Working for a Higher Standard

In general, I think working for the government would be a pretty good gig. You get reasonable pay, decent benefits, never an hour of overtime, a four-day work week, and the joy of just not giving a damn. Wouldn't it be nice to never actually be busy? To pack up at 5pm, leave and never think about the office the rest of the night? To never have to go through the "goals process" of setting super-human goals in an effort to reach immortality in the corporate world? How nice it must be to be a government worker.

Yesterday I had the joy of calling the Securities and Exchange Commission "Help Desk" to resolve an error message I was receiving on a regulatory filing. Shaniqua was my customer service representative and was generally annoyed that I would be calling her for help. Clearly we were not communicating because every time I would answer her dumb questions (they were seriously as dumb as, "Who are you?") she would sigh and say, "That's not what I'm asking." Eventually she became so frustrated with my answers, she transferred me to Leslie, who was much more gentle. At some point, after being put on hold for the 83rd time, I hung up and figured it out myself. {Leslie actually did call me back and said, "I came back from being on hold and you were gone. I wonder how we were disconnected." I didn't tell her I hung up on her.}

Today I stopped by the main post office to ship a blanket order that required a medium size box. The main post office closes at 5:30pm sharp, so I rushed to get there before being locked out. Just my luck, they did not have any medium size shipping boxes on the shelf. So I approached the mail official and asked if they had any larger boxes. He came back with the same small box that was on the shelf and proceeded to stuff my items into the small box. Needless to say, it took three boxes to get everything to fit comfortably. When I went to pay for the boxes, the mail official tells me that I could have used a different box which is $3.50 cheaper than the box I was given, but I would have to repackage my order. When I agreed to switch he said, "We closed six minutes ago, so you don't have time to repack your boxes." The girl standing next to me chuckled. I glared in disbelief. So I said, "OK, I'll just pay more for these boxes and you can just go ahead and give yourself a raise." I'm paying your salary, mister! I think you should be nice, but he doesn't have to be. You know why? Because he works for the government and government workers just don't give a damn.