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Worse than Useless

Entry 2349, on 2024-06-14 at 22:56:54 (Rating 4, News)

One of the policies of New Zealand's new government is to reduce the number of public servants we currently have. The number went up massively under the previous government (by 10,000 according to some sources) and the new one wanted to introduce tax cuts which lead to the need for reduced costs. Of course, reducing costs is a good idea in any case, as long as the people being lost aren't doing an essential job.

The objection to the cuts usually involved the claim that services would be diminished as a result of the job losses, but the government assured us it would not reduce the number of people working in "front line" jobs. For example, we might lose some people working at the Ministry of Health, but we wouldn't lose any doctors or nurses. And we might lose some office workers in the Ministry of Education, but we shouldn't lose any teachers.

As far as I can see, that has worked out pretty much as they assured us it would, but even then some people aren't happy. The critics of the policy said the essential work being done by the staff who lost their jobs would need to be transferred to the doctors and teachers, making them less effective at their primary tasks.

Again, this doesn't seem to have happened. At least, I haven't heard from anyone doing these jobs saying they have been given any significant number of extra administrative duties.

So if 6,000 people are no longer working in the public service, but it is still working as well, or maybe actually better, as it always has (and I do have to say that wouldn't be too difficult), you do have to wonder what those people were actually doing.

I suspect many of them were completely useless, and worse than that (as the title of this post suggests) I am fairly sure many of them were even worse than that. How can anyone be worth less than nothing? Well, when you get too many bureaucrats in an organisation they tend to try to make work for themselves which usually involves interfering with the people who are doing the real work. This means their value isn't just zero, it's negative; they are worse than useless!

This is just a supposition on my part, but I do have a couple of other examples where this phenomenon has also been seen...

The first is the social media platform, X, previously known as Twitter. Originally it had 8,000 employees, but when Elon Musk took over he fired about 80% of them and there are now just 1,500.

I use X a lot and I have to say that it is better than ever. It is fast and reliable, and there are additional features which I find very valuable, especially "community notes" where the accuracy of posts can be challenged and discussed. It's certainly not perfect, and there are places where the user interface could be better, but even then it is no worse than other social media systems like Instagram, YouTube, and Facebook.

So X is running with just 20% of the people it used to have, and it is better now than then. Again, you really have to wonder what the other 80% were doing. They can't have just been useless, or the service of X would be about the same. They must have been worse then useless!

Finally there is my friend Fred (not his real name) who works in a large, bureaucratic organisation, and often relays his frustrations with it to me.

His workplace is currently downsizing many areas which most people would see as being fairly important and core to its actual purpose. But do you know one place where they aren't downsizing? That's right, there are more stupid bureaucrats than ever.

These people have ridiculous job titles like business analyst, diversity manager, executive assistant manager, etc, and they generally just get in the way of the truly productive members of the staff, like Fred. At least that's how he sees it!

So again, these people are paid substantial salaries, in fact significantly more than the people doing the actual work, yet all they do is get in the way and stop the real work from being done efficiently. They are worse than useless!

Even if their role in the workplace has negative value, these are still people with families, mortgages, and all that other stuff we all have to deal with, so it is unfortunate that they are out of work, especially in the current economic environment. But I resent, as a taxpayer, paying them substantial salaries (probably a lot more than what I am paid) to make the world worse.

I would genuinely rather pay them an unemployment benefit just to do nothing and keep them out of the way of the actual workers. They really are worse than useless!

Comment 1 (7659) by Dad on 2024-06-15 at 09:20:28:

I agree with you entirely. While I am sympathetic to people losing their jobs I have an idea that could help. Instead of paying them redundancy and unemployment benefits, why not redeploy them to fill in the nationwide potholes in our roads. They would be doing a worthwhile job and probably would all feel better for providing a worthwhile service for the taxpayers.

Comment 2 (7660) by OJB on 2024-06-15 at 11:07:42:

I'm guessing a lot of these people would not be every good at manual labour jobs, but there is a teacher shortage, so maybe the people from the ministry of education could teach, and those form health do low level medical work. Of course, I am assuming they have some expertise in the areas they were employed in, which is probably not true. They're probably all professional bureaucrats: worse than useless!

Comment 3 (7661) by Dad on 2024-06-15 at 13:47:43:

The main point is they may have to adapt. If they expect the tax-payer to support them with benefits, and there is work of any kind available, they should work or lose their right to the benefit. By the way pass on my regards to Fred.

Comment 4 (7662) by OJB on 2024-06-15 at 14:38:52:

Yes, I have heard of that approach, but although I can see the logic behind it, it goes a bit too far for me.

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