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.