French Civil Servant Lifts Lid On Five-Hours-A-Week Culture

[non frog]

... Miss Shepard said she would now seek employment in the private sector. .....

Good luck with that dear. I think her next pen name will be Madame Chomage.

[thecrashingisles]

Good luck with that dear. I think her next pen name will be Madame Chomage.

Or Madame Rich-Author. Bonjour paresse!

[Deckard]

Total job security + complete absence of meritocracy = maximum incentive to do as little as possible.

Is that a surprise? Methinks not.

For most PIIGS public workers, it's been like that for decades.

[Austin Allegro]

One day she asked her superior if her document could be validated by the relevant service, but was told this would not be possible as the hunting season had just opened and staff numbers had dropped "by five"

LOL can you imagine that here? I doubt many public servants hunt in the UK. If they did they'd probably be sent to some sort of re-education camp...

[Uriah Heap]

Of course Ms Shepard might well be reporting accurately what she saw.

But lets apply a bit of caution here. Think just how convenient both the content and the timing of the publication is for certain vested interests in France.

The public servants work in there own interests and will wangle the system to their advantage is an unfortunate given of human nature. But are they really so many orders of magnitude worse than anyone else? With chomage on the increase, blackening the name of government employees is just a bit too easy to my mind.

[Reck B]

There are simply too many people in the world and not enough resources that each one can spend their life working in a productive manner. In that I mean producing something which has a value to others who can chose whether or not to buy the product.

The public sector is a way of balancing things out. Jobs for the sake of jobs. Keeps people occupied.

[DeepLurker]

Of course Ms Shepard might well be reporting accurately what she saw.

But lets apply a bit of caution here. Think just how convenient both the content and the timing of the publication is for certain vested interests in France.

The public servants work in there own interests and will wangle the system to their advantage is an unfortunate given of human nature. But are they really so many orders of magnitude worse than anyone else? With chomage on the increase, blackening the name of government employees is just a bit too easy to my mind.

Having lived (and worked) in both France and the UK, I can categorically state that the French public sector workers make their UK counterparts look like Stakhanovites.

Seriously - the French public sector is notoriously bureaucratic, as anyone who has worked* there can testify.

But I doubt that Sarkozy will solve anything, or even that he's seriously trying to solve anything - he talks the talk, but that's about it.

Incidentally (and directly linked to the article), I once was at a social function attended by one of the politicians on the Aquitaine Conseil Régional, and he openly agreed to a request to quash a Procés Verbal (for a speeding ticket).

* and no, I don't count retired expats as working

EDIT: removed deplicate info.

[Orsino]

Doesn't surprise me.

I usually work in the private sector but I got a job once as a contractor in the UK public sector. My first task was to re-organise and rewrite some documents. I was given one month to do this but it took me one day. I'm NOT some genius wizzkid and I wasn't trying to be clever - this is just how long the task took me working at the kind of pace and thoroughness expected in my private sector experience. My immediate boss looked really put out when I handed the documents back to her so quickly but despite her best efforts could not find anything wrong with my work.

Seeing my confusion the head of the department took me aside. She was a friend of mine, of course, which is how I'd got this cushy job in the first place. All the contractors working at this place were friends of people already employed in each department. The Australians ran the press office; the South Africans ran web design. Jobs were advertised but I never saw an applicant without a personal introduction actually interviewed. My friend explained to me, 'Look, this is how it works. If they give you a month to do a job you take a month to do the job. You'll only upset them.' She was a contractor from a private sector background too but she was smarter than me and knew how to adapt to the system.

I worked there for six months and was paid the equivalent of £70k pa. I reckon I'd have been paid £30k in the private sector for the same job. Maybe less. I HAD to set myself up as a one-man limited company at their insistence. This meant I avoided income tax and paid a much lower rate of corporation tax. I found it ironic that the public sector encouraged their temporary staff to avoid tax in a way I'd never seen a private sector firm do. My contract finally came to an end but within one week I saw an advert for the same job, doing the same work, at the same organisation but in a different department. I applied immediately but didn't even get an interview. I assume someone's mate got that job.

I know people from this organisation that took a pay cut and left rather than spend their working lives in such a lucrative but pointless environment. Many of them were very capable and wanted to do a good job - just like this French author. Their best efforts were always undermined both directly and indirectly by a minority of indolent and totally useless staff that would have been fired so fast in the private sector that their feet wouldn't have touched the ground.

Sorry for the long post. I feel it's important to tell people how some of their hard-earned taxes are wasted.

[happy_renting]

Doesn't surprise me.

I usually work in the private sector but I got a job once as a contractor in the UK public sector. My first task was to re-organise and rewrite some documents. I was given one month to do this but it took me one day. I'm NOT some genius wizzkid and I wasn't trying to be clever - this is just how long the task took me working at the kind of pace and thoroughness expected in my private sector experience. My immediate boss looked really put out when I handed the documents back to her so quickly but despite her best efforts could not find anything wrong with my work.

Seeing my confusion the head of the department took me aside. She was a friend of mine, of course, which is how I'd got this cushy job in the first place. All the contractors working at this place were friends of people already employed in each department. The Australians ran the press office; the South Africans ran web design. Jobs were advertised but I never saw an applicant without a personal introduction actually interviewed. My friend explained to me, 'Look, this is how it works. If they give you a month to do a job you take a month to do the job. You'll only upset them.' She was a contractor from a private sector background too but she was smarter than me and knew how to adapt to the system.

I worked there for six months and was paid the equivalent of £70k pa. I reckon I'd have been paid £30k in the private sector for the same job. Maybe less. I HAD to set myself up as a one-man limited company at their insistence. This meant I avoided income tax and paid a much lower rate of corporation tax. I found it ironic that the public sector encouraged their temporary staff to avoid tax in a way I'd never seen a private sector firm do. My contract finally came to an end but within one week I saw an advert for the same job, doing the same work, at the same organisation but in a different department. I applied immediately but didn't even get an interview. I assume someone's mate got that job.

I know people from this organisation that took a pay cut and left rather than spend their working lives in such a lucrative but pointless environment. Many of them were very capable and wanted to do a good job - just like this French author. Their best efforts were always undermined both directly and indirectly by a minority of indolent and totally useless staff that would have been fired so fast in the private sector that their feet wouldn't have touched the ground.

Sorry for the long post. I feel it's important to tell people how some of their hard-earned taxes are wasted.

How long ago was this? If it was in the past 10 years or so, you would likelyhave been caught by IR35, and so operating through a limited company would mean you paid both employers AND employees income tax on almost the entire company income, far more tax than an ordinary employee. IR35 would prevent you from using dividend payments to reduce your tax liabilities. What you say doesn't seem to add up.

[indirectapproach]

A few years ago I was involved in the complete replacement of the roof on a house in the middle of a medieval village in rural France. It was in a conservation area so French planning permission had to be obtained.

I managed to find a very good roofing guy, Belgian funnily, and agreed a deal with him, part of the deal being he would obtain planning permission as he did this stuff frequently.

So a few very measly drawing are put together, something was scribbled on the back of a fag packet, photocopies sent to me, the originals off to Batiment de France.

Some weeks pass, Batiment de France get in touch with me and ask for some more information. I get hold of my (now pet) Belgian and ask him to give the bureaucrats what they want, usually a good idea and especially so if tis a perfectly reasonable request, which it was.

My Belgian gives it some Walloon shrug and promises.

A few weeks later I receive a refusal to my application.

I get in touch with my promising Walloon who shrugs and promises and ten days later I get an acceptance through the post.

My reading of this is that the Walloon sent his buddy at Batiments de France the further drawings and specifications, which should have been sent with the first packet and the bureaucrat just opened the file, took out the refusal, ripped the refusal up, threw it away and replaced it with the acceptance.

Say what you may, French bureaucracy certainly is queer but it can be known to function if you know how to deal with it.

Back in Blighty one would have had to go through a whole new round of the application process. I know, I've had to do that there too.

But in France ..... "Ooh la la .... piff ..... refusal disparu ... je dis oui..."

Of course, probably a lot less work involved in such pragmatism and maybe the only thing cet fonctionaire a fait that week but still ....

[stormymonday_2011]

Having lived (and worked) in both France and the UK, I can categorically state that the French public sector workers make their UK counterparts look like Stakhanovites.

Seriously - the French public sector is notoriously bureaucratic, as anyone who has worked* there can testify.

But I doubt that Sarkozy will solve anything, or even that he's seriously trying to solve anything - he talks the talk, but that's about it.

Incidentally (and directly linked to the article), I once was at a social function attended by one of the politicians on the Aquitaine Conseil Régional, and he openly agreed to a request to quash a Procés Verbal (for a speeding ticket).

* and no, I don't count retired expats as working

EDIT: removed deplicate info.

French private sector companies are pretty bureaucratic too as anyone who has dealings with them will know,

[Uriah Heap]

A few years ago I was involved in the complete replacement of the roof on a house in the middle of a medieval village in rural France. It was in a conservation area so French planning permission had to be obtained.

I managed to find a very good roofing guy, Belgian funnily, and agreed a deal with him, part of the deal being he would obtain planning permission as he did this stuff frequently.

So a few very measly drawing are put together, something was scribbled on the back of a fag packet, photocopies sent to me, the originals off to Batiment de France.

Some weeks pass, Batiment de France get in touch with me and ask for some more information. I get hold of my (now pet) Belgian and ask him to give the bureaucrats what they want, usually a good idea and especially so if tis a perfectly reasonable request, which it was.

My Belgian gives it some Walloon shrug and promises.

A few weeks later I receive a refusal to my application.

I get in touch with my promising Walloon who shrugs and promises and ten days later I get an acceptance through the post.

My reading of this is that the Walloon sent his buddy at Batiments de France the further drawings and specifications, which should have been sent with the first packet and the bureaucrat just opened the file, took out the refusal, ripped the refusal up, threw it away and replaced it with the acceptance.

Say what you may, French bureaucracy certainly is queer but it can be known to function if you know how to deal with it.

Back in Blighty one would have had to go through a whole new round of the application process. I know, I've had to do that there too.

But in France ..... "Ooh la la .... piff ..... refusal disparu ... je dis oui..."

Of course, probably a lot less work involved in such pragmatism and maybe the only thing cet fonctionaire a fait that week but still ....

There might be a good point in there somewhere. It could well be that some public servants are simply more productive when they are doing nothing.

I wonder if we could persuade some city traders to lighten up a bit.......

[non frog]

How long ago was this? If it was in the past 10 years or so, you would likelyhave been caught by IR35, ...

You clearly know nothing about IR35.

[Goat]

My reading of this is that the Walloon sent his buddy at Batiments de France the further drawings and specifications, which should have been sent with the first packet and the bureaucrat just opened the file, took out the refusal, ripped the refusal up, threw it away and replaced it with the acceptance.

Say what you may, French bureaucracy certainly is queer but it can be known to function if you know how to deal with it.

My reading is that the extra info was sent accompanied by a handfull of 50 euro notes.

[indirectapproach]

Well no.

If it had been I'd have been billed for that and wasn't.

[redwine]

http://www.20minutes.fr/article/582809/Bordeaux-repos-force-pour-l-auteur-d-8239-absolument-debordee-8239.php

She was disiplined two days ago she now has two years at home without any pay

Having said that she's not a happy girl

Two years rest without any pay

When it comes to cash she see's things a little different

BTW Theres more to this than meets the eye

French Political manipulation

[Guest X-QUORK]

http://www.20minutes.fr/article/582809/Bordeaux-repos-force-pour-l-auteur-d-8239-absolument-debordee-8239.php

She was disiplined two days ago she now has two years at home without any pay

Having said that she's not a happy girl

Two years rest without any pay

When it comes to cash she see's things a little different

BTW Theres more to this than meets the eye

French Political manipulation

Any VI in this story you need to declare?

[redwine]

Any VI in this story you need to declare?

No

She worked in the Aquitane or near Bordeaux which is over 700km from next to Genevè where i live

Dumps like the Gironde ,Dordogne and the Lot et Garonne just don't interest me not forgetting the Landes a sort of pin forest in the sand