Oh Man...

There's a coworker in the building who lives quite close to my place, who from time to time offer me a ride, either to the office or home. He's a nice guy, a bit strange in some things and my absolute opposite in thinking, philosophy and believes (among other things), but nice. He used to work at different private companies, and, since when traveling together people often happen to speak to each other, he often tells me about is life in the "Private Sector". I, myself, have had a few "moments" in the Private Sector ages ago, once working 20 days in December (in the past millenium) at a department store (quit because though I was doing it for the fun of it, to get the experience and know what was it about, being forced to stand over 12 hours - chairs were taken away  and if we were caught leaning against a wall or a rack, a counter, we were scolded - with no payment for the extra hours  - and as the 24th came closer the 12 hours grew to 16 and it was said that the last day would grow to over 18 - it stopped being fun) and before that, for six months at an Import-Export small company in Hungary, but neither of them would I consider "significant". They were small jobs, for short periods of time (though many people have even shorter labor periods...) so I wouldn't say I've got the scope on the Private Sector or the hang of it.

My thing, since I started working for real (as in seeking to develop and validate myself as an Economist) instead of working for the fun or for economical survival, I've been working for the Public Sector (which may change once I move to Hungary), and so this is what I know and what I can speak for. As so, and as a Public Employee, I usually hear comments from some of my friends and acquintances, as well as from other people, about just how the Public Sector promotes the inefficient use of resources, or how cheap they are, how prone to corruption and so on, and instead how awesome the Public Sector is, where the company gives you all the newwest, best, most modern things because they don't have to get the budget aproved by everybody, how everything happens fast, and you get your supplies fast, how you can spend all you want in business trips, how they will send you abroad to take part of super expensive seminars and don't bother about the costs of it. How what matters is how good you work, and not how god your connections are. In other words, the voice rolling around is that in the Private Sector those who work hard and improve themselves, evolve and keep pushing are the ones reaping the rewards, while at the Public Sector, once you are in, you are in and you get dumb, lazy, don't care, get nothing of quality, are surrounded by stupid, lazy people who get there basically because they have someone some place high.

After working in two different Public companies, a bank and now a telcos, I can tell you that indeed the public sector has many inefficiencies, such as the difficulty of making a swift decision, and the level of politization that goes on. People in the public sector have a very stable job, which means that they must basically murder and blatantly rob, terrorist style, in front of broadcasting cameras, the Government to MAYBE be considered to be fired, though probably they will simply be asked to resign, and it will be up to them if they do so. To put it very, very simple, I'd say that this is the picture, in my eyes, of the Public Sector:

+ Positives

• A stable job, from which you'd be hardly fired or demoted.
• Salary is often fix and competitive at least on the average level (save a few cases, often lower positions)
• Benefits from social warranties, such as vacations, holidays, periodical wage raises, recognition of years worked, academic diploma, health plan, company doctor and other extras.
• Allowed to form and/or join a Union.

- Negatives

• People isn't really incentivated to do their best or do their job at all
• Due to the amount of benefits, often people bring in family and friends, creating tight, exclusive groups that destroy the general environment.
• High levels of political influence, particularly at the higher levels, where most of the decisions must be taken.
• High rates of vertical organization, with more superiors than people actually doing the job.
• Slow rhythm of work for everything.
• Huge waste of resources.
• Formation of "work feuds" where a boss of a given area keeps all the data for the area and doesn't share it within the company.
• Corruption and deviation of resources.

Now, disregarding the positive side, the negative points, and some more, were often fended by the Private Sector as to why the Public Sector should be eliminated (among other reasonings, which I won't be listing here, basically because I don't agree with them, and that would send me on an extensive exposition about why the Public Sector should be strenghtened and centered on socially sensible areas). However, as I've been listening to the stories my friends and acquintances tell me, not only my coworker, the Smurf Rider, and more and more the horror stories surface. Abusive bosses, cuts on spending, and what's worse, firings at the order of the day.

From the Private Sphere I hear about people getting fired simply because a boss wanted that position for a friend, or because they spent too much, too carelessly and when it came the moment to fix the problem, they did so by cutting costs in work force. More and more private enterprises forbid the Unions among the workers (because Hyne forbid they would dare to demand rights!), are pety with spending on maintenance or replacement of equipment, deviate resources and keep a lot of useless people on the payroll. I have heard about women fired for being pregnant (so that they don't have to pay for the maternity leave or wait for her - and here in Costa Rica it's only four months), have heard of people being appointed to go on a seminar abroad, people who doesn't even speak the language, and then the actual work being handed to someone else. I've heard of the vandalizing of the work station and working tools of a worker while he or she was on vacations. I've heard of denying of vacations and even companies that force their workers to work every single day of the year, and making them take the holidays, such as New Year and Christmas from their vacations (but just one of them, the other MUST be worked). People hired only for less than three months, then fired and rehired so that they don't pay their social security, nor their socially rightful benefits, nor they get raises.

These widen my eyes, and as I look at the list of the Public Sector pros and cons, I realize the Private Sector has many of the cons (maybe even all of them in some cases) and the pros are inverted to their respective cons and added to the con-list (-). I look at the "Enterprise and Success in the Private Sector for Dummies" and "The Secret" type of books that lay heavily on the ideas of change and be-your-own-boss, that promote risk as a virtue and something to look for, the need to always have more, never stop and keep forever struggling instead of ideas I hold up such as stability, confidence and security. Because one thing is if you change your job, if you build up in it and grab the opportunites, and another when you can be casted out, fired on a whim, as the result of someone else's failure. I look at the picture before me, the representation of the macro labor market and I wonder, why would any worker willingly go to the Private Sector when their few chances and social warranties lay in the Public Sector?

I remember my best friend, a lawyer, who for years spoke ill of the Public Sector and swore that she would never work there because it was agains her personal philosophy. In over ten years she has been fired more times that I can count and each time the buffets and enterprises where she worked refused to pay her, which often mounted up to a year of unpaid salaries plus termination compensations. In ten years she has never been outside of Costa Rica and has hardly gone anywhere on vacation. She, her husband and her daughter live with her parents and in quite a visible poverty. She has a University degree higher than mine, makes less than half of my wage (her home income is less than my income), and live in constant worry about the next month's paycheck. How is that better than being in the Public Sector?

Truth is that, from the point of view of the salary man, the Public Sector is better. Some private companies can be better and far better than public companies, but not the average. I support the private sector as a way for people to offer other solutions, to start their own companies, to freelance, to learn and give it a try, but I don't pay homage to a sector where ill can be dealt because their ethics, does and don't are not "legal matter". If a public company deviates resources, it can be prosecuted, if a private one does so, it's okay, it's private and it can do with it's money as it see it fit. And so with the workers.

It would be good if people were to wake up from the publicity-induced world of opium dreams and would take a moment to see the reality and draw their own conclusions.