Government Work---Nice Work if You Can Get it.

The Herald has run a follow-up to an article they published back in July, and I'm gratified to see a more balanced perspective presented.

This topic was worthy of revisiting, and I'm gratified to see that this time the perspective is far more balanced and realistic. Whether intended or not, the July article came across as a partisan apologia on behalf of state government workers, depicting them as hapless victims and even going so far as to preemptively scold would-be critics who would have the audacity to point out that, unlike many, they at least still had jobs.

I'm far more inclined to feel sympathy for some of the people featured in the current article than in the previous one. The single mom with a kid featured in today's piece who makes $32,000 per annum is a far cry from the clerk previously featured who lamented the loss of one measly day's pay and its attendant deleterious impact on her ability to have "shopping sprees." People were righteously indignant, mortified and outraged to the point of red-faced fury at that kind of "let them eat cake" remark, especially coming as it does from a steady-gig government worker whose paycheck is funded by tax-paying citizens who are frequently out of work themselves, and chronically so despite their best and most persistent efforts to find employment in this devastated economy.

The larger issue here is the relatively astonishing level of narcissism, selfishness, and outright greed evidenced by many government employees, the unions who represent them, or both. Couple that with what appears to be a breezy and blithe unconcern for those who are out of work and suffering good and hard for it, and it's no surprise that a lot of people who were formerly supportive of, or at least ambivalent toward government workers, are now screaming for their self-absorbed heads on so many platters.

We see this unbelievable government-employee dynamic right here in Lynnwood, as the Herald reported just the other day in an article that explained some of the cuts that the city is contemplating in order to deal with the reality of a $20 million dollar plus shortfall. Right there, Johnny on the spot, is an outspoken government employee imperiously declaring that she is "hopeful the council is not actually going to implement the cuts" to staff. Not a single word of concessions, not a hint as to a proposed alternate solution, just a show of disbelief that layoffs could even be considered.

The worldview of public sector employees truly is something quite apart from the reality the rest of us face daily.