Posted on 06/15/2004 6:30:54 PM PDT by wagglebee
Last month, the General Accounting Office (GAO) made headlines with its report that scores of high ranking employees from eight federal agencies had degrees from bogus colleges or unaccredited schools. Worse yet, a GAO spokesman said, "It's a much larger problem than the evidence we have to date shows." That could be an understatement given that just three of the unaccredited schools the GAO examined revealed that 463 current or one-time students are federal employees. Still, some were unfazed; one wit commented: “I’m not as concerned with whether government workers have degrees as with whether they are working at all.”
That remark bespeaks the conventional wisdom that government work—excluding the Armed Forces and those in law enforcement—is the epitome of “inside work; no heavy lifting.” Moreover, it reflects personal experience: people who have waited on line or on hold or who have heard “that’s not my area” too often wonder if anyone works in federal agencies let alone if those working know what they are doing. Often they do not: a 2003 study disclosed that the IRS gives incorrect answers or no answer at all 43 percent of the time!
An actual, rather than anecdotal, example of a federal employee’s work ethic was revealed in testimony in a challenge to a small mining claim in the Plumas National Forest some 100 miles northeast of Sacramento, California. There Donald Eno, a disabled veteran, seeks to provide for himself by working sixty hour weeks on his gold and travertine discoveries. His years of hard work may pay off: estimates are his gold is worth $650,000; his travertine is valued at $20 million, or more! However, because of oddities in federal land law, the federal government could eject him from his property, if it can prove that his claim has no value or that it is more valuable for use as a sacred, scenic, or geological site. Because local U.S. Forest Service personnel oppose mining in general—in an area that has been mined for over 150 years—that is what they are trying to do.
In a recent administrative proceeding, the United States called, as its expert witness, a Forest Service geologist who testified that Mr. Eno’s gold has no economic value. His testimony was not persuasive for numerous reasons, including, errors in basic math, use of the wrong mining equipment, and incorrect economic assumptions. But his most ludicrous assertion was that every hour of dredging—the actual recovery of gold from the stream—required one and one-half hours of work. Part of that extra time was what the geologist said he needed to get ready to work each day; the other part was for frequent “work breaks.” In fact, over the three days the geologist was at the claim, he averaged two hours a day in the stream recovering gold.
Mr. Eno faulted the geologist’s lackadaisical approach to dredging for gold. Eight hours of work is eight hours of work, Mr. Eno argued. Lawyers for the United States countered that the geologist’s views are “standard in any business in America.” Hardly; however, the geologist’s view may be “standard” in the federal government.
At least the geologist was in the stream and dredged for gold, which is more than could be said of another Forest Service employee who testified that Mr. Eno’s claim was “sacred” to local American Indians. The purported expert witness did not interview any of those Indians, nearly a quarter of whom disagreed with her conclusions; she called them “statistical outliers.” Moreover, as to two key “sacred” features about which the witness testified, she admitted during cross examination that she had not visited the sites! Perhaps she was on one of the geologist’s “work breaks.”
Fortunately, the administrative law judge rejected the testimony of the Forest Service employees and ruled for Mr. Eno. Other Americans, however, may not be so fortunate in their encounter with federal “workers.”
Or working because of one.
When government workers solve problems, their funding dries up...The only way for them to keep their job is to keep finding problems and begging for more money. If they solve a problem, there is no reason for them to exist...so they can never solve problems, by definition.
Local city workers are concerned because the city manager just approved the purchase of a new shovel design. It is one that will stand up all by itself!
I've had recent issues with both the IRS and the FAA. They are both incredibly slow and screwed up.
Anyone who believes that the average "government worker" actually works for a living is probably convinced that the Great Pumpkin is going to rise out of the pumpkin patch this Halloween and solve all our problems.
I have proof that sex doesn't involve work.
I worked for a govt contractor, and if sex involved work, the civil servants would have had us contractors doing it for them.
Q--- what is orange and sleeps 4?
A----A DOT pickup truck.
bookmark bump
Dense, banded rock composed of calcium carbonate, CaCO3.
Formed by rapid chemical precipitation of calcium corbonate from solution in surface and ground waters, it is a variety of limestone that has a light color and takes a good polish. It is often used for walls and interior decorations in public buildings and as a paving stone. Travertine is mined extensively in Italy; in the U.S., Yellowstone's Mammoth Hot Springs are actively depositing travertine. It also occurs in limestone caves in the form of stalactites and stalagmites.
Just in case you wondered.
This doesnt surprise me, I workd in DC and half their people have degrees from Howard or the University of DC and the degrees arent worth the paper they are printed on.
Actually, I did!
Thanks :)
Correct, that's why government only manages problems.
Shortly before I left a big scandal broke loose at the shipyard - it seems that lots of these government "workers" were showing up at the yard in the morning and punching the time clock, and then leaving to go work at other jobs! They'd turn up at the yard again at quitting time and punch out, and then repeat this the next day, etc. These guys were drawing government salaries to go work for someone else. The last I heard about it the Navy CO had been relieved of his command (rumor was he was taking kickbacks to look the other way while all this was going on) and was facing charges, and lots of the civilian workers had been "fired."
As if - a government employee can perform human sacrifice with an infant in his cubicle during "working" hours, and still not get fired. I'm sure the civvy "workers" were probably sent away for some remedial training and then reassigned somewhere else to probably pull the same scam again.
That's what happens when you have a job for life.
Government workers don't work because they don't HAVE to work.
In my former life I worked in the mortgage business and the lazy federal people we worked with were bored and disinterested.
Phone calls to their offices often left me listening to "girl talk" while they laid the receiver on their desk - never to lift it to their ear again!
My boss said we couldn't report them because they could literally put us (a private company) out of business, so we had to beg for the least little task to be completed.
I grew to hate it and now wish I'd saved some of those back numbers to the FHA office so I could give them a taste of their own medicine!
Here's one of the worst offenders:
Recent Voting History of John Kerry
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1152385/posts
Lieutenant Governor: No-Show Kerry Should Quit Senate
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1154314/posts
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