I ran into Shane Simpson the other day and asked him what happened with the Whistleblower Act that he introduced in the Legislature in November 2007. He advised that the bill died on the floor and so will have to be re-introduced if there is a fall session. That is a big IF to me. Why in the hell would the Liberals go back into OUR house (which they have long forgotten) with the insanity and mayhem they have going on all over the place?
I'm sure some of the Liberal MLA's aren't hightailing it out. I wonder how many have said they're out, didn't they all have to get their answer in?
I understand Carole Taylor packed up her office and it's ready for the cabinet shuffle that's coming. If I were her I'd turn the lights off and not look back once, breathing a sigh of relief, even though she still has to hang around until the election. I imagine it would be great not to have to deal with the kind of crap she had to put up with as the Minister of Finance with a micromanager/ powermonger/ control freak and his Merry Men telling me and my staff how to do my job. I bet that is one lady who knows STUFF. She is smarter than all of them put together, so she will put a WHOLE LOT of pieces together and seen a bunch I'm sure. Maybe that's what should happen, maybe Carole Taylor should consider running for Premier as an Independent. I think she would stand a better chance than Campbell, or James. It seems the writing is on the wall and it's going to be difficult for anyone to support either of them next go round. Wouldn't that be interesting and spice things up for May 2009?
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It's too bad Corky Evans is out, but not entirely unexpected. I hope they throw him a great retirement bash. He's been a real asset to BC. I agree with what he says about how political life has been so diminished and it is actually a great career. Not everyone who is in politics is a crook, or dishonourable, but many think that's the case. Politics is a complicated business, with many unexpected thorns and roses.
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Did people catch Sean Holman's story about Patrick Kinsella & Mark Jiles, more alleged unregistered Campbell insiders and lobbyists:
"Progressive Group that the firm has helped win major government contracts and benefits on behalf of powerful foreign and business interests. Progressive's chairman is Patrick Kinsella, who headed the provincial Liberal's election campaigns in 2001 and 2005. And it's president is Mark Jiles, Premier Gordon Campbell's former constituency campaign manager."
You know, I think that the "plead guilty to a lesser evil, pay a fine and walk away with a conditional charge thing" is NOT actually acting as a deterent" from other clever and amoral business folks who are taking us to the cleaners.
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Hey, here's another blog. BC Liberals Suck.
1 comment:
I write in response to your comments on ‘Public Eye’. Your post echoes many of my own concerns with the BC Public Service. I post it here because I know shawn won't on his site and I wanted to reply to you, please don't post this on your site - or at least take out my name and email address.
It’s not just the peter principal in play; you also need to factor in the fact that the many layers of administration (manager, directors etc) are far from being considered the best of the best. People of quality are not attracted to the BC Public Service – the amount of ineptitude, incompetence, lack of abilities and aptitudes that personifies the majority of those currently in management is such that it turns away applicants and recent hires of substance and quality. It is just another reason to leave when new hires realize the stench that will be associated with them and their resumes.
I assume you are aware that the numbers of people quitting are greater than the number of people retiring?
To their credit I do believe that Jessica MacDonald of the PSA is aware of the enormous challenges facing government resources, but she is being hamstrung by the current guard both in the PSA and in the ministries. The PSA stated in one of their previous service plans documents that they recognized the risks to government in the form of bad decisions and such, but never got around to detailing how they were planning to minimize or mitigate those risks. It’s impossible to attract and retain new employees when they arrive only to find themselves in such a morally bankrupt and archaic system. I left government after being an employee for just over one year. After one month I knew something was terribly wrong, upon questioning my supervisor (who stated she wasn’t qualified to assist me on matters relating to my position, but was happy to answer any questions about timesheets or administrative matters) and acting manager about the lack of and nature of work I was being assigned I was told over the course of numerous conversations that I could not expect to have the opportunity to do the job as outlined in the positions posting, that they hadn’t seen me do the job, that I needed to pay my dues, and that I was not entitled to the opportunity to do the job that was described in the posting and that ‘just being available to work was important’.
After looking around and scrutinizing my co-workers and their own lack of work I arrived at the conclusion that I was hired on as head count in order to justify yet another layer of administration. I had coworkers who fell asleep at their desks, read novels at their desks, ran part time businesses during working hours, showed up late and left early and had multiple ‘off site’ meetings throughout the week. After one period of 20 straight days of not a single solitary thing to do, I too started employing their methods just to save my sanity. It’s hard to blame the employee sometimes.
The really telling moment was when I spoke with the supervisor and manager and explained to them my grave concern about what the lack of opportunity would do to my resume and my ability to support myself in the future. This was answered with an awkward silence, blank stares then the sudden inspired comment that they would be providing me with references and so as long as I was a ‘good employee’ I could get ahead. Stunning. I stayed for just over a year, trying to make it better and hoping it would improve but eventually just quit (outright, without having another job to go to as being there for 7 hours every day was sapping my stamina and I couldn’t withstand the pressures of applying for jobs at the same time. Much to my delight in interviews this resulted in many comments of approval and verbal applause for making such a bold move.)
Oh, and one last personal gripe – training is only supported based upon a managers okay, if you piss one off (as I did) suddenly no training will be supported contrary to emails from the PSA sent out to all staff.
What is difficult for private sector people to understand is the damage that is being done to the organization as a whole by the constant churn of management – both in the growing ranks, and in the endless promotions and temporary appointments. As an employee if you’re lucky enough to get a manager that doesn’t suck, you worry that they will be promoted, transferred, lured elsewhere and some simpering toadying homunculi will be given (as in handed) their old job making your life miserable. I have never in my 20 years of working encountered so many ill qualified and inept ‘managers’. The kicker is – they have NO idea that they out of their depth! None whatsoever!
As far as FOI requests go – I’d like to see the unaltered data from the employee surveys (the ones they disseminate are ‘benchmarked’ which means averaging in the neutral replies to bump up the agree/strongly agree results – the actual numbers I saw while an employee were much much worse. I would also like to see the actual results from the managers surveys. I wouldn’t limit yourself to age and occupation – the real interesting numbers are how quickly people are leaving. They’ve started conducting new employee orientation sessions (which they buggered up in ways too painful to recount) and during one such meeting a statement was made that a ‘new’ employee is someone that has been with government less than 5 years. Not a typo. Another FOI request that’s on my personal wish list is to find out how many entirely new positions have been created for supervisors, managers, directors and executive directors – there has been an explosion in the growth of management in the past 2 years – it’s been astounding to see all the announcement emails, emails that rarely mention any achievement of formal education. Maybe a FOI could find out how many managers etc possess only a high school diploma or less – have you ever wondered why the educational requirements were so fuzzy in job postings?
Re behavioral interviews – you do know that 90% of governments postings are ‘filled’ before they get posted don’t you? Not only are posting catered to the desired employee, but they are not posted until the person they want for the position can meet the rudimentary requirements, usually obtained through temporary assignments. Behavioral interviews are merely a song and dance that applicants are required to learn before they can be accepted – current public service staff are taught the steps and the song, the public applicant is not. The content of the song and dance is utterly meaningless. It’s just another way to screen out the undesirables via a secret handshake. Other methods are posting a job when someone that they don’t want to apply is on vacation, and encouraging lesser qualified and uninterested junior staff to apply for a posting as it will be ‘good interview experience’ and they need ill suited applicants to make their choice defensible. This of course is in addition to canceling a posting when they don’t get the results they were looking for. I have seen some truly outstanding resumes tossed because they didn’t mention one of the ‘keywords’ that was mentioned in the posting – a disgusting practice that the average private sector applicant would be stunned to learn of. Imagine if you will a job posting that asks for someone who can hop on one foot and rub their belly – if they get a resume from someone that outlines their extensive experience and advanced degrees in hopping and belly rubbing, but neglects to mention they can do both at once – they are disqualified. I have seen all of this and more during my 10 years as a consultant and my 1 year as an employee.
I do think the public has an idea how bad it is. I’ve worked at companies in the private sector that would throw out resumes received from long term government employees as they were considered tainted. Told that to a government employee and they couldn’t quite take it in ‘oh I’m sure they don’t do that’, had to tell them that not only does it happen but I had seen it with my own eyes – resume – tossed – into – garbage. They were still skeptical.
Re the employer of choice nonsense – if you look at the list they reference you’ll also see such gems as Telus listed. Their inclusion on that list is not based upon employee feedback but on things like benefits and vacation time.
A while ago I was having a bitch session with another contractor about the quality of resources available in government. He made the observation that having these people on the government payroll was cost effective. How so? Well, they’re not in jail and they’re not on public assistance, plus they’re consumers and they’re paying taxes. It seems that really is the best we can hope for. ‘Garbage never leaves the dump’
Sorry this was so long – your reply stirred me up and frankly some days the waste of human potential and tax dollars really pisses me the fuck off.
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