Benefit of working for an idiot

There is a common misconception  that government jobs have more benefits than the average job. It is true that we have generous leave policies and a pension.  However we also are at the whim of elected officials who use us as pawns to make a point or curry favor with their constituents . One thing that we have in common with private sector jobs is that we all have to work for idiots once and a while.

The government can be behind the times when it comes to technology. Yes, the same bureaucracy that can develop stealth fighter jets and the Internet sometimes uses systems built in the 80s.  Teleworking has been popular in the private sector for a long time. The government is slowly adopting telework as a way to save money and increase retention. The problem with telework in the public sector...upper level managers don't comprehend it. 

A coworker of mine teleworks every Friday. I'm not going to lie, I'm pretty sure his tele"work" mostly consists of comparing the Kindle fire stick to the Roku stick.  But he is able to somehow get all of his work done despite the distractions.  However, at the end of each telework day, he is required to write a breakdown of what he did all day. Not an overview, a quarter hour detailed list of accomplishments. So each week he emails his manager at about 4:30pm and from 4:15-4:30 he writes "drafted email to you." When he checked his email last Monday his boss had replied to him and it said "I believe you're spending too much time on the email summaries each week." To which my friend simply replied "I agree." Luckily for him, he works for an idiot and she had no idea that he was making fun of her.  

A perfect 3.0 GPA!

The public sector and private sector do not always have a lot in common. But one of the things us bureaucrats share with our private sector brethren are horrible performance appraisals.  Not an actual bad review, a bad review system.  A system that is so bad it makes you feel like this.

At some point in our careers we have all been subject to an arbitrary numerical grading system for our employment appraisals.  One agency I worked at had a 0-9 scale but only graded on odd numbers. I'm assuming some consultant told an HR executive that odd numbers were more gentle.

For example, you could get two 9's and two 7's so your appraisal would be an 8.0. But you couldn't get an 8 in a category.  But you also couldn't get a 9 because your boss never got one and he says nobody is perfect. So he won't give you a 9 even though your coworkers on a different team got a 9.0 overall rating because their boss isn't a vindictive gatekeeper. You also can't get a 1 because that means you're basically being fired. And you can't get a 3 because that means you need a performance plan and no manager wants to go through with that. So everybody is a 6.0. Sure you might have an all-star that gets a 6.5 or a real brown-noser who can get a whopping 7.0, but for the most part, we're all solid sixes...on a 1-9 scale...that doesn't actually use even numbers.

So you're the victim of an appraisal system that goes from 1-9 de jure but in fact is more like 5-7. And managers convince themselves that this makes sense. They won't push back against their anti 9.0 manager so they issue appraisals to their employees and remind them that a 6.0 is actually really good.

I had a manager tell me I couldn't rate an employee as a 9.0 because the employee didn't walk on water. I reminded my boss that I didn't see anything in the position description that suggested divinity was a requirement. The manager went on and on about how her boss would never believe somebody could be a solid 9.0! If Shaq becomes commissioner of the NBA and eliminates free-throws because he couldn't make them, it would make more sense than a numerical rating that doesn't allow ratings at the top or bottom end.

So for managers at all levels of an organization, remember that you have excellent employees and let them know that in an appraisal.  And fight back against your boss that tells you that you're not allowed to.  Then, at the end of the appraisal period when you receive your 6.0 rating from your supervisor, smile while you mutter something under your breath about how you know that you are at least a 6.5.

Sounds of Silence - Leadership Development Training

Early on in my career I participated in an agency-wide leadership development training program. This training also served as an orientation for bright shiny new government leaders. About 25 of us participated in the two week session.

Despite the agency having numerous important (expensive) senior executives, the agency contracted the training to a few third-party (expensive) vendors.  One vendor was responsible for the first week of training.  This particular firm had 3 employees/trainers: an older man, his son, and his nephew. The nephew seemed to be the only one that had any sort of leadership experience (or work experience). The son had a lot of experience working for his dad.  And the dad had a lot of experience getting to know important senior executives that make decisions on whom to hire for leadership development programs.

By day 4, all of us future leaders had gotten to know each other and developed a good rapport.  We arrived at 9:00am for the training, took our seats, and the three trainers entered the room and stood behind us.  As we all became silent and looked at the trainers, they continued to stand there and do absolutely nothing.  I was not sure what to expect: a speech, a dance routine, or a clip of the first 21 minutes of Saving Private Ryan which was supposed to represent the battles we would soon be facing as bureaucrats (that would come the next day).  But the three relatives leadership experts stood their ground.  They did not say a word.  Now, we were a smart group, future leaders and all.  So people started asking questions.  "Should we be doing something?"  "Was there an assignment we missed?" "Are you okay?"  Nothing.  I started to estimate the amount of money the agency was spending in salaries for us to sit in silence (about $13/minute just for the salaries of the government employees...I don't have any idea how much the trainers were earning during this profound lesson).  Eventually, somebody suggested that they must be trying to teach a lesson, we just needed to figure out what it was.

People started to emerge as leaders of this Lord of the Flies experience.  I started to emerge as the indifferent guy who wished he had internet reception.  One guy wanted us all to brainstorm possible lessons to be learned.  He drew a word cloud with the suggestions.  A woman suggested that we try to trick the trainers into spilling the beans by asking them casual questions before slipping in questions that might help us figure out what the &#*@ we were supposed to be doing.  We took a vote using the ideas in the first guy's word cloud.  There were (sadly) not that many abstentions.  The group eventually decided that it must be a lesson on how people rise to the occasion and become leaders in difficult situations.  We asked the trainers if that was correct.  No response.  To up the anti, we agreed to vote on a leader from our group that could negotiate with the trainers.  We picked Mr. Word Cloud.  He approached the trio of relatives but they remained stoic.  Various levels of this went on for four hours until it was time for lunch.  We all ate lunch together and tried to understand what was going on.  Less hungry, but just as confused, we returned to the training room.  I was pretty sure when we got back the patriarch of the trainers would tell us what the point of the morning was.  Nope.  They were sitting in the same spot and still were not talking.

Finally, about five and a half hours into the ordeal (and $4,300 in salaries down the drain), the older man got up and said he was putting a stop to the project.  He then went on to tell us he was indeed testing us.  Then he asked how we all felt.  People generally agreed that "confused" was the most common feeling (for me it was bored, annoyed, and frustrated I didn't have a better internet connection).  The trainer told us he had conducted this exercise frequently in the past, sometimes it would go on for days, but we could not handle it well enough for him to keep going.  He told us it was okay to be emotional and sad.  My eyebrows started moving like The Rock's

and I looked around to see if anybody else was buying this.  A few people said they did get a little choked up over the ordeal.  You did??? When??  I still keep in touch with some of the people from the training, but not anybody who admitted tears about this training.  Most of us believe that the training vendor clearly forgot to plan for a day and thought "hey what if we just don't say anything and see what happens!"

So if you ever plan a leadership training session make sure you follow the steps below:
1. Don't hire a company where all of the employees have the same last name.
2. Don't hire a company that has "Silence" as a significant part of the agenda.

The Tax Collectors and the Prostitutes

Demagoguery directed at bureaucrats is not new.  From Rush Limbough to the Bible, government workers are not always held in high esteem.  The purpose of my blog is not to advance the narrative that government employees are bad, lazy, overpaid leeches.  However, I will give you real life examples of poor leadership.  There are all kinds of books, speakers, and yes, blogs, that will tell you how to manage.  I will specifically give you examples of how NOT to manage.

I hope to provide an interesting and humorous perspective into life on the inside of government management.  Follow along for stories about Christmas community fund raisers gone awry, the definition of retired-on-duty, and many more!