Public sector workers. Aren't you glad you're not one?
With their cushy jobs, gold-plated pensions and overbearing sense of self-importance, don't you just hate them?
They squander our taxes, draining away hard-earned cash writing endless reports or filling in forms or whatever rubbish it is that public servants do all day. They're counting the days until they retire, while the rest of us are counting the pennies.
In any public sector job there are always far too many people duplicating each other's work when only one would do. They should try working in the private sector, where any excess in personnel is ruthlessly trimmed to ensure shareholder growth. You never see public sector workers losing their jobs to call centres on the subcontinent, do you? Jobs for life, that's the culture in local and national government these days. It can't go on. We simply can't afford it.
So it's great to hear that 700000 additional public sector workers will soon be on the unemployment scrapheap. What the hell were the rest of us doing paying their salaries, when it turns out they weren't even needed anyway? If there's one thing Britain needs it's fewer workers, so long as that's fewer workers in the public sector and doesn't affect my job.
Public sector workers don't live in the real world of profit margins and economic peril, where you can lose your job overnight if market conditions prevail. One or two of them even earn more than the Prime Minister, which is blatantly unfair and unjustified, and so everyone's salaries should be cut back because they're all as bad as each other.
And suddenly we have public sector workers moaning about a 1% cap on their pay rises for the next two years. They should count themselves bloody lucky. Some of us have had our pay frozen, our jobs trimmed and our pensions withered away for much longer than that. I mean, most bankers have even had their bonuses cut! What they wouldn't give for a 1% rise, rather than this unjust and unprecedented fall in take-home pay.
As for state-funded employees having to work longer until they retire, and paying more for the privilege, join the club. We're all having to work longer out here in the private sector, so why should the public sector be immune? Our pensions are paltry opt-in funds tied to stock market fluctuations, so those of us without decent share packages expect to be poverty-stricken by the time we retire. If we've got it bad, why should anyone else have it good? We should all be in this economic mess together, taking an equal hit, otherwise it's simply not fair.
It's not fair that public servants have it good when the rest of us have it bad. It's not fair that we should suffer just because they haven't got the drive or the charisma to try their luck in the private sector. It's not fair that they should carry on inside their cosy protective bubble, while the rest of us are being buffeted by a never-ending economic storm. Only if we spread the pain will Britain become a more equal society... and surely a more equal society is what everyone wants?
And now the nation's public servants are taking part in the biggest strike for decades, rampaging down our high streets with angry placards and forming picket lines outside essential services. How are the rest of us expected to make a living when these selfish wastrels think only of themselves? They should be thinking of us instead, because we're the important ones. We're the cogs that make the UK economy go round, but you never see us taking strike action because we're not in trade unions so we're too frightened. Fairness, that's all we ask, a lot less for them and a lot more for us.
There's nothing these layabouts do that couldn't be better served by the private sector. Indeed today's strike perfectly exemplifies how trade unions have been allowed to ride roughshod over the entire public sector, protecting workshy layabouts in overpaid roles and forcing the continuation of outdated inefficient practices. As our civil servants skive off work today, costing the nation billions in lost revenue, ask yourself how little these petty bureaucrats contribute to our beleaguered economy.
How dare millions of public sector workers go on strike over such a petty trivial matter as their personal finances? Don't they realise that they're forcing the rest of us to make alternative childcare arrangements and miss planes and forfeit essential healthcare procedures? And yet these people do so little work, day in day out, that if they all took the day off I bet we wouldn't even notice.
I mean, what have doctors, teachers, headteachers, nurses, ambulance workers, roadsweepers, lollipop ladies, firefighters, social workers, refuse collectors, immigration officials, hospital cleaners, quantity surveyors, auditors, trading standards officers, family support workers, legal assistants, parks officers, environmental health officers, accountants, librarians, archivists, benefits officers, classroom assistants, meals on wheels supervisors, building services engineers, personnel officers, occupational therapists, physiotherapists, care managers, care assistants, youth workers, administrators, registrars, radiographers, caretakers, secretaries, fostering workers, CCTV operators, air traffic controllers, gravediggers, dentists, payroll assistants, museum curators, solicitors, dinner ladies, dog wardens, hostel managers, nursery workers, laboratory technicians, cleaning supervisors, pool attendants, fraud investigation officers, highways maintenance engineers, waste management officers, technicians, IT support workers, educational psychologists, pest controllers, consumer advisers, day care officers, midwives, surgeons and judges ever done for us, eh?
What's on this weekend? Depot Family Open Weekend Sat 10 & Sun 11 March (11-5)
Poke around the London Transport Museum Depot's collection of signs, layouts and vintage vehicles. Do buy your £10 ticket in advance!
Public sector workers. Aren't you glad you're not one?
