It is my hope that many of you out there are happy in you work life. I hope that you have a fulfilling job that gives you many psychological rewards. If you are, I need to meet you. I either hang with the wrong crowd or that happy fulfilled crowd keeps shrinking and eludes me.
I think that I get around quite a bit even though I am retired, but I do not talk to anyone -- not one single person, who is happy in their job. They may like the work that they do but not the office politics -- or being told to execute really bad decisions. The thought of an employee asking a question to try and understand a decision is next to heresy.
Yet employees want to be included in discussions, they want to think that their opinion counts, and they want to contribute to their workplace in a positive way. Employees used to be hired because they had knowledge, skills and abilities, therefore having a very good chance of performing the duties of the position for which they were hired. Those days appear to be long gone.
It is no wonder that most state exams are now done on-line -- just a point and click exercise. Anyone could take an exam and lie about everything on it...heck your dog could take it and the dog could get the top score. In fact the percentage of top scores is around 90%, unlike any Bell curve that I have ever seen. If someone in state government has the hiring power, they can bring in anyone that they want...their friends, family, children -- all with no verification of anything on their application or the supposed "exam". One day you are unemployed and practically the next day you can be employed by the state (assuming there are openings).
This practice started during Governor Wilson's administration and was short lived because it was deemed to be a very ineffective way of hiring the best talent for state government. Potential employees were not being vetted in any meaningful way. Apparently that logic no longer applies, and realistically it may not matter.
The sad fact is that there still exist very smart, and skilled employees in the workplace. But they are not allowed to offer their advise or ask questions. Their job, if it were to be described correctly on their duty statements or position descriptions would simply say "execute whatever the boss wants ". If they offer an opinion, ask a question or have the audacity to suggest a direction, they are accused of not being a team player, or taking over a situation and excluding others; if they sit back and don't engage, they re told they are not contributing.
The rules of engagement in the work place have changed. Is it any wonder so many employees are so unhappy? They do not know whether to zig or zag. Employees are caught in a Catch 22 situation.
1 comment:
I'm not near as pessimistic about the workplace as you are. I think there are still good places to work in state government and good jobs where you can make a difference. I'm not saying that there is not a lot of validity in what you're saying in some agencies as part of their culture, but not all agencies have that kind of culture. And I think a lot of the problems and less than ideal attitudes belong to the employees as well.
The employee needs to do the best job that he or she can even if nobody else seems to care. And he or she needs to stick up for themselves when they need to and do the right thing when they have to. If they do that then they can feel good about their jobs and themselves regardless of the culture.
Individual employee integrity and responsibility has to be part of the overall equation too when you’re talking about the workplace.
Don’t get me wrong, I think what you’re saying is true in many cases, but it’s just one part of the story.
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