Posted on 09/18/2014 12:10:19 AM PDT by grundle
Many people have probably never seen an elevator operator these days. Jobs like elevator operator and bathroom attendant seem to be extinct. However, if you should happen to become a United States Senator, get used to having someone push the elevator buttons for you.
Over the last five years, Uncle Sam has paid out over $1.2 million to pay operators who man the Capitol’s senators-only elevators. The longer the elevator operator pushes the right buttons, the more money they will rake in. The longest tenured elevator operator has seen a salary increase each of the last five years. That operator has earned over $210,000 over those five years, giving them an average salary of around $42,000 a year.
So why can’t Senators just select their floor on their own? The Senate sergeant at arms office, which employs the operators, defended the presence of the elevator operators by saying that they provide services to the Senators besides the obvious. They listed nine roles and responsibilities of the operators that are separate from the physical operation of the automated elevators. Many of these other responsibilities deal with providing a clear and safe path for Senators to move through quickly, pointing confused tourists in the right direction, and working in the galleries during Senate recesses. The sergeant at arms office also noted that all elevator operators are certified in first aid and CPR.
In 2011, the sergeant at arms office decided that elevator operators would be among the furloughed nonessential staff. However, even after the Senate identified the taxpayer-funded operators as nonessential, no evidence exists to suggest that they plan on eliminating or reducing the funding for those positions. So if you hate pressing the buttons on elevators on your own, all you have to do is become a Senator!
Obama has a phone and a pen - senators are about as useful now as elevator operators.
We should be grateful for these elevator operators. Without them, each senator would likely have their own button pusher on staff. Instead of a small cadre of highly trained and specialized elevator operators to serve the entire Senate, we would have an army of 100 elevator operators. Of course, those guys could do double duty, carrying cups of coffee, opening doors and flushing toilets . . .
Oh wait, we probably already have well more than 100 folks doing those kinds of chores. Truth is, few senators go anywhere without staff present. Let the staff guys press the elevator buttons.
To be fair, I’ve been to the U.S. Capitol and the congressional office buildings many times. The Capitol, in particular, is a sea of people. A lot of them are tourists who don’t really understand how to behave in an office building. I don’t begrudge the senators and congressmen having reserved elevators — they do have places to go and a schedule to keep, after all — but they could accomplish the same thing by installing a key card reader on certain elevators. Hotels don’t have any trouble keeping the riff-raff off of certain elevators. Surely the Capitol staff could figure this out.
Plundering, partying, parasitic politicians living large with friends on the largesse of productive Americans while we, our children, our grandchildren slave away to pay the debt (taxation) they’ve created.
Socialism Is Legal Plunder - Bastiat
BIG GOVERNMENT IS CRONY SOCIALISM
DEFUND/DISMANTLE/DEPOPULATE socialists and their collectives from the body politic.
Isn’t communism wonderful?
Pray America wakes
I resent that. I live in an old folks home populated by many people with walkers and electric put-puts and we all do are own button pushing. Even the adjacent nursing home does not provide elevator button pushers.
I would guess the Senate button pushers are swore to secrecy while the Senators molest their aides.
Why not have bathroom attendants? They have a barber shop down in the basement just for the Senators. I am sure Hillary took advantage of this perk on a regular basis(sarc).
Had to have a good book to read.
With the semi-automatic knob, often the best idea was to put the cab between floors and try to sleep, hunched up in the corner and half balanced on the little seat.
Those days are gone, with all but a few "Members Only" cars operating between the office buildings and the respective Floors, often only when Congress is in Session.
That's not to say there isn't plenty of patronage positions and port in the U.S. Congress billion dollar annual budget. There are whole cities out of view up there, with the third largest police force in the world.
42k a year is almost nothing.
Sorry, but D.C. is not empowered to ‘make jobs’, no matter HOW altruistic. It’s that thinking that has allowed the elected to hand out taxpayer $$ as if they owned it themselves (welfare).
It’s enough to re-affirm how out-of-touch the elected are with the separate elevators (yet MORE $$/upkeep), instead of riding along with the People that pay their salaries/perks.
But, like all jobs in all markets, their job has its ups and downs.
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G R O A N!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Knew a guy that had that job but he kept getting lost and taking the wrong route.
42k may seem like a lot too some, but not for one that must live in the DC area.
...
In DC a person could rent a nice bicycle locker with that kind of salary.
instead of riding along with the People that pay their salaries/perks.
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Wasn’t it Harry Reid that made the comment - when asked why an underground visitors center etal was needed with a separate entrance?
“Tourists Smell”
ROTFL... So. True. I cannot escape that logic.
IIRC Mike Barnacle used to be an elevator operator in the Senate Office building. He said that many senators would take a young lady in the elevator and by the time they got to the correct floor the name OTIS would be imprinted on the lady’s backside.
There are two different worlds in DC. The published avg rentals are for wh.. Uh, gentrified neighborhoods. Sons of Obama live in the other 'hoods.
The subway carts that shuttle congressmen back and forth twixt the wings are kinda cool and unchanged since that movie “Advise and Consent, circa 1962.
True. And nary a word from the ‘opposition’ party whom continued to sign the checks to further distance ‘the elite’ from the riff-raff
“And since they’re on the gummint dole, why are they like the private sector in the ups and downs????”
Because they are on a elevator all day.
Give them a couple of years, they’ll be introducing sedan-chair operators to transport our overlords from the elevator to their seats on the floor.
True. And nary a word from the ‘opposition’ party whom continued to sign the checks to further distance ‘the elite’ from the riff-raff
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Since Politics became a career, not ‘public service’, I am sure the vast majority of them probably agree with HR’s statement.
I would like to say he is the only one with the ‘guts’ to say it, BUT being the weasel(sorry weasels) that he is, he is the one DUMB enough to express their sentiments.
Kind of figure that whoever may have reported that remark is no longer granted access ANYWHERE or ANYONE on the Hill.
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