Maybe we should get Dirk Gently to become Columbia’s new police chief. In any case, this story certainly reads more like Douglas Adams satire than anything like reality. And yet, here we are:
Nearly a month after stepping down as Columbia’s interim police chief, Harold Reaves has not returned to work for the city.
And it’s not clear whether there is a job waiting for him.
City
manager Charles Austin, who granted Reaves’ Nov. 1 request for personal
leave, told The State this week he doesn’t know how long Reaves will be
out. Austin also said he has yet to ask Reaves specifically why he
wanted time off.
“As long as he is on personal leave, I think it
would be a matter of his discretion. I’m sure when he comes back, we’ll
have some discussion what the reason was about.”
Austin earlier said Reaves requested time off for unspecified “family matters.”
Why do I think of Douglas Adams? Well, if you read So Long, And Thanks for All the Fish, you may recall that, after several years bouncing around the galaxy in his bathrobe, the hapless Arthur Dent returns to Earth, and decides he’d best give his boss a ring at work. His boss doesn’t bat an eye at his ridiculous explanation of his absence, and when he asks in an offhand manner when Arthur might return and Arthur gives a vague answer that suggests it might be months in the future (when I get home, I’ll look up the actual wording), his boss greets that with a chipper response along the lines of Right, then. Fine! Cheerio! See you when you get back!
This is apparently meant to lampoon the laxness of personnel policy at the BBC, and it’s quite funny to anyone who’s worked in a real workplace with actual accountability.
But in this, real-life, case, Mr. Austin isn’t even asking why his employee is gone, or when he’s coming back. And somehow, it’s not nearly as funny that way.
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> a real workplace with actual accountability.
In other words, a non-government workplace…
You should include a link to your “Which is worse: cronyism or bad judgment?” post here as this situation is another example of the same disregard for the public that the bar exam fiasco represents…
I was wondering how long that would take you, Doug. Now that you’ve said it, I can point out that no, that’s not the case. Government jobs are the ones that ARE expected to be accountable, and when they fail that standard, they make news. As in, “man bites dog.”
Accountability in the private sector is somewhat more likely to be subject to the whim of the employer, who is infinitely less likely to see his failure to crack down in the newspaper.
Actually, Brad, were Reaves an employee in the private sector, his employer would have dealt with him by now, without newspaper input, and properly so.
But because Mr. Reaves is a public employee, apparently with no accountability, he’s still pulling a paycheck.
His absence affects no one else’s salary, so thanks for all the fish and the mammals, too.
Weldon, that’s just an article of faith on your part. You are just far, far less likely to hear about slackers in the private sector.
Your faith doesn’t ring true with me. I’ve spent my entire career working in the private sector, and its mystique wore off a long, long time ago.
Your problem with the public is a result of what I do for a living — constantly showing you its warts and flaws — a service that no one provides, to this extent, in private business. You can talk to me all day about audits and shareholders and customers, none of that creates the PUBLIC spectacle of private failures that the media daily expose the public arena. And why? Because it’s public, and we can see it, and we see each and every flaw as the public’s business, and treat it as such.
Because people are not bombarded with the nonsense that goes on at private companies, you just don’t get that tidal wave of negative impressions. But from what I HAVE seen, I have little reason to believe that what goes on behind those closed doors is all it should be — far from it.
I have been in government and/or private employment for 30 years. What I find in government work now is appalling. If the average citizen knew what was wasted, lost or stolen in just one day in our state government they would rise up and strike the statehouse.
Things are much worse now than I have ever seen…there simply is no accountability or transparency.
If he press were looking, there would be a Lost Trust …times 3…but they arent. So it just continues.
That’s f’ing brilliant. If I didn’t know better, seeing Dirk Gently mentioned on this blog would have made me think I had been smoking the stickiest of the icky.
> Your problem with the public is a result of
> what I do for a living — constantly showing
> you its warts and flaws
C’mon, Brad.. give us SOME credit here. My perception of the inefficiencies of government are based more on personal experience than as a result of news. (also, ever hear of guys like Ken Lay, Michael Milken, Ivan Boesky, etc. — I think they were in the newspapers).
My experience with federal, state, and local government is firsthand as a consumer and as a private sector IT consultant in addition to having a spouse who works for the local school system. I could start writing about my personal anecdotes of fraud, waste, abuse, patronage, etc. in the government and not be done by tomorrow. You know, like the Postal employee who worked in the office next to me for five years and never did a single thing… or the money spent on technology within our school district with zero accountability… or dealing with surly DMV drones who could care less about customer service… and on and on and on…
Let me ask you this – when do you recall the last layoff of government employees? How many public sector employees do you know of who have been let go for poor performance? And why does each federal government agency have a separate Office of Inspector General to monitor the fraud and abuse that goes on in each agency? And can you tell me where the Ethics Commission for the private sector is located and why it should even be a requirement for our local governments? I mean, if government employees are doing their jobs, why would they need someone to DEFINE what ethical behavior is?
The last reductions in force (RIFs are the public sector’s euphemism for layoffs) were sometime this decade; I forget the year.
In any case, they were too recent. The public sector, unlike the private, has a certain reluctance to fire people who are doing their jobs and haven’t done anything wrong.
The overall problem with government decision-making (and I’ve seen this in the private sector as well; I hope that won’t shock you), is a reluctance to make a decision and eliminate an entire department or program. Top management prefers to let every department feel a LITTLE pain (cuts in expenses, open positions not filled, and layoffs across the board as a last resort) rather than eliminate less useful functions and keeping the important ones healthy.
In the case of government, this leads to the steady degradation of the entire government’s ability to do its job properly (too few troopers and prison guards; mental health services below effective capacity; courts with backlogs; rural schools that are incapable of meeting the challenges before them). This leads to more dissatisfaction with government, which is a godsend to libertarianism.
EVERY legislative session is characterized by tax cuts, and no general tax increases (the recent poorly-considered decision to raise the sales tax in order to cut homeowner property taxes being an exception). Economic growth prevents cutbacks in those years. Every few years, though, the economic growth isn’t there. The session we’re about to have will be one of those.
The tendency of lawmakers will be to cut everything a little, rather than eliminate anything to keep other services healthy. If you want to complain about government in general (in South Carolina, at least), complain about that.
Brad,
You just don’t get it.
I work in state government…and many people have what most people would consider “half a job”…yes, 3 or 4 hours a day. Sure, the clerks on the front line are busy…but once you leave that one- on -one situation, it is a joke. In many instances, it is simply adult day care.
This time of year virtually the whole thing shuts down because people are BURNING off their unused vacation days. Especially with seniority, these folks can barely burn off the days! How many working people in private sector have this problem!
I like government, it does things we need. But the waste and inefficiency cannot be imagined from the outside…one just has to see it for oneself.
Brad, I’ve worked in both the public and private sectors, for the state and for six different newspapers as an editor, columnist, copy editor and reporter I’ve occupied more than one private position less cushy than a newsroom desk, too.
What keeps you from seeing what I’ve seen I can’t imagine.
weldon, I see slackers and waste in government. I see it also in the private sector. Slackers especially. But this is because of an unfair impression I have of the world. I drive to work every morning during rush hour. I drive home long after the evening rush hour. On occasions, when I have to venture out in what to me is mid-afternoon (say 4 or 5), I get caught in the traffic of people going home. I know that a lot of them are public sector workers, especially in Columbia, but a lot of them are not.
This, of course, fills me with all sorts of contempt for everybody’s work ethic but my own. But this is ridiculous, of course. Rationally, I know that with my attention deficit problems — my day is one long series of digressions, as I am endlessly fascinated by distractions — it takes me longer to do things than other people. (I also do insane things that NO ONE thinks make any kind of sense given my workload, such as trying to keep up with a blog.) For all I know, those people going home after a normal working day got twice as much useful work done as I did …
Gee, Brad, that’s hard to ADD up. ;>)
ellis is 100% correct. I’ve seen everything he described.
Personally I would prefer to keep my bottles and open…