Posted on 06/01/2011 8:09:08 AM PDT by yoe
Interior decorating... people really do pay for anything.
That Bell,CA city manger made nearly twice what the President of the United States makes! I think Obama sucks, but his job is a tad more demanding.
LOL! I know there are lots of businesses that are just DYING to get their hands on a "agricultural secretary". And pay them $200K/yr.
Government Interior Decorators/Interior Designers are fairly rare and far between and sought after in the repair, renovation, and new construction aspects of government facilities.
Depending upon location, cost of living adjustments and per diem/travel expenses, such a professional usually makes between $70-$100k. They also probably save the government more than their salary if the government falls back to standard subprofessional substitutes.
The Interior professional coordinates between all the interior furnishings, Class III property, and insures the sourcing meets all the regulatory compliance.
When you don’t have the ID folks, you tend to see either crappy IKEA style office furnishings and Equipment that lasts less than 3 years, or gold plated over priced furnishings which also tends to disappear from the facilities within about 3 years.
Good ID folks also know how to get better quality furnishings while meeting all the quotas on small business, prison industry and handicapped manufactured furnishings.
Where excessive government funding is expended is probably on SES level positions hand picked by elected officials who place their own buddies in highly paid positions, with little to no qualifications, fraudulently or night school diploma type qualifications. Look at the GS 14 and above positions or at GS-12/13 positions with occupants who only had a GED, then procured a local community college ‘graduate degree’, with the job description tailored for that individual.
FWIW, the excess is a lot tougher to get rid of that it appears. When campaigns are launched to get rid of it, and those are anticipated by the frauds, they generally have already thought several steps ahead of the power curve, such that the first 2-3 purges actually gets rid of probably some of the most productive employees in the ranks.
In the organizations I’ve studied, not from 2 decades ago, but in today’s government, the simplest way to find the frauds are by going up the chain of command. The most successful and worldly ones today tend to be the frauds, but once they’ve sat in their positions for 3-6 years, they tend to not be satiated with getting something for nothing, and want more. They also tend to realign the organization to fit their empire building schemes, so their removal or replacement might be painful at first.
When it comes to bad medicine I assure you that ONLY YOUR HEIRS will look into whatever it is that “bugged you”.
Imagine how many of those guys got promoted to SES levels due to the recommendation of Tony Weiner.
I wasn’t speaking specifically of Interior Decorators but rather the whole SES crowd of incompetent churls who slimed their way to the top.
“Yes, and many counties are run like municipalities. The total number of local employees (state, county, city) in the USA must be mind boggling.”
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And therein lies the greatest threat to the continued existence of our country as we have known it.
How many Americans now have a close relative in some way attached, to say, just the huge education gravy train, and thus would be strongly predisposed to vote for continued socialism?
If we have not already reached a critical mass of parasites, we are closely approaching it.
Holy 1987! The few guys I know who are still doing that make around twenty bucks an hour.
Yes. But a lot of people don't have a clue what they should be paid! Non-IT people are fooled by the unions when wages are set. They have no clue how little knowledge is needed to be an Operator who monitors a system versus those who build the system and the software.
I remember back in the 1980s when I was a systems engineer I had to work closely with computer operators on mainframes and minis. I knew everything they knew (console commands etc.) plus far more (systems and applications coding, and machine integration). There were a few sharp operators, like when I had a problem with a balky tape reel drive; the operator slapped some spit on a capstan post and the tape reel loaded up. For the most part, Operators know minimal information about the systems they monitor.
Many government salaries for Computer Operators are skewed nowadays, paying them near what systems and applications programmers and engineers receive. The unions did this.
In any government organization ,staffing and associated costs increase in proportion to the people you can ‘justify’ to fill your ‘chart’. Most of the cases involve personal ego for status rather than needed/important service to be given to the public. Of course the salary ladder has influence too.
Very well said.
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