My children went to boarding school. Their teachers didn’t belong to any union and they weren’t afraid of being fired, nor have they been fired. They are paid less, not more, than government school teachers, but they made that choice deliberately because they prefer to work in what they consider to be a high-achieving environment populated by bright, motivated children, supportive parents and peer professionals.

Your polemic about CEOs is odd. If you don’t like what they’re paid, then don’t buy their products. My problem with government schools and their union employees is that I am compelled by law to support them even if I judge their product inferior and in fact won’t use their product.

The reason that you have the continuing education requirements that occupy your time is that your union has demanded and obtained a compensation schedule for you that is based on how many boxes can be checked off the “continuing education checklist” rather than student outcomes or any other performance measure. This is comparable to paying lawyers based on the number of classes that they take at night rather than the results that they obtain for clients. To say that such an input-oriented system “misses the point” does not begin to describe its dysfunction.

As for the TARP bail-out: If you pay any attention, you will notice that taxpayers are about to earn a profit on those investments. That’s right — a profit. A year from now it will be clear that, far from costing you something, TARP actually earned you (and all of us) a profit.

Seems to me this thread has gotten pretty far off-course. My basic point was that maybe people in dead-end jobs can afford to “mail it in” as blogger Trent advises but that no one else can do that (or should want to be in such a situation). Government employment at the “street” level, as in education, need not be dead-end, but sadly it often is dead-end, chiefly because the incentives are inadequate to motivate many of the best and brightest for long. If you are motivated to work in that environment, great. More power to you. We need more energy, not less, in your field of work. So have at it!

I have seen very little of the slacking you describe as I am in a blue ribbion district- many have PHDs, and enormous student loans to go along with them. I am sure it does exist.

But as far as professionals not joining a union- the aim is not only to protect the teacher, but to protect the quality of education. A teacher constantly stressed out about possible job loss is not one who will comfort little Johnny very well, or keep their cool in a roomful of teenage antics. You want your teachers relaxed and confident when they are dealing with YOUR child.
And it is also designed to prevent the hiring and firing of teachers based on political whims or nepotism of the board of ed or administration. It is meant to safeguard both the teachers, and the integrity of the instruction. I am glad it is not a cakewalk for backward districts to fire teachers who insist on continuing to teach evolution and the scientific method, and carbon dating as sound science, after the local political scene has gone fringe.

CEOs have no union, yet they have extracted billions from the economic scene, and the average worker’s pay, that anyone, grossly disproportionate to performance, and still my tax dollars got to bail out the private sector. And I get NOTHING out of that.

I agree with that part! Public disdain for government employees is certainly rising, approaching contempt, as their compensation packages (on average) rise even while those of us who pay their wages earn less and less. In Michigan, for example, average teacher pay has increased over the past two years even while average compensation in the so-called “private sector” has plummeted. It’s plummeted among those who haven’t been laid off, that is.

The economy basically blew up two years ago, but no one would know that from the experience or rhetoric of school teachers whose unions’ strike threats assured them locked-in wage increases, gold-plated pensions and OPEBs.

I’m sure there are plenty of hard-working teachers if you consider part-year work “hard.” (I don’t.)

But it’s not the “hard-working” ones who cause the “public disdain” that you’ve noticed. It’s the lazy ones, the incompetent ones, who can’t be effectively disciplined (let alone fired) — it’s your comrades, in short, whom your union protects — the union you chose to join because you chose to work in a government school — the union you support with your dues (funded by my taxes).

It is a plain fact that a government school teacher with tenure granted as early as age 30 cannot be fired during the next 20 or 25 years no matter how incompetent or lazy she may be (or become).

I credit several schoolteachers with having a positive influence in my life. One in particular helped me get into the right college. Of note, she quit teaching shortly after my high school was unionized because, as she put it, “I became a teacher because it was a noble profession. Professionals don’t join unions.” Bingo.

“If I were in such a position, with no merit pay and no future, I guess I might spend my time planning a real life, too. The same would be true if I were stuck in Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, PA. It’s much better, however, never to enter either domain.”

Wow. Way to derogate and demotivate committed professional hardworking teachers. Of which I am one. Teaching IS a life. I am also formerly creative director of the 2nd largest publishing company in the US, normally worked 14 hour days, working and deadline stress on the weekends, barely taking any time off. And I did not get laid off- i quit to teach, as I did not want my epitaph to say “Sales up 11%, absent wife and mother”. I left right before publsihing collapsed.

Teaching is harder. It is more demanding. The “at office” hours may be less than yours, but we take our job home with us. Grading, planning, searching for better ways to get a point across. We care. I feel truly sorry for your ignorance. While I understand flying business class and sipping a cocktail while you read paperwork can be mind-boggling difficult (as I have done it), so is trying to control, enlighten, teach and simultaneoulsy ready 30 teenagers of diferring abilities and emotional maturity, for life after graduation. Then I do it again 4 more times that day, with 120 more kids. And I know them all by name, and face, and ability, and projects.

All this with public disdain, and spending out of pocket for classroom supplies, and much less joh security than you imagine as staff sizes shrink.

Perhaps you do not realize that the outcome of our job- as the people who collectively spend more time with these human-in-progress than the parents, will be a huge determinate of all that comes after. Work ethic, confidence, integrity, skills..and so on. What you deal everyday is a direct result of what came before.

And when people ask me what I make for a living, I say “A difference.”

It is true that some of them — for argument’s sake, I’ll fantasize that it’s “almost all of them” — work every bit as hard as Wall Street lawyers and investment bankers. That means they work 70 hours a week, travel 200,000 miles a year, go at it for 50 weeks out of 52, into their sixties. (Sound like any government employee YOU know, other than the few leaders? I didn’t think so….)

Anyway, here’s what these hard-working government functionaries get for their efforts — nothing much.

And here’s what the slackers among them get — nothing much.

In 2011 and following, the slackers among the vast pool of government employees have slightly higher job insecurity than the hard-workers among them. But none of them have anything like the job insecurity of non-unionized, no-such-thing-as-tenure, 70-hours-a-week, 52-weeks-a-year workers have in (what government people call) “the private sector.”

That’s the main reasons why slackers are drawn to so-called “public service,” along with the hard-working others there of course. It works for slackers because the union protects them from the consequences of their laziness.

If I were in such a position, with no merit pay and no future, I guess I might spend my time planning a real life, too. The same would be true if I were stuck in Dunder Mifflin in Scranton, PA. It’s much better, however, never to enter either domain.

As far as not giving 100% of *energy*: I would want a brain surgeon to use 100% of his skill, abilities, training, and efforts on the job. I want 100% of his focus when he’s dremmeling away at my coconut. BUT, if he’s been at work since 3am and only slept 5 hours last night because he is a workaholic who is giving his all every night for the past 5 years…well…he may be on the verge of burnout, and in that case I don’t want him anywhere near my head!

Maybe that comparison made more sense to me before I typed it, but the point is that you can give your job 100% of a lot of things and still be a fantastic fireman, policeman, nurse, etc…but you don’t have to give it 100% of your *life* and energy.

Most people’s options aren’t slacker vs. total shell.

Now I work for myself. When I’m on the job, I’m 100% involved in the job. When I’m off, I make sure to be involved with the rest of my life.

As a business owner and worker I have no problem with people striving for this type of balance.

A boring job at the gas station can be just as draining emotionally & mentally as any other job. If your job is draining you to the point you don’t have anything left for yourself & your personal life, then you need to figure out what it is that’s out of balance & take steps to get back on track. I have done just that, remaining in the same job at the same company, having worked out a more balanced effort at the job & at home & being ‘better’ at both in the long run.

& for #8 – SEC lawyer – those people with ‘secure’ government and union jobs are facing layoffs just like those in the private sector, and are not any more likely to be goofing off or skating through the day.

Plato said “Simplify the mechanics of everyday life.” I am also a teacher- I teach computer art- including filmmaking. What works for me is to alternate projects that I must grade on evenings/weekends, with projects I can occasionally grade in class. For instance- if the students are pitching a film treatment, they can pitch it to the whole class, get valuable feedback from other students, while I use my checklist of requirements and quality aspects to grade them on the spot. It is a more engaging learning experience for everyone, and the students love knowing right ten and there what their grades are.
If your subject allows for presentations, you can throw some in to cut down on late night stacks of grading, to avoid burnout.

As I read through the comments though, I was struck by how many people feel like that doesn’t work for them. And (as a teacher, incidentally) I often find myself putting in way too much time and effort–working 12 hours day, taking work home, coming in on Saturdays. Some of that does make me better at my job, but not when I end up burnt out. Balance is one of the toughest things to achieve, and I think that’s Trent’s real point here. Now if only I could figure out the solution to my dilemma…

He used to go full-tilt at work, came home at 8 or 9pm, eat quickly then immediately sit down for a few more hours work from home. *Sometimes* we’d get a whole weekend day without him working. In a previous job he reduced himself to physical illness until his boss ordered he take a few days off. He had no energy or time for himself, let alone family and friends or even me. Important things went ignored for weeks or months because he just couldn’t face them – and that’s a huge problem when I can’t take up the slack because of a language barrier.

In the last few months, he’s decided to throttle back a bit. He now comes home around 6 or so and does minimal work from home (dealing with some email, maybe a conference call due to time differences). Now, we have some time to spend together each evening, he’s able to deal with things he needs to, and he’s also able to spend time and energy on himself.

And the best part? His whole attitude to work has improved, and that’s being noticed, in a very good way.

He’s *not* slacking off, or leaving parts of his job undone. What he is doing is reserving something of himself for himself, so he doesn’t have the stress of a personal life that was, honestly, beginning to fall apart.

Sorry for the long post, but I really think this isn’t about slacking off or doing a half-assed job. It’s about not letting your job become your whole life – because if that happens, you have no life. Trust me on that.