Yet another reminder of why we don’t want government running things
Bookworm on May 12 2006 at 11:38 am | Filed under: Government
I'm not repeating anything new when I say that, European-like, liberals' idea of a perfect world is one where the Government runs as many things as possible. (Hillary's 1994 healthcare proposal springs to mind.) The other day, I had an experience that reminded me, once again, why the fewer things the government controls, the better.
I needed to get copies of my children's birth certificates. A little online snooping revealed that, if I did it by mail, I'd get them in 60 days; if I shlepped into the City, I'd get them in two hours. So off to the City I went.
When I arrived at the Records office, I was the third in line. Two windows were open. "Oh, joy!" I thought. "I'll be out of here in ten minutes." My hopes were dashed when the clerk working one window finished with a customer, contemptuously scanned the line (which had now grown to five people), and simply walked away. He then sat down at his desk and stared off into space. That left one window (and a line that had now grown to eight people).
The one window moved slowly, since the woman ahead of me in line had a complicated problem that seemed, appropriately, to require a lot of attention. She was a black woman and, from what I could hear, a friendly, nice person, who was focused on what she was doing. The single working clerk was also black, and was conversing with her in a chatty way. They chatted and chatted. The line was now ten people.
Eventually, it was my turn. Have I mentioned that I'm white? I am. I note it now only because I was struck by the clerk's demeanor towards me after her interactions with the previous customer. She extended an arm through the window and grabbed my forms. She would not look at me. Because I too am a friendly person (just like the last customer), I said hello and smiled. The clerk turned her head slightly, twisted her mouth into a rictus of a smile, and immediately looked away from me. I assumed that this was a race-based problem. I could be wrong. Maybe she was shy. Maybe she knew me from the past and I'd once offended her. Maybe I hadn't said "hello" the correct way. I do know that, whatever her personal feelings towards me, this wouldn't have happened if she'd been in the private sector and (a) could earn commissions for satisfied customers or (b) could lose her job over unsatisfied ones.
Anyway, halfway through working on my papers, another clerk came up, tapped the unfriendly clerk on the shoulder, and took over. The other woman, Hispanic, also refused to acknowledge me. At the end, she handed me the forms I'd filled in and said, "Go to the cashier." I asked, "Do I come back to this window to get the certificates?" Her response, "Just go to the cashier." As it happened, I discovered once I'd paid that the printer was on the cashier's side of the office, and it was she who handed me the completed certificates.
Overall, the transaction didn't take too long and I got exactly what I wanted — two birth certificates. I also left with a horrible taste in my mouth about dealing with the Government. The people who worked in that office knew three things: (a) I had nowhere else to go since they have a monopoly on the information I needed; (b) they would not be fired for anything short of saying they voted for George Bush; and (c) there was absolutely no reward for them in acting with common decency. I also think, and this is just my opinion, that these factors gave them the freedom to treat me with that little extra bit of rudeness because I'm white. [You can beat me around the head for this last one, but just be polite when you do.]
When I told this to Mr. Bookworm, who is still a big government liberal, he didn't think the problem was a government monopoly backed by government unions. He fell back on the "human decency" argument. That is, economic incentives aside, he said that human decency requires good behavior, and these people just lacked that. It certainly is true that, in the suburbs where I live, people in the local government offices are friendly. It's a fairly small community, friendliness is the norm, and these are often people you'll interact with outside of the office confines. But the lucky fact that I live in a nice community doesn't excuse the general failings of government run businesses, nor the fact that, by their nature, they're prone to precisely the failings I described above.
The fact is that a government bureaucrat who can't be fired, who gets no reward for good behavior, and who knows you have nowhere else to go, will revel in that power. And with power goes corruption. In this regard, I am reminded of a friend of mine who confided that his mother worked in a small town Department of Motor Vehicles, and was one of a group of the most vicious bunch of women he'd ever met. When I protested that this couldn't be true, he said that these women had complete power over the community — they knew everything about everyone through the records, and they could make or break people by withholding access to their driver's licenses. This power, without oversight or restraint, had simply corrupted them. I doubted it then (I was a liberal, after all), but I believe it now.
Talking to Technorati: Government monopolies, Government management, Free market, Rudeness, Civility, Monopolies
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27 Responses to “Yet another reminder of why we don’t want government running things”
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Yep. And I only have two words to confirm your theory: “Post Office.” Or, as you also noted, perhaps one will do: “DMV.”
Don’t discount the fact that Mr. Bookworm has never been treated rudely by a clerk of any color, race, religion or national origin.. Not even nasty ethnics of the female persuasion dis men. It’s fact. Ask him when he’s been treated rudely for no apparent reason other than his appearance. I’d be very surprised if he experienced it even once.
I should add that I don’t usually consider the race of the person rude to me when I receive slighting attention from a government clerk. I’ve worked around courthouses enough to know that they are, for the most part, all rude. What struck me in this instance was how differently she related to the black woman immediately ahead of me. Had it not been for that, race would not have been a factor in this. As it is, I feel that, to the extent she may harbor race hostility (which is her right, although I don’t think it’s a smart way to live), being a Government employee gave her license to act on it.
I am a career federal employee in one of the more onerous jobs and I make no excuses for rude behavior to the public. Revealing that fact maybe somewhat akin to living in a liberal community and disclosing you voted for Bush, as Tom Wolfe has characterized it, like mentioning to people at a swank dinner party by the way I molest children. Frankly, working for the government contributed to my conversion to conservatism, because I am skeptical of the efficacy of governnment endeavors. However, at risk of sounding like a completely naive nitwit, I believe in the Constitution and the government I represent to the public. Btw in the office I work in there are several people who are several staunch conservatives and many veterans. May I point out the armed forces of the United States are also government employees. Do you disdain them too?
I will admit that when you go into a government office, you are at the mercy of the mood and attitude of the workers. Most people go to government offices because they have to and not because they want to. I do want to say, however, not all government workers are rude to their customers. I am a government worker and like to think I treat all my customers with the respect they deserve. Now, I will admit, some of my customers make it hard to be nice, but I think I am at least polite to them. I work for the IRS and you know that no one “wants” to visit the IRS office. I make it a point to not only give my customers the information they came for, but to try to have them leave with a positive feeling if not a laugh. I guess what I am trying to say is no matter what kind of business you go into, you will find employees who do not want to be there as well as employees who really enjoy their job and give it their all. I like to think I belong to the latter group.
Zhombre and Janet: I know lovely government employees, and have often been met with friendliness and kindness in my dealings with government employees. I also believe strongly in our armed forces, and am under the impression that the modern military expects the troops to conform to certain decent behaviors — and they can get in trouble if they don’t. That means that part of the ethos of the armed services is human decency.
The problem is that, if your government branch does not emphasize that decency, and if you don’t live in a friendly community or don’t get to deal with a specifically friendly person, there’s nothing to restrain the government employee’s baser instincts. In the private sector, a rude or inefficient person is bad for business. In the public sector, such behavior is tacitly condoned because it’s not grounds for discipline or firing. I think a better system is one that doesn’t leave me dependent on each individual employee’s given mood on a given day, but that affirmatively encourages or requires decent, respectful, hardworking behavior.
By the way, I know Janet and, if you’re ever dealing with the IRS, just hope that you’re lucky enough to deal with her. She is a person of consistent kindness, charm and humor, as well as being a very disciplined worker. If I could be guaranteed that all government employees would be Janet, I’d even accept a largely government run world.
And Zhombre, the consistent tenor of all of your comments leads me to suspect that you’re another Janet. But short of cloning you two, we need a system that gives carrots and sticks to the people who don’t have your sense of decency and commitment.
One other thing. I recognize that there are certain things that can't be parceled out: I wouldn't want a privately run military, and I belive in government for infrastructure, etc. I just don't want it to keep growing. Government run health care is, to my mind, a bad idea. The bigger government gets, the more it extends its tentacles, the more you lose the social benefits that come from the incentives (and strictures) of the private sector.
Funny thing is I work for IRS too. Small world. It is onerous of course but I console myself with the facts that Cervantes collected taxes for the Spanish crown (in the form of grain from La Mancha farmers, destined for the Armada, but which rotted in warehouses while the Armada sailed to ignominious defeat) and Jesus chose one for a disciple. From this I draw the succor that I am capable of both liturature and redemption.
Make that literature.
Bookworm,
Another great post. Here’s a local situation that plays right into what you’re saying:
The local treasurer’s office (they run the DMV here in Omaha, Nebraska) went through a financial scandal some months ago. One of the employees devised a rather novel way to embezzle an enormous sum of money (six figures). He had a gambling problem, which meant that he spent all the money by the time the authorities figured everything out. Obviously, he lost his job and is now serving an 18 month federal prison sentence. Here’s where the story gets interesting.
One of the employees circulated a best wishes card in the office for this guy. When the treasurer found out about it, she was rightfully angry. Several employees were also upset considering that the embezzler used them in his little scheme. The treasurer thus fired this person. The individual then went to a county commission that reviews firings and got her job back. At the same time, the treasurer has egg on her face because of an incident involving a private citizen who wrote a letter to the editorial page of the local newspaper criticizing her actions in this whole affair. Since his address is unlisted, she used PRIVATE county records to find his address and wrote him personally on treasury office letterhead defending her position. She stated publically that she saw nothing wrong with this.
Who is right and who is wrong here? Take your pick. Only in government can an employee apply for reinstatement to a job after exhibiting glaring lapses in judgment–and get reinstated time and time again. Does your job have a review board that you can appeal to after offering support in the OFFICE to an embezzler who stole six figures from the company coffers? Does your job have a review board for ANY fireable offense? I didn’t think so. In the real world, the boss would have the right to dismiss an employee who did something this foolish. And only in government could an elected official use private records and official letterhead to argue with a citizen.
I cannot understand why it is so difficult for some people just to be decent to others. Having worked in the service industry, it’s much easier to just smile and say, “Hello” than it is to be cranky all the time.
I worked at a chain department store that has “Senior Day” just about every Wednesday. Personally I find my elders to be utterly fascinating considering what they have seen in their lifetimes, but that is me. Other people working at this store hate senior day because “seniors are so cranky and they demand so much attention and if you get the price wrong they yell at you…” I never had a problem. A polite hello and a “did you find everything you were looking for?” and they were perfectly content. I don’t see why this is so difficult for some people no matter what the industry.
I also believe strongly in our armed forces, and am under the impression that the modern military expects the troops to conform to certain decent behaviors — and they can get in trouble if they don’t. That means that part of the ethos of the armed services is human decency.
It is quite simple. If you make a mistake in the military, you can get yourself and your buddies killed. That means people have a very high motivation to make sure you don’t frag anyone you weren’t ordered to. Thus, the exisgencies of existence dictates human behavior.
Government employees live in fat prosperous peace time. Even militaries which live in peace time get fat, slow, and unready for War. The degradation and drug abuse in the 60s, was horrendously devastating to the military. They shaped up and improved, why? Because if they did not, they would get their asses kicked by the enemy and killed. Which I suppose, is more of a motivation than government benefits like what the transit unioners get.
I wouldn’t really call it decency, so much as it is discipline.
The role of government and the problem the Founding Fathers encountered, was to mold human nature in such a way that it improves the output. You can’t change the fundamental nature of humanity, but you could perhaps refine it, improve the output, and reprocess it.
The forging of a weapon through military training and war, is one of the most brutal and efficient manners of purging the waste products and impurities out of the weapon called the human soul. A weapon has a purpose, it has the means to accomplish that purpose, the strength and the flexibility to support that purpose. Not every human is a weapon, but every human seeks a purpose. If the government’s purpose is to do X, and they allow their tools to go rusty and broken, then obviously we should expect accidents, deaths, casualties, and all manner of disasters. Thus the power had to come from the people, and NEVER the bureacracy. Thus is the danger of universal prepaid healthcare, universal confiscation of weaponry, and universal welfare.
You will always have people corrupted by power, so the only way to retemper the blade, is to keep repairing it over and over again, by democratic processes. Some may break, others will not.
Reading about Mr. Bookworm, his problem is of course application and theory. Research and Development basically. You can have all the good ideas in the world, but if you can’t apply or develop them, then they are rather useless.
It’s easy to have theories about human nature and behavior, but how to apply those theories to real life, now that’s true wisdom and practicality. The military has had to confront human nature first hand. Both the worst and the best. It has to deal with bad commanders, good commanders, people who slack, criminals, people who kill their commanding officers in combat, and so on and so forth. Boot Camp is the quintessential reprocessing and forging of the deadly blade called a soldier. Do people who go into Boot Camp, were they born with the traits of discipline, honor, loyalty, and duty? Hell no.
You can have a bunch of murdering little P****s and you can still instill in them discipline and loyalty, even if you can’t instill “decency” into them.
You can make people behave kindly and respectful and all the things that are like decency, but that doesn’t mean they have to be decent. They could be afraid of punishment, they could be scared of you and your power, they could be pounded into a loyal and obedient follower.
I think most liberals believe that genetics dictate your fate. Natural born killers and all that. They may talk about bad childhoods, but the logic is rather curious in the epistemologicaly sense. It is fatalistic and deterministic, meaning because so and so happened, your fate is now determined.
This means, it makes sense for fake liberals to believe that if a human has 0 of X, he will behave Y. I don’t really buy that. If I did, I would never believe military training could make you a better person, or that the virtues of discipline, duty, and loyalty could improve your character, or any one of those Improvement ideas.
Another problem is, if a fake liberal believing in deterministic factors about human nature, tries to MOLD human nature (i.e. bureacracy and government) then we have a small problem that will probably get bigger.
Great post. I’m right there with you every step of the way. And I find it fascinating how the very nicest, most decent and kindest government employees who read your post (who, for their own reasons, would still be nice and kind to all other humans even if there were absolutely zero financial or peer impetus to do so) react on an emotional level and protest as if they personally are being discounted–instead of seeing your point about how the bureaucratic/monopolistic system inherently (if not invariably) corrupts and diminishes the idea of “customer service” in all but the most determined of public employees who remain nice for reasons of their own.
There are some very nice people in my own suburban post office (their mothers obviously raised them well!), but it’s clear to see the workplace in which they operate has absolutely no idea of what true “customer service” (in the real-world business sense) is. When lines get longer, they do often try to work slightly faster (around their scheduled breaks and shift changes!), but they have no authority to adapt as a business would, in opening more windows, switching around personnel, or quickly bringing in new innovations that actually work, instead of stupid ones that are supposed to work but don’t. Even post offices in the other couple of countries I’ve visited (New Zealand, Germany) seemed to work more efficiently than ours.
I tell myself that visiting the post office is just a little taste of what life in the Soviet Union must’ve felt like (endless stupid unnecessary wasteful lines…). I always emerge thankful for free market capitalism and reminded of why we don’t want more government control of ANYTHING.
Anyway, your observations and conclusions are so true. And I don’t understand Mr. Bookworm’s point. In a free-market business that deals with the public, rude/slow/unhelpful employees with attitudes would be fired, because their behavior would soon put their employer out of business; in a monopolistic government burocracy, protected by a union, they evidently are tolerated and protected from consequences. So what exactly is Mr. Bookworm’s “human decency” argument?
I’m well aware of Bookworm’s point about the inherent lassitude in public service bureaucracies but I felt compelled to pipe up with some defense. It’s like the old movie line, Groucho to Margaret Dumont: “I was defending your honor, which is more than you’ve ever done.”
Humans are decent or not independent of human motivational factors present in reward/punishments.
Ever hear a fake liberal say punishment doesn’t work and they don’t believe in punishment? Same reasoning.
Great post BW. Getting treated rudely by unaccountable and unfireable government workers is sadly commonplace.
I find it effective to start with the assumption: “government is terrible at everything” and then attempt to build an argument to the contrary on a case by case basis.
There is an initiative (can’t recall if it is California wide or just in SF) to make day care available to all. Lovely sentiment. This of course requires the creation of new government organizations to manage and run these facilities. We have a 4 year old boy and 2 6 month old girls. I can only imagine how horrible and frustrating it would be to bring our children to a facility run with the same loving tenderness of a Post Office or a DMV.
Government should do only those things that only government can do.
Joe: the initiative is in California, courtesy of Rob Reiner. My children attend a Montessori school and the school is very worried that the initiative will pass, since it will basically destroy the school’s unique Montessori qualities.
I wouldn’t really care if they were rude. Engineers tend to be very annoyed and rude at times. But their effectiveness makes up for that. If there’s no lines and the bureacrats are surly and cranky, that’s okay with me.
BW - great post.
But to respond to Erp way back at No. 2 - as a male, and a white male at that, I can say that I’ve been treated rudely numerous times, so I don’t think that it’s limited to only women being treated shabily by government types.
But I also don’t believe that private industry is the panacea for rude behavior. I think many of our global companies are so out-sized that the behavior of one cog in the machine really cannot be disciplined. Though I have had pleasant experiences with customer service people at the bank, telephone company, cable company, etc. (and I always try and be nice, the idea being that if you are difficult than I know they will do everything possible to sabotage you on the problem you called with), I can say that many of my experiences with people at the cell phone provider, Dell computers, hotel chains, the grocery store, etc. are awful. These people do not care, and they do feel untouchable.
How do you go about reporting a bad experience with someone in customer service at a global company? If the imbeciles at Sprint add charges to your account, or can’t change a phone number, what recourse do you have? Not many I’m afraid.
The fact is that bureacratization of the culture and a disconnect from interpersonal communications, and frankly a decrease in civility in America all contribute to this problem whether the private sector or public.
1) Having been in the military (as an enlisted man) we were expected to use Ma’am and Sir when addressing civilians. I observed that officers would also use these forms of polite address as well.
2) The military is in no way similar to any other government employee. Unless other government employees fall under the UCMJ (uniform code of military justice) then you’re comparing apples with oranges.
3) Bookworm and Mr. Bookworm–Mary Matlin and James Carville–I’ve never seen them all in the same picture…
Publius wrote:
“How do you go about reporting a bad experience with someone in customer service at a global company? If the imbeciles at Sprint add charges to your account, or can’t change a phone number, what recourse do you have? Not many I’m afraid.”
You can take your business elsewhere! Don’t support companies that mistreat you. In a free market, you have that right. Competition works.
But you can get your birth certificates only from a government monopoly. You cannot go elsewhere. No competition means no need for the bureaucrats to be efficient or pleasant.
Joe wrote:
“There is an initiative (can’t recall if it is California wide or just in SF) to make day care available to all. Lovely sentiment. This of course requires the creation of new government organizations to manage and run these facilities. We have a 4 year old boy and 2 6 month old girls. I can only imagine how horrible and frustrating it would be to bring our children to a facility run with the same loving tenderness of a Post Office or a DMV.
Government should do only those things that only government can do.”
These government daycare proposals make my blood run cold, for exactly that reason. It would be far better for the government (if “the people” really do decide they all want to support daycare through their tax dollars, and it is not just some pandering political boondoggle) to give parents money to purchase their own chosen daycare on the free market.
Whenever the government intrudes into the marketplace by trying to provide services already being provided by private enterprise, its subsidized, non-competitive offerings (often bolstered and protected by regulations that favor its own) tend to “crowd out” (drive out of business) the smaller and more varied (not to mention better-quality) suppliers who can no longer compete. Then everyone’s worse off.
The more competition there is, the more choices you have.
The Pacific Research Institute
http://www.pacificresearch.org/
has a good presentation here:
“No Magic Bullet: The Top 10 Myths about the Benefits of Government-Run Universal Pre-School” (pdf file):
http://www.pacificresearch.org/pub/sab/educat/2006/Magic_Bullet.pdf
*IF* we are to have government-provided daycare, then let it be provided in the same way as food is provided to those who need it….. “Daycare stamps” can be issued, and parents who claim them can go and spend their daycare stamps at the facility of their choosing.
Something similar would make a VAST improvement on the current government school system — but don’t be holding your breath for it. When they liberate people, the politicians have one less thing to “sell” — in this case, to the public employee unions.
But, Earl, you’re missing the whole point behind the initiative. It’s not to give the consumer more freedom, it’s to give the government more control — because, after all, the government has already done such a good job with education!
There’s a difference in macro-economics and micro-economics. This matters because the macro influences over a company like refusing to buy their goods, doesn’t actually translate into micro-level improvements. I have a friend that relates talking on the phone to customer service, and his record is manly that if you are persistent and (yes annoying) enough they will eventually give you what you deserve, but only if you make yourself really loud and big, big enough that ignoring you could cause problems.
Given my experience, a lot of people either don’t have the patience nor the interest in spending days on the phone trying to get customer service. So whatever micro-scale improvements you get, doesn’t translate to the macro. Whatever macro scale improvents you can get through free market, does not instantaneously translate to micro-level improvement in service.