This post's pissing and moaning is on the topic of civil servants.
By that I don't mean each and every civil servant individually. Some government workers are just fine and dandy. I've got no beef with the fellow who brings me my mail, or the utility worker who inspects my electrical panel, or the police officer directing traffic at the broken stoplight. They're all doing their job, and those jobs are needed.
My beef is with the term itself – "civil servant." It's that second word – "servant" – that really bugs me, because within it is a sanctimonious suggestion that something precious is being sacrificed for the greater good.
If we lived in a world where, at age 21, each young adult was given one of two choices: (a) a lucrative career in free enterprise, or (b) a lifetime, irrevocable commitment to a government job at a wage 30% less than the prevailing free market wage, well, I'd have no problem honoring these people with "civil servant." After all, they are making a measurable, lifelong sacrifice for (ostensibly) the benefit of their fellow man.
This, of course, is laughably untrue. The benefits of government employment, such as a virtual guarantee of lifetime employment, generous health benefits, and, shall we say, a low-pressure work environment, are legendary. At the risk of alienating the final handful of people whom I haven't pissed off already, my view has been that most government workers were simply too uncreative or unambitious to hack it in the world of business.
But setting aside the millions of bureacrats (whose rich pensions and health plans are forcing the likes of the US Postal Service ever-closer toward bankruptcy), the "civil servants" that really get my goat are the prominent politicians who cite their years of "public service." Listen, Bozo, it's a job. A job with money, benefits, and power. There's no "service" to it.
Volunteers are performing a public service. Organ donors, in their own way, are doing so as well. Members of the peace corps are "civil servants." These are people that are making a material sacrifice for the good of others.
But for the slow, grouchy clerk at the DMV…….the IRS auditor getting off on pushing you around during an examination…….the First Lady jetting off to an exotic locale with her daughters to the tune of millions of dollars per weekend……..there's no sacrifice to this at all. It's self-interest, pure and simple, and your actions don't merit the thanks or gratitude of anyone except, perhaps, your own family.
