2mo ago

Serious question time. Does anyone else have the issue of realizing they haven't had any good experiences with anyone of any public service occupation?

Here is what I mean by this. Out of all the times I've been to a doctor, been visited by a cop, called the cops, been to court, went to school, and so on, I've realized lately that I haven't had a single good experience with any of them.

Doctors either always tell me nothing is wrong when something is wrong or said something was wrong when something wasn't. Got traumatic brain injury? Oh it's just a bonk on the head. Got blue balls? Bring em in, doc needs money. The presence of doctors here is so inconsistent with recovery from things like illnesses that the place resembles the stereotypical Sparta-obsessed fascist nation where hospitals don't exist by design.

Police and courts will give you no luck at all stemming from having absolutely no consistency with how they deal with things whatsoever. I've seen child abuse cases where babies are left with behavioral issues that mirror those child rehoming documentaries and the abuser gets two months, while also seeing small cases of assault that lead to two years. I've had instances where I ask police about something they can do. "We'll look into it" they say. Nothing happens. The next thing that happens, they're blaming me for a dead tree from my yard with a branch that snapped off and fell on a neighbor's fence, and I go to get sentenced.

My teachers were like these examples too. Did I benefit even once from my teachers? No. Did I benefit from the social environment? No. Did they treat me like Mr. Burns treats Homer? All the time. They didn't see me as a person, they saw me as a goal. And they would never mind cheating their own rules to achieve it.

And the moment they don't think they have a job to do regarding you, the same jobs they half-ass anyways, they treat you less like an individual to remember and from time to time treat as an equal human and more like a bird you pushed out of a nest without intent to hear from them again. And I didn't realize this until recently, that I have no positive experiences with public servants. Makes me almost not want to work.

Anyone else?

12 comments

Someone smarter than me said: if you smell shit everywhere you go, check your shoes.
- I'm pretty sure public sector performability is objectively measurable as opposed to assholery. I'm not strictly talking about that, I mean people literally doing what their contract or job description promises.
  
  Your experiences are anecdotal. They don't tell us anything about the performance of all public servants. Perspective is important.

YATA
- I wasn't wondering about that though.

I'm with you on cops and doctors.
But, I'll disagree with teachers. I'm sorry that you never had a good experience with one, but I know of quite a few that are truly in it to help the students. There's shit heads in every occupation, but I wouldn't group teachers with people in the legal or medical systems.

I've had great interactions with doctors. All the time.
On the very few occasions I've ever been visited by a cop (once?) it was fine. Couldn't call it life affirming or anything, but it was polite and respectful both ways.
I've had some incredible teachers over the years. My 6th grade math teacher stands out. My biology teacher in high school was also my swim coach, and he was lots of fun. I had some good teachers in college. I had some good teachers in the Army.
I mean I'm not going to pretend the army was a good time, but there were lots of good people in it.
I don't think I've ever really been to court. One time I got called in for jury duty and sat there for 4 hours and that was that. It was fine, you know?
Are there bad examples of all these things out there? Hell yes. Because ask of these people are human just like the rest of us. They have good and bad days. Some are sadistic assholes, others are empathetic and kind - probably just like wherever you are and whatever you do with yourself.
There is one thing I believe holds true. If you see assholes everywhere you go, you're the problem.

Nope, I have had positive and negative experiences with all of the examples and the DMV, IRS, etc. Some are overwhelmingly negative (police), but even then there were a couple of positive interactions. The rest are rarely negative, although a lot are tedious because of beaurocracy.
Note: I am not part of a group that is regularly discriminated against and I absolutely believe someone could have zero positive experiences with the police, and possibly some of the others.

Nope, in my case I've had good experiences with them. The important thing to consider here is that these authorities aren't a monolith, they're individuals. How one cop deals with something can vary vastly compared to how another cop will deal with it, teachers will often have their own style of teaching and level of competency, et cetera.

Theyre government ran programs. People expect them to operate with the efficiency of any normal business. The problem is businesses operating to the rules of a "free" market are driven by entirely different rules than the ones driving a government ran program.
In the government, program funding is dictated by the people in office and their political alignments. First looking at a scenario where the people in office are in support of a program the following outcomes usually happen: 1. Program is successful resulting in stagnant budget growth when times are good and budget cuts when times are bad. 2. Program is unsuccessful resulting in the people in office responsible for the program being unable to call the failing program a failure so they advocate for increasing the budget. Every raise and tier of compensation to the employees is decided in DC and eliminates all shreds of performance or tenure based raises. Employees working for government programs have absolutely no reason to want to excel at their job.
The concept is completely futile. Inprovments only come when enough people get so sick and tired of a program's incompetencies that people protest or the media catches wind to make it a talking point important enough to affect elections.
It's the foundation to Marge Simpson's sisters on the Simpson's and how they are shown working at the DMV. Incase you needed supporting citation for my opinion.
I'm also not commenting as any advocate for either political side nor am I implying "there's no difference between the right and left." I'm simply saying the foundation that government programs must adhere to will never produce an efficient operating environment for any program to succeed under.

I've had some bad ones (the DMV near my university) along with some good ones (the good folks at Service Ontario where I got DMV-like things done - they're so polite, friendly, and helpful!).

12 comments