Who You Gonna Call?

It’s usually difficult to get people to feel sorry for Government workers, but there exist at least one arena in which those employees can suffer more abuse than private sector employees. That area is the Government controlled treatment of their employers. If Government employees have a grievance, fellow Government agencies policing said complaints will most often turn a blind eye to the alleged aggrieved party; not wanting to step on fellow Government Agency’s toes or make unnecessary (because no one else is paid to monitor such things) waves. Many years ago a local Union boss called me at home and called me a c-sucker. He then proceeded to say that he was going to shove “it” up my ass as far as he could the next time that he got a chance. I immediately called the Area Supervisor in Chicago, the Supervisor came to our town soon thereafter and then nothing at all happened. Pretending to listen then sweeping an issue under the rug is common place. There are also times when complaining employees are simply ignored by being told “I’m sorry you feel that way, have a wonderful day.” I once had an upper management individual tell me that he simply deleted my complaint e-mail. Some Government workers are Unionized, but as I demonstrated in another post – the Union that I was mandatorily part of is in effect an extension of Management. If you care to read my Meat Grader’s Union post (Click Here). If the abuse in question is really bad, an employee might opt to put down a retainer and pay high priced attorney fees. But that’s often not a financially worthwhile option. On-staff Government lawyers just sandbag until the Lil Person runs out of money.

I once “blew the whistle” on what I saw as an ethics violation: a same pay-grade employee was assigned to make out weekly job assignments that directly effected how much income themselves and other local coworkers workers could earn. During that same time period another local Duty Station employee decided to exploit the power vacuum left by lack of Supervisory control and began intimidating coworkers in order to obtain more time on the clock. I turned that incident in to AMS (Agricultural Marketing Service) Upper Management as well. The almost immediate result was that I was charged with creating a hostile work environment, and so underwent a lengthy Internal Agency Investigation. It was quite an “attacking the messenger” moment for me. No one never even acknowledge that I had complained. The person that was wrongly assigning work was rapidly promoted into Supervision. Prior to the beginning of investigation “interviewing.” I was badgered into taking underqualified Union representation. And, at one point felt that the union rep was trying to help frame me on at least one of the baseless charges. Two other strange things occurred during that time frame: 1) When I was working TDY in Detroit a hit and run driver slammed into my Government licensed car at 0430 while I was traveling 65 miles per hour on the freeway. 2) When we paid our Federal Income taxes electronically approximately $5000 was withdrawn from our checking account twice. It took about 6 months to get the money returned. After a long drawn-out investigation I was not charged with anything. But, the “go along to get along” message was easy for me to comprehend. A year or so later the “Union” canceled our seniority benefit of long term employees being able to pick a steady work shift (the opposite of what one would expect a real Union to do). That new policy change posed a big problem at our Duty Station because we provided around the clock meat plant coverage. Rotating shifts was very hard, and when my heart valves started to go out it became unbearable. Upon requesting an ADA Reasonable Accommodation for a set day or evening shift, I was given the “Accommodation” of having 2 weeks to resign my job. During the few phone meetings leading up to that decision I felt that Supervision and HR were doing stupid things to try and get me to threaten them on recorded phone calls. They did say that I could relocate to another part of the Country; which was disingenuous because if I truly was medically unfit to continue working where I have lived all my life, I would also be unfit to work anywhere else. And, who made AMS RH personnel medical doctors anyway? My real MDs did not advise that I quit work. Given my experiences of how the Meat Grader’s Union operates, my only wise choice at that point was to put down a $2,000 retainer and pay $350 an hour attorney fees. I did that and was able to continue working under difficult conditions. In total it cost us right around $5,000 for me to rightfully keep my job. Not long after that my heart valves got worse, I went into heart & kidney failure and subsequently retired early. My doctors still say that I’m able to work, but medication induced dizziness, an eye crossing problems and having been heart shocked 12 times by an implanted defibrillator over the years made me mentally unable to safely continue driving the hour long one way work commutes to plants. Falling short of my full Social Security age by 9 months amounts to 5% less Social Security benefits for the rest of my life.

Don’t be tempted to judge Government employees by way of painting them all with a broad brush. Despite politicians continuously preaching Civil Rights, fairness & ethics, not all Government employees get treated equally.