then tell us

https://memegenerator.net/img/instances/57796649.jpg

The closest we get at the hospital is a sponsored BBQ from Save-On Foods in the summer (not this year because of COVID), which obviously isn’t paid for by the employer.

I think it was you earlier who got a little spun up in regards to my comment on city workers being lazy, winey and entitled. That was a blanket statement, and with every blanket statement there is going to be a lot wrong with it.

My wife is a city employee. She works her ass off everyday.... so much that I’m concerned for her health. Why? Due to complete incompetence and laziness of her coworkers. From the ground to middle management (and sometimes higher). Useless supervisors in most roles who start from the bottom in a union environment who believe that is just the way it is. Yes, there are some amazing people in some great positions. But not everyone works that way. In fact it seems to be the minority. As per the blanket statement.

Coming from working in an intense, timeline driven private sector job to a unionized work environment, I will say that if you come to work on time every day and don’t complain, you’re already in the top quarter of employees. Pretty pathetic imo. That’s not to say city employees etc. Are all in the same boat but I’m sure it’s all the same shit in terms of bloated middle management etc.

Very ineffective way to run any business and in my experience the union does exactly what everyone has the stereotypical view of a union doing. Protecting the cancerous employees who are poison for an organization while doing shit all for the good ones.

Obviously there is exceptional employees. I've even hired some in the past. They leave public jobs after a decade or more of service, and mentioning they just couldn't take it anymore.

And im sure many more stick around, unfortunately the general consensus is that these employees aren't in the majority. That may be wrong, it may be right.

The concerning part to me is how nobody seems to be into correcting the perception, there are many ways private companies maintain transparency to stakeholders; this assures investors that the company is operating efficiently and correctly. IMO the government should be totally transparent, unfortunately they are not and that's the problem.

They should play this song before Kennedy Stewart walks into any press conference.

Majority of the cancerous, lazy, inept employees that are posion to the company are the ones involved in the union. I am sure you have heard of people pulling the seniority card whether to get days off first or when it comes to first dips overtime shifts.

In a way I can see the benefits of an union, but in some situations I wish companies and organizations would just ball up and tell the goons to take a hike or straight up clean house.

$1500 for Mirras? Man, they got ripped off. Is being stupid a requirement when you work for city council? They need to hire more frugal ass people that can drive a bargain.

However, if they only paid $400 and those are legit Eames Shell Chairs, then that's a good deal. They going brand names only.

But then what's with the weird mix of futuristic ergonomics and mid-century modern? It's like someone just googled "How do I spend a lot of money on office furniture?"

OP would rather live in a dictatorship because some politicians buy furniture, like lmaoooo what the fuck am I actually reading?

i once sat on a HM Mira.... my ass never felt the same after.

I miss that chair.

Where are you even getting these nonsense ideas from?

Can you go to the public library and request ATIP or FOI on any single thing from Microsoft? Or EA? Or Deloitte or literally any private company? Transparency for corporate companies? The same ones polluting in USA and fighting in court to cut losses or paying people off to avoid bad press or cutting employees wages or rewarding CEO’s with golden parachutes and back room stock trades? Insider trading? There’s been like... “just a few” television shows and movies based entirely on the idea of how corrupt private corporations are lol!

You can go right now and request information as a member of the public on this furniture purchase or literally anything the city or province or federal government or even the RCMP has done... you’ll get an answer... some of it like RCMP might be redacted for Protected B reasons but you’ll get whatever you ask for. It’s required by law. Tell me anything besides Saran Wrap or the windows on your own house that’s more transparent than that.

Then try sending a request to Tim Cook asking them to provide you Apple’s purchase history for office furniture totals the last 6 months of fiscal 2019 Because you want to make sure they were being efficient with your investment dollars for the stocks you own. I’m sure they’ll respond eventually if you’re really patient.......... for the sake of transparency......

I've been taking a serious look at making the jump to public sector. I actually had a 2nd interview lined up and it was looking pretty good but then the pandemic shut everything down before it happened. Hiring has been postponed indefinitely.

There are several things I'm not a fan of, such as hours aren't as flex, if at all... Seniority trumps everything, free coffee doesn't exist (and I'm a coffee addict), any extracurricular events are coming out of your own pocket or it doesn't happen, etc.

But at the same time, having a comfy 9-5 with good benefits, and job security sounds very appealing at this stage in my life... considering I've had a bunch of bad luck over the course of my career with layoffs, company folding, ceo stepping down and departments being cut, etc. etc. Too much bullshit.

investments are of your choosing
taxes not so much

Public sector is not a bad choice if you know that all you want is stability, especially for those who has family, but don't expect to get paid 6 figures, bonus, stock options and etc...

also senority is a cancer that drives your morale down really quick.....

Not sure about CoV, but you can jump around or move up quite easily if you're smart about things in the fed system... I know lots of people who made Director or things like that by like mid-30's...

Same as police, you can stay a Cst your whole life and bitch about how you never get a chance (hint: it's probably actually your skillset) or you see guys who are Inspectors at 40...

Same as corporate world too... you're either a ladder climber or you're not.

At all of them, you can somewhat grease the rails by WHO you know and getting the in on things... but I'd say that doesn't work as well for fed system there's a lot of hoops have to be jumped through and all selection panels are just that --> panels like 3+ people... unsure of municipal I haven't worked in it... and private, well, shit, definitely did my time in that world too and you either get super rewarded for doing well and recognized for it......... or some dick steals credit for your work and holds you down. I've seen some pretty terrible people in management in both sides of the working world.

Main problem with the fed side of public sector is you have to go to Ottawa for real action... and speak French... their postings are like 100x the ones in BC or all of western Canada.

For me I'm past the point I want to climb up anymore or manage people, cuz there are a lot of idiots or lazy shits around and when you can't fire them it's very frustrating to deal with as a manager. I just focus on customer / client service and being as efficient as possible and being accountable to the people I deal with every day. Probably leave and find something else after a certain number of years because, like any workplace, it gets stale and you hate the atmosphere after awhile.

Be careful where you go, when the tab comes in for the shit economy from COVID and CERB has to be paid for... I wouldn't be surprised to see another DRAP initiative come into fed side with people getting cut left and right.

Public isn't always as safe as you'd think... certain departments fall out of favour with certain parties (think Coast Guard and the Cons... they let it go to shambles... but they're a darling of Trudeau's for example) so things can still pucker your asshole.

Here's been my limited experience in public sector (provincial).

When working in management in a non-unionized office, the entire team actually gets taken care of pretty decently. Wages, social events, small tokens of appreciation, it's not bad at all. Still a level of bureaucracy that exists in any government, but nothing you shouldn't anticipate.

When working in management in a unionized office, it was much, much harder to do anything. No extra small perks, the union makes everything just SO much more difficult to do, like even the simplest things (like organize a xmas party). Way more office politics, bureaucracy and complexity.

Lol private company they buy the coffee but I supply my own cream. I mean to be fair if I cared I could expense the cream but it's like $2-3 a week....

Funny story about the coffee maker and bureaucracy even in smaller private companies, the one we had went so needed a new machine we just a Kuerig. So I go and buy a new one and expense it, no problem send copy of receipt to out head office. They call me and are like we need the original receipt to reimburse, I'm like you want me to send the receipt 400kms away what if it breaks? There like it's the policy, ok you got it.

Not even 1 month later problem with machine and as a fuck you to that stupid policy I threw the newer machine in the garbage and I went out and bought another more expensive machine and expenced that as well. I mean I guess I could have requested them to send me the receipt back so I could exchange but fuck that, would have meant a few days without my coffee.

No, unfortunately the information in most FOI requests results in nothing useful, and it has nothing to do with what you request, but more the system used for the information.

In this particular example, I would like to see the other quotes received for the furniture and how they selected herman miller to provide all this furniture. But unfortunately stuff like that isn't available as an FOI request, as they claim to have no way to assemble information of this type.

I've been down this path before, not with the COV but with our provincial government over the awards of certain construction projects, to the point at which my own lawyers were involved, and after two years it resulted in nothing useful, and we all gave up and moved on because the project was underway and nothing would change that outcome. But needless to say we never got the information requested on the other contractors and the criteria used to select the successful bidder.

Also I am not saying private companies make their information public (although if it is a traded company a lot is available). I am saying there are people in place who have billions invested, and make sure the company is operating properly. The public sector doesn't have anyone invested beyond the fear of losing their job or not getting elected again. That's not the same type of fear as losing literally millions or billions of dollars.

Like I said earlier, go back to a more open tender system. A simple website with what the government is looking to do almost like a job board, it could include everything from supplying furniture all the way to building the Patullo Bridge. Companies submit bids and proposals. Once they tender period closes the government publishes how many proposals they got, basic information on each (doesnt have to be the full proposal or even include the real company name), and announces the successful company for that money spend.

And before anyone goes stupid, I'm not saying if the CoV needs to buy a new microwave they go through this process, but I mean simple criteria like expenses over 100k or something like that would result in a big shift already. and before anyone says that type of process would slow down government and their ability to react, no it should not, this is exactly how countless companies in the private sector treat any purchase order above $100k, 3 bids to a buy. They get at minimum 3 quotes, and evaluate them, evaluate them can be as simple as: this one is 10% cheaper, and it only has a lead time a few days longer than the more expensive options, we can wait a few extra days and save the 10%. Proceed with the purchase.

Before the age of computers this is actually exactly how public tenders worked, government would announce a project, sometimes they would have preselected bidders by doing what is called a prequalification. Other times they would leave it completely open (so that they could get quotes from new companies they may not have considered). They would set a tender close date, and on that date all companies had to have their bids turned in, in person. They would then live, open all the bids, look at the price and announce the lowest bidder. All else considered the lowest bidder won the bid. There was obviously times when after the due diligence period the winner would change, because their bid didn't conform for some reason, or another bidder had less clarifications included, etc.

Anyway, I'm sure ive given enough in the above, that someone here can grab half a sentence out of something from the above, and make fun of me for some internet thanks.

EDIT: I should Clarify one thing that I feel may come up, BC Bid. BC Bid is a great tool, and it's implementation is fantastic. However there is some problems. Namely certain chapters in their procurement policy which allow items with certain restrictions to bypass the system, and utilizing some of those there are stuff which fly right under the radar. Usually not a big deal, but the abuse has seemingly become worse as the system ages. as a primary example: guess what furniture purchase did not go through BC bid... lol

IMO the best jobs on BC bid are the bid depository ones, it's tough for any games to be played.

The company I work for has successfully sued for loss of profit in the past when a GC played games after close and didn't use us after submitting the low bid, it's great make all your money with zero risk.