Public servants serve the public, and they serve all of the public without discrimination due to a person’s race, color, religion, sex, place of national origin, age, or level of ability, or at least they are supposed to. As a government employee in a small agency I frequently performed all of the roles for a daily clinic, including clerical duties and measuring patients in addition to the nutrition assessment and counseling duties that would have been my only role in a large clinic. And in our borrowed offsite spaces I might have had to mop or shovel snow or perform some other cleaning tasks too. Administrative duties such as updating policy manuals and writing monthly reports was squeezed in as time allowed.
So I’m aware that updating policy manuals can be easy to put off. It’s been said that you should “Hire a thief to catch a thief.” So it might also be a good idea to “Hire a bullsh!tter to detect bullsh!t.” Jokes are funny when they contain a kernel of truth — A Bachelor of Science (BS) degree is sometimes jokingly called a “BullSh!t” degree, and the Masters (MS) degree is “More Sh!t” and the PhD is “Piled Higher and Deeper“. A person who made it through college might chuckle because they know how many classes and papers and essay tests they had to complete somehow, whether the answers they gave were good, bad, or really bad.
If elected as President I had suggested that one area I wanted to focus on was reviewing old policies and working to eliminate or revise obsolete programs or policies. Out of date programs could be eliminated or updated while more important programs like anticorrosion additives for water pipelines could be highlighted as critically important for all communities to provide consistently. I couldn’t possibly be able to read or understand all of the policies and procedures involved though; I would ask the workers doing the daily work what aspects of their jobs they felt were most important and which they felt were just busy work and then I would go read the policy books to see if the things the workers had mentioned matched what the administrators had written — and other strategies like that — spend time in the trenches where the really important stuff gets done each day.
The government has many roles and many workers doing crucially important things everyday — it is not like a business that can just be closed for a few days whenever politicians want to prove that they can.
A public servant and a politician may be two different species. I’m not sure, I haven’t worked with any politicians on a daily basis. I worked with public servants and we served the public without discrimination. The clients were not fans though seeking entertainment, they were constituents seeking assistance with public services — two different species — two different types of goals. Entertainment may amuse but government agencies provide food and housing and health assistance and without discrimination.
/Disclosure: This information is provided for educational purposes within the guidelines of fair use. While I am a lactation educator and Registered Dietitian this information is not intended to provide individual health guidance. Please see a health professional for individual health care purposes./