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I see similar when I see private sector constrution sites and road construction crews. What I see a lot of in the public sector are fire fighters with lucrative future pensions sitting around most of the day either doing nothing or chores to keep them busy. What is even more unfair is they get to use company vehicles to go out for meals and other non necessary stuff. Gotta find a way to keep them doing more of what they are hired for or get rid of them.
Well what would you have firefighters do during their 24 hour shift if there is no fire??? I guess we could burn things down to keep them busy...Yeah, get rid of firefighters...great idea.
""What is even more unfair is they get to use company vehicles to go out for meals and other non necessary stuff.""
They need their vehicles to do their jobs. If they get a call while they are at the store, or at a meal, they have to jump in the vehicle and rush to the scene. Not rush back to the firehouse, in their personal car without lights and sirens, and then jump in the truck and drive to the scene. I have seen our firefighters get a call in the store, and they had to leave the cart where it sat and run for the truck.
Taking the company vehicles home at night is also required in many jobs. The troubleshooters at our utility took their trucks home, because they worked the area of the county where they live and if they are on-call (30% of their off time) they can directly go to the problem and get electrical service restored without driving 25 miles to the office to get their truck, turn around and drive 25 miles to the scene of the problem delaying restoration by at least an hour. Federal regulations control the average restoration time we are required to meet, and we'd never make it without having the trucks in the field.
Our Deputy Chief Engineer back in the 80s took home a public vehicle because he was going to have to go back out at night to see a major operation going on overnight at one of the bridge construction projects. He stopped at the supermarket on the way home.
Sure enough, a couple of days later there was a letter from an irate citizen wanting to know why public officials were using HER tax money for cars so that public employees could go shopping.
The fact that we didn't even receive tax revenue didn't stop her from making ASSumptions.
I could see if you saw a public vehicle parked at a casino or even a bar, but a supermarket?
We used to get the same thing when I stopped for lunch in my company truck. I was in the field for a 9 hour workday, was I supposed to go hungry? We had to go to fast food places to use the restroom during the day, people would actually come up and accost us for being at a fast food place "on ratepayer's time". I can't go 9 hours without a restroom break. My job entailed visiting businesses to perform energy-audits and verify if energy improvements made met requirements by visiting the site. Sometimes the businesses were restaurants, stores, offices, etc. I can't tell you how many times I got reported for being parked at the mall. My customer account that I was serving was THE MALL.
The massive fail of basic literacy is really discouraging. How is it possible to fail to recognize TuborgP's post about firefighters as sarcasm?
Sorry ER. I'm not only quite literate, but also very literal. In fact, literal to a fault according to many.
Deadpan delivery, in writing, from someone I don't know, who may or may not have a sense of humor, in a thread where everyone is slamming government workers...how is it possible to miss the sarcasm? Gee, I don't know. (insert emoji for sarcasm here).
Last edited by TheShadow; 06-03-2016 at 12:17 PM..
That, and the fact that I faced the same ludicrous, uninformed criticism of myself and my co-workers for 25 years. It tends to make a person a little touchy about it.
We used to get the same thing when I stopped for lunch in my company truck. I was in the field for a 9 hour workday, was I supposed to go hungry? We had to go to fast food places to use the restroom during the day, people would actually come up and accost us for being at a fast food place "on ratepayer's time". I can't go 9 hours without a restroom break. My job entailed visiting businesses to perform energy-audits and verify if energy improvements made met requirements by visiting the site. Sometimes the businesses were restaurants, stores, offices, etc. I can't tell you how many times I got reported for being parked at the mall. My customer account that I was serving was THE MALL.
We have the same thing when we send people in government cars to do their jobs at malls, bars, restaurants etc. people report them and we have to waste time comparing the employees daily report to the complaint.
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