mauby money of course). Twenty-five (25) plus years and the staff member still where he/she started.
Should I be so philosophical as to ask who is happier?
Mango
Note: The performance appraisal is also an opportunity for the supervisor to get bobo-lized by staff members.
I left the public service in 2005. Many of the people I left are still there. And in general, I would say their personal lives are their priority. They simply aren’t career orientated. They want a basic secure job, so they can raise their family. Go home, spend time with the kids. When I think about the ‘capital’ I lost in the financial meltdown and I equate it to the ‘overtime’ spend away from the kids.
It isn’t worth it. If I had to do it over, I may have stayed. As things turned out, I got lured. Profit Sharing, sounds good and during boom times, is very nice package. But money isn’t everything.
As for showing intiative, many people have been burned so many times, they learn helplessness. They expect to be the scape goat.
Why bother if you are always overlooked or someone more eloquent always takes the credit.
I’ll always the first time I became a senior on a project. I was the junior and Caparo – where the senior lived got flooded, she couldn’t get to work. Suddenly, by default, I was it.
I only stepped up because I had to. And the opportunity, proved to myself, my senior and others that I could.
I suppose I am saying, what’s important to you changes, over time. I’m certainly surprised at how I have matured, maybe it’s the biological clock, who knows.