I’ll make this my last post about the subject, because I don’t want to derail the thread, but I do feel pretty passionate about this topic.
This whole idea about the public service being a cushy job, under-performing, under achieving and still getting paid for it, this is a relatively new concept. It is not a given, and certainly never used to be a common place, although in some places this is the stereotype or the norm that has emerged due to various social and political factors.
Nor was my last couple of posts specifically about the public service, although I was attempting to break stereotypes by pointing out that this is not an across the board condition along the lines of what Rocky mentioned, “lazy f**kers”. I was pointing out that there are lazy you-know-whats in both private and public institutions, and often it is KPI systems and abuse of that, as well as the challenge of managing a large number of people, that has resulted in this condition.
But what I was also pointing out was this whole idea that a person has to “grind” in order to get ahead in life, that you need to put in long torturous hours with little reward just to survive and hope to rise to the top, is a narrative, and it is a narrative which has no factual basis in reality. It is a habit or assumption developed through a collective lack of vision.
One also needs to separate the idea of having a good work ethic, of putting your all into what you do, from the idea of working long hours or repeating mindless or difficult tasks without attempting to optimize what you’re doing. Otherwise you end up with the resurgence of serfdom and the factors that made the Industrial Revolution a living nightmare.
We are currently in a world where the very idea of what work is, and what we need humans to do is shifting (something which is neither all good nor all bad, and has major red flags at the same time as it promises a revolution for those who can work with this current rather than against it which still maintaining their moral compass). What I am trying to say in the response to Rocky is: it’s not all as black and white as that particular socio-economic outlook, and we need to not be afraid to look closer at these ideas and not think in a surface level or reactionary way. If you want to manifest your dream role, some of the assumptions we make about what work is, and what good work is, and our excuses for not making the cut, are going to have to go. Because those deeply held subconscious assumptions are what will keep a person moving in the same rut without moving forward.
