The State Worker: Capital doesn't like mavericks

Sacramento Bee ^ | 9/11/8 | Jon Ortiz

[SmithL]

California has two kinds of state employees: Sacramento workers and everyone else.

It makes a difference, says Christine Valle, a Southern California state worker.

"Having always worked in San Diego, going to Sacramento becomes a trip to a different mental dimension. The thought process is very different, much more self-centered, much more protectionist, much more political in the sense that everyone asks, 'How does this decision or action look?' "

Anyone who works in a large organization confronts that question. Bureaucracies, public or private, can be dehumanizing. Huge agencies and businesses often have rigid rules and ruthless politics that can wear down the most conscientious employee.

But it's more intense for Sacramento state workers. We're the apex of California's political power pyramid. Pols, lobbyists and union leaders hang out here. Some 112,500 workers in the Sacramento region, about one in 10, get paychecks from the state of California.

"That's an overwhelming concentration of government workers," says business professor Todd Dewett, a group behavior expert at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. "It adds to the pressure already exerted by unions and state employees to protect their interests with unspoken rules to advance the status quo."

Those rules punish anyone who questions the system, Dewett says. Speak out and risk being shunned. Criticize and your career could suffer. Don't make your co-workers, department or union look bad.

That makes Sacramento a tough place to change. Insiders feel group pressure to leave things as they are. Outsiders are the enemy. Reform is a threat. Break the unspoken rules and the bureaucracy will try to break you. It shows up in the smallest ways.

...And it shows up in big ways, like this week's move by the California Correctional Peace Officers Association to recall Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

[mgstarr]

I'm appalled at the hordes of state workers we have in CA, most of whom don't seem to do anything except push paper and be maddeningly inefficient at even that.

[Navy Patriot]

Christine Valle will soon be no longer working for the state.

[GOP Poet]

bookmark

[Pajama Blogger]

We (Californians) are screwed for a long long time.

[Jacquerie]

Bureaucracies, public or private, can be dehumanizing.

Only those who have had to visit a state agency can believe it. Zombies, the living dead or maybe the dead living. People who show up, follow the rules to the letter, do not think, are not expected to think, and avoid decisions whenever possible. This is what government does.

[Morgan in Denver]

This is not confined to CA. In CO, we have the exact same problem. The government union has enough money to afford slick advertising and phone banks to call and “visit” with state workers. And yes, I DO know this first hand.

[Publius6961]

I hope the Guvernator deals with the "correctional officers" attempt to recall him the same way that Reagan dealt with the Flight Controllers.

These idiots and their union really believe that they run the State; or that they are getting support from the taxpayers about their whining.

Good luck with that.

[SierraWasp]

"I hope the Guvernator deals with the "correctional officers" attempt to recall him the same way that Reagan dealt with the Flight Controllers."

Shirley you jest! (gasp!)

[SierraWasp]

My son thinks that Arnold might have had something to do with that SEIU yoonyun presidunce at Dept. of Insurance that just got busted for child porn next to the day care center.

He thinks this was a warning shot to the CCPOA goons for trying to start that embarrassing recall against America's Greatest Action Hero celebutard!!!