Public Sector


2018 10 20  |  journal

My job in the public sector is clearly a make-work project; and if it isn't, it sure smells like one. I can't imagine they'd pay someone to do what I'm doing on a permanent basis. But, my workload is so light, if they did want someone to do it, they wouldn't need more than two of us - maybe not even that - and certainly not the seven of us that are there. There are some days I could handle the entire workload on my own. There's a week of the contract left, and every single day I keep hoping to hear that they are - if not making it permanent - at least going to extend it for a month or three. The idea of getting a public sector paycheque every two weeks for the rest of my working life, is an idea I do not hate.

It is a monumental delight to finally work a job where someone isn't micromanaging your every move and every moment of your time. The amount of flak one receives in the private sector - in retail specifically - for things like being ten minutes late, is unholy. Here, if I'm ten minutes late I'm not even sure anyone would notice, and I suppose they trust that I'll make up the time - which I have done. I get an hour for lunch, so I don't have to wolf down my food like a starving person, and I have time to run an errand or two. The biggest difference, though, is that when there's downtime - and there is an enormous amount of it for me - I can use the Internet. The only thing I can't do is stream stuff. But, since I can have my phone at my desk, unlike with retail or call centre work, I can just use that to stream things. I've worked in call centres where we couldn't even have books at our desks, never mind our phones. So, during downtimes, there was absoolutely nothing we could do to fill the time up, other than talk to each other, which I didn't always want to do. It's two in the morning on a Tuesday - no one's calling for a taxi - telling me I need to spend my time concentrating on my job, is utterly laughable in a situation like that.

The biggest personal difference for me is that I do not have to talk to customers. I am so sick to death of customer service. I loathe it. I am enormously relieved to be out of it, even for a short term. The mental break is delightful. The very idea of having to go back to it after this week is up, nauseates me. Customer service is just so ... relentless. And I am tired.

So let us all hope that my gig gets extended; or, better yet, made permanent, so I can spend the rest of my life making some actual money, rather than having to scrabble from paycheque to paycheque just to cover the basics.


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