What are the stark differences working in the public sector?

Posted by RagerRambo@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 52 comments

I've never worked in public sector and I think I never will. I have the assumption that most are there for the super slow pace, the pension, or can't be sacked due to weak management. Am I wrong? Especially interested to hear from those that have worked in both public and private. What are the misconceptions, and what are the anecdotes that live up to stereotypes of working at a Council, or civic department?

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SidewalkEpiphany@reddit

I've made incredible income in the pub sector and incredibly great benefits however left when decisions that should've included me were made without me. Just a bunch of incompetent lunatics. It feels like a collection of a bunch of people that peaked in high school and/or never left the place they grew up and have very little life experience.

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destria@reddit

I've only ever worked in the public sector (education, all stages) but comparing my experiences to friends and my husband in the private sector, I'd say some of the stereotypes are true. Change, especially anything on a scale that affects say more than one team, is absolutely glacial. Everything has to be done by committees which only meet maybe once a month at most, with decisions taking absolutely ages because they get debated forever. The IT is particularly absymal, or even non-existent. No one gets sacked. I've known people who weren't sacked even after being criminally charged with physically assaulting other colleagues. So your low level bullies, your incompetent assholes, your slovenly colleagues, yeah they're all there if they want to stay. People learn to work around them in my experience. But I do think they're a minority, most of my colleagues are really lovely people. It's bureaucratic... But I actually like that, I think it's much fairer that everything and everyone has to abide by a process. The stress doesn't come from chasing profit or performance management culture. Instead it tends to come from being under-resourced and overworked. But if you do have a good level of resourcing, then it can be pretty cushy. The work/life balance and general culture around flexibility is really good. I have 44 days of annual leave, up to 6 months full sick pay, decent maternity and paternity policies. There's an understanding that you have a life outside of work.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

Very insightful and balanced comment. You paint the positives and why it still attracts people. Your point on not sacking, is it due to unions, weak management, or something else? I'm my experience, even the smallest of a disruptive minority can have an extraordinary impact on the masses.

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destria@reddit

Probably management I'd say. It's a sector that attracts people who want to see the best in everyone, want to do good in the world etc. Firing someone doesn't fit into that. Last place I worked, there was a guy who was an egotistical bully, particularly towards anyone junior to him, but also a sycophant to those higher up. There was always an excuse not to take action. Oh he's just worked in a different corporate culture and isn't used to the flatter structure here. Oh we can move him out of management so he has less of a direct impact. Oh he just needs to be mentored a bit. Oh he's just had a baby so we couldn't fire him out of compassion to his wife. He wasn't unionized, he had been there less than two years when all the complaints were flooding in (hadn't even passed probation actually). But they let it drag on and to my knowledge, he's still there! Just working a role now where he has no direct reports and doesn't need to work with anyone directly so his "damage" is more limited.

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Bug_Parking@reddit

That's insane!

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Necessary_Figure_817@reddit

I work in private but I work for public sector clients. Let me tell you. It's a joke. Can take weeks for fix the most minor things. Everyone is always on holiday. Most do "compressed" hours so have a 4 day week but from what I can tell they are only contactable from 10am to 3.30 by the latest. They cannot seem to be fired. I have people who sound like they've never seen a computer before be in charge of quite technically things, but when you ask them something like can you send that excel file to me? I get the "I'm not tech savvy let me defer to someone else". I suspect these people just get told to move into this role as there is an opening. When I do get info from them, and something doesn't look right, I get, "I don't know". Nothing. No, let me find out for you. I work with developers too where they tell me, it's going to take a week to fix a bug in some code. I just screenshare and tell them what to type, and I'm not even a developer. I just know how to Google. And then it's a 15 min job. I have deadlines that constantly get missed and no one cares, like pushing things back a month at a time to the point I am a year behind schedule but yet my company is billing a few million every month. Which is great for us, but I am absolutely rinsing the tax payer. In private sector, if we put down a plan, it's gets done by this date. Maybe some minor delays but nothing major. If people don't pull their weight, they get called out. People can also be fired. I should say I know some exceptionally good public sector workers. It appears that a handful of people do all the work and prop up their teams. Sorry, for the rant. This appears to be a trigger for me.

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mattman106_24@reddit

The reason lots do compressed hours and get generous non-pay benefits though is because the government has gutted their pay over the last decade. If you won't pay people more you need to find other incentives to get them to stay such as the aforementioned compressed hours, holidays, shorter working hours etc. Also the holding down of pay has led to the best public sector workers buggering off to the private sector for better pay. Not to mention shrinking budgets and constant cries for "oversight" which obviously means you wanting to change something has to be referred to a bunch of people to ensure VFM. All of this results in a system where everything takes ages, the best people have left, the ones remaining have a lot of leverage as they can't be fired as there's already understaffing etc. If CS staff were paid like they were historically i.e. it was a solidly middle-class profession for well educated, driven people then we wouldn't be here.

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Gypsy_tantrum@reddit

It's not - I worked in the public sector twenty years ago, it was exactly the same back then.

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Necessary_Figure_817@reddit

Fair enough. But there's being paid badly and then there's being paid to do fuck all. I seem to catch the latter where i am.

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Gypsy_tantrum@reddit

You will get downvoted for this, but it's 100% true. RE: The non technical people being in charge of technical things - this one is infuriating. In the public sector, having public sector experience is more important that having actual domain expertise, so you get a lot of 'horizontal movement' of people into roles they have no right to be in.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

Honestly, you're going to get downvoted because people don't like to hear this sort of stuff, but there isn't smoke without fire. What you describe is my hell. Unless I am a private contractor rinsing local council, this sort of experience would cause me to have a meltdown. I wonder what would happen if we have everyone a living wage, and told them to stay home or go pick litter. Let anyone else that is half decent, half competent run the show. Would we do better in the public sector, and get more value for money for public purse

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Necessary_Figure_817@reddit

This is just my experience. I was warned before I joined that this government body was like this but didn't believe it until I started. I did see comments about teachers. Sorry to say that in my rant, I wasn't thinking about them. These guys who work hard and go above and beyond.

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imminentmailing463@reddit

Work for a public sector organisation now and have worked both private and third sector in the past. Of course, these are just my experiences, both public and private sector organisations vary massively. One nice thing is you don't have to worry about generating income, as the budget is set centrally. I've worked places where there were spells where getting paid each month was touch and go. No risk of that where I am now. On the other hand, I could basically be out of a job overnight if one day the government decided to stop funding. Wages are lower than in comparable private sector jobs, but I've found management is better. There's less intense pressure to work work work, and more care given to your work life balance and mental health. Probably because wages are lower, so they know the compensation has to be a nicer working environment. I've found there's fewer dicks in the public sector. Still some, of course, but a lower proportion. I think because everybody is here because they in some way value the work, rather than being entirely career and money driven. There's more long term thinking. Possibly as a result of budgets being more secure. Things are planned out for the whole year, with far less last minute firefighting. It feels much more proactive and less reactive.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

Your experience is in direct contrast to replies on a post I made yesterday for why Council websites are so shit. Everyone was blaming the budgets, poor management, and poor long-term vision.

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lostrandomdude@reddit

It's a bit of an odd one. Gov.uk is seen as a shining example globally of a great design for a government website where everything can be found easily and it is great for Accessibility purposes, whereas local government and council websites are generally seen to be quite poor

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

Preciously the observation on that thread. So if we have the template, and I believe it's all open source, local departments should utilise it, or at least take inspiration from it

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imminentmailing463@reddit

Hardly surprising. The public sector employers nearly 6 million people doing a hugely diverse range of things all across the country. It's not exactly likely that there'll be a universal experience across the whole thing.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

Very fair

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Scarred_fish@reddit

And what the person above says is why a lot of the council websites are shit - central govt wants us all (local govt, councils) to use a standard template. The idea is good, seamless between local/central services and a familiar navigation system. But in reality we need more flexibility. Edit - in Scotland, no idea if it's the same elsewhere.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

Why do you need flexibility? 95% of what one council does is exactly the same, and if it's not then you're doing it wrong. Waste, education, social care. Etc. Even if that 95% was standardised, using systems provided by central government, I couldn't care less about the 5% some random small town has to build a custom offering

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ambadawn@reddit

Note there is a big difference between Central Government/Civil Service and Local Government. Even between CS departments there are big differences.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

General sweeping statement expected, but what's your take on central Vs local government working?

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ambadawn@reddit

Don't have personal experience of Local Government work. Local Government has a reputation for silo thinking. Doesn't have the same level of ministerial oversight, for better or worse. Central Government has better funding, of course, and its scope is much broader, also more senior leadership positions.

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Brian-Kellett@reddit

Largely agree with most of this, however (and these are my personal thoughts)… Sometimes the KPIs you work under, that you know are pointless but cause a lot of stress and more stressful than ‘must make profit’. E.g. 8 minute ambulance response time = success, 8 minute and 1 second = fail, there is no KPI for a patient surviving. For a lot of public service work I went home and thought ‘I made someone’s life better’ as opposed to ‘I made a shareholder profit’, which can help with your sanity. I found it a lot easier to skive when in the private sector, a lot harder in the NHS, but that might just be a morals thing. Or my thought that ‘this doesn’t really matter’ when compared to nursing or ambulance work. I found the ‘I pay your wages’ attitude of clients worse in public work than private - not that it doesn’t happen in private, but I just found it worse. Public pensions are pretty good, pay is worse, a lot worse than what I could get in private - and with more non-pension benefits. You see the politicians sucking up to big business, they don’t suck up the the NHS. probably because the NHS managers don’t give them huge brib… ‘donations’. This means that they have more say in the running of our society. Loads of anecdote to be honest, but I worked NHS for 25 years and am now in education, but also did a fair bit of private sector work in various industries throughout.

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Greenbanana215@reddit

Yes I agree with this 💯

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BallysheaOne@reddit

When someone from the private sector joined my public sector workplace, one of the first questions they asked on their first day was "do we get a Christmas bonus?" I nearly choked laughing. I had to bring in my own pens and lightbulbs. Not kidding.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

Haha made me chuckle. But wait, lightbulbs?

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BallysheaOne@reddit

Yep, we had an office inspection once and the lighting was so dim it didn't register on whatever gadget the person was using. The solution was to provide individual desk lamps. The bulbs were useless, so I brought in my own. Other workers used to swap their dim bulbs with mine. So I had to start removing my bulb when I left the office. Crazy.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

Wow. That's unreal

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mattman106_24@reddit

Unfortunately your views have been coloured by what essentially amounts to propaganda from a class of people who want to do away with the state and privatise everything The "Gold Plated" pension schemes that the Mail and Telegraph are constantly moaning about are mostly closed to new members or have been gutted. The pay has been eroded for a decade, they face a hostile press and a hostile government and unfortunately the public think they're all dossers. Unfortunately their is an element of "pay peanuts get monkeys" as since the remuneration packages have been hollowed out some of the people who are left are either unable to get a job in the public sector or are just waiting out retirement. Ultimately if it was a well paid, well pensioned doss they wouldn't have the astronomical vacancy rate they do. The simple fact that the civil service cannot for the life of them recruit the likes of IT specialists etc should tell you that people who are qualified certainly don't think the civil service is worth working in anymore.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

Even if you could attract the top 10%, you'll likely lose them quickly. I've found these individuals are driven by more than just money. They will eventually leave once money isn't a concern, because they want recognition and to see their effort lead to an outcome. I think that could only happen if the mentality is changed in public sector, remove the deadwood, remove the blockers to progress and change.

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ManyHabit8785@reddit

A good Private sector team is very, very productive. A good Public sector team is productive. A bad private sector team is a bit of a drain. A bad public sector team is a bottomless pit.

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NoAssociation8694@reddit

Super slow pace? Not in schools - exhausting.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

Yah teaching is the exception. Although again, there must be a difference for teachers working in state schools and independents

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NoAssociation8694@reddit

Yeah, but state school will be much harder work than private. Class sizes are double for one thing.

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carlovski99@reddit

I've worked in public sector (Local government and now NHS) for all my professional working life. So only direct hand knowledge from that side but \- I've got friends/colleagues who have moved into/out of public sector, expecting the stereotypes to be true but have said it's often been the opposite. \- I work with a lot of private suppliers. And I can tell you that private sector is no guarantee of efficiency or competence (Now maybe it's because I'm working with their public sector arm - which is a fair comment, but not with all of them) \- There are lots of people in public sector who are incredibly overworked. People looking after 3 different things, that elsewhere each would have a team of people, on top of their day jobs. \- The pensions aren't as magic as people seem to think. Especially NHS which has employee contribution rates considerably higher than local government or civil service.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

> There are lots of people in public sector who are incredibly overworked. People looking after 3 different things, that elsewhere each would have a team of people, on top of their day jobs. Another comment alluded to this being part of the problem, and that the good ones are subsidising the terrible employees. Either because the terrible ones have just given up, don't care, or are too difficult to sack. Sad if that's true

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carlovski99@reddit

Possibly sometimes, but mostly its just underfunding along with a culture of trying to make things work regardless. Plus those people not always pushing back or just quitting.

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piccalilli_shinpads@reddit

If you want a cup of tea you need your own mug, tea spoon, tea bag and milk/sugar. This leads to a fridge which has about 30 bottles of milk in it. There's also drama if someone's tea spoon goes missing.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

Hahaha my god. I feel spoilt now sipping my flat white from premium coffee machine

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meseven777@reddit

I went from a management role in the private sector to a team member role in the public sector and the drop in stress level was massive. In the private sector everything is about profit, so lots of cost cutting to reduce overheads. Pretty much unless you can actively demonstrate how you/your team are generating profit, you're at constant risk of redundancy. The focus for senior management was always hitting budget at all costs. Constant shifting from one crisis to another and the priorities would change almost daily based on sales numbers. Public sector feels like there is no sense of urgency about anything. Much better work/life balance but at work the pace is much slower which can be frustrating. Changes often seem to get talked about for months but implementing anything is very beurocratic. I would also say there is more tolerance for incompetence. Employees who have been around 15+ years but are relentlessly negative and block change unnecessarily are kind of allowed to do what they want just because they've been there a long time.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

I guess it's great in society we have a choice. I'd cry working in public sector. I thrive on efficiency, cutting waste, and seeing effort translate to output. If that includes me being made redundant, YOLO, I'm out and I'll go on to the next challenge. The point on sacking is sometimes underappreciated. It's already quite difficult to get rid of mediocre or incompetent people in private sector, due to legal hurdles. I can only imagine what's it's like in unionised public sector gigs.

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Seldom-Posts-836@reddit

Public sector worker. Getting rid of poor performers is a real problem and everywhere I've worked it is consistently highlighted as an area for improvement in staff surveys. I think it's compounded by the fact you can only really get more money by going into management which leads to people who never really wanted to manage people and aren't good at it getting stuck in positions where they're reluctant to deal with staff problems head on. A specific gripe I have is everywhere I have worked there always seems to be a large group of people who get to a certain level and then go part time, I find this really inefficient as I'm forced to work to their schedule which disrupts my work. I've worked in places where there was a very structured annual plan of work and that meant the pace of work was in the goldilocks zone but I've also worked through austerity and that nicely planned work can turn into a fucking nightmare once people leave and aren't replaced. I've also worked in places where it's feast or famine, you can be struggling to find things to fill your day on a Monday and then have some incredibly urgent piece of work land on your desk on Tuesday that has you up till 11 meeting a deadline. Just varies with the job. Pension is OK but the final salary days are over and have been for a good while. Career average is the standard now. Good options available to bump it up if you want to retire early though.

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McCretin@reddit

I started my career in the private sector and am currently in the public sector. Both can be stressful, but in different ways. In the private sector (at least the bit I worked in), there’s a lot of value placed on always showing yourself to be completely on top of everything, never making a mistake, just performing to your best level every single day. Meanwhile in the public sector there’s less focus on showing yourself to be completely on it every day. The stress comes from dealing with bureaucracy that can slow everything down, and waiting for things to happen as time ticks away. Often, in the public sector, you tell someone to do something and they do it. That’s not how it works in the public sector. When you’re leading an urgent project and another team say they’re going to take months to complete their part of it, totally screwing up your timeline - that’s stressful. And you have less recourse to speed things up than you would in the private sector because there’s not as much of a “time is money” attitude. A lot of the value you can add is in anticipating these delays and finding ways to get the system to work for you and your objectives. The hours are also a big difference. In the private sector I was working up to 14 hours per day, more usually about 10 or 11. I’ve had late nights in my public sector job, but they’re much rarer. Usually it’s a very regular 9-5. It’s so much better for my wellbeing that I have predictable hours and don’t have to sacrifice my social life any more. Related to this, I found that there was a lot more presenteeism in the private sector. People in the public sector are less bothered about leaving early if they’ve finished their work for the day, whereas in the private sector you’ll be made to feel guilty about this and have to stick around, even if you’re not being productive. It’s not true that everyone in the public sector is a drone there for the pension and the job security. I’ve encountered people like that for sure - usually the older ones who are closer to retirement. But there are lots of really talented, driven, inspirational people in the public sector who are motivated by public service and are a pleasure to work with.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

> Often, in the (private) sector, you tell someone to do something and they do it. That’s not how it works in the public sector. > When you’re leading an urgent project and another team say they’re going to take months to complete their part of it, totally screwing up your timeline - that’s stressful. I think this is what I'd find the most difficult to work with. Some other department that doesn't share your objective and hustle, and just takes sweet time. At least with my experience of private sector, everyone is focused on a single goal e.g. profit.

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imminentmailing463@reddit

This is true, but on the other hand I have found the public sector to be more full of people who will do you a favour just because they're nice or because they believe in the work. My experience of the private sector is that this isn't as common. If it's their job to do it they'll do it, or if you're senior to them they'll do it. But if neither of those are the case, and it's just something that would help you out, the chances they'll do it are lower. Much more focus on furthering their own work. Of course, this is all purely anecdotal.

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McCretin@reddit

This is true as well. After enough time in a role you work out who’s going to help you and who’s going to waste your time, and go straight to the helpful people rather than dealing with the time-wasters.

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bornleverpuller85@reddit

In the public sector we steal office supplies from home and take them to work, in the private sector you steal office supplies from work and take them home.

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Common_Physics_1568@reddit

Agree. On my first day in the civil service I had to go out and buy stationary. It was an office job.

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RagerRambo@reddit (OP)

Your children need those supplies for school!

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bornleverpuller85@reddit

My students need them more than my kid does

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edh505051@reddit

I mean if this was family fortunes rather than Reddit this would be the top answer but obviously ‘pay’.

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