A Baker’s Dozen ™: Reasons you know you work for the government. (Courtesy of several folks associated with The Price of Liberty who suffered through years of having to work in government or work with government.)

When:

• You don’t see anything wrong with attending a meeting on a subject you know nothing about.

• You feel you contributed to the meeting just by being there.

• You stop raising issues/problems because you know you will be the one answering them.

• You fly across the country to attend a conference with 100+ people to discuss the fact that the project does not have enough money.

• You work for an acronym, on an acronym, and your job title is an acronym.

• You understand the rationalization of an acronym composed of acronyms.

• You know that the location of a meeting is directly related to its importance.
  A meeting at Fort Riley requires a subordinate or a contractor.
  The same meeting at Lake Tahoe requires your personal attention (or will be attended by your boss).

• You’ve sat at the same desk for 3 years, done the same thing for 3 years, but have had 3 different business cards.

• The process becomes more important than the product.

• The real issue isn’t money, but when the money is to be spent.

• Failure to get an increase in the next Fiscal Year’s annual budget at least equal to twice the estimated inflation rate is always discussed as a “reduction in funding.”

• The gal who is retiring next week is the only person in the agency that can do that particular work; she’s been doing it for thirty years and is perfect, but she really can’t explain how she does it.

• You are only allowed to go into your office one day a week in rotation; you still must wear a mask and wash your hands every hour, and because of bandwidth and security issues, you can only check your email and voice mail two times a day when you are not in the office.

There are, of course, many other reasons to know how someone is working in government.

Today, because the various levels of government have so infiltrated into every facet of daily life of every person, from birth to well past death, we face a conundrum. Can society even function without the millions of government employees? When governments collapse, how long will it take for people to learn how to do things for themselves? What will happen to the government employees? Will they go feral? Starve? Pretend nothing has really changed? Sink further into depraved tyranny?

Just some things to think about.