Here’s the problem with the quiz, the perception and the reality. Ignore their title, what is their real role in whatever their profession is?
The guy who sells cellphones at a kiosk at the mall and the president of verizon are both “cell phone salesmen” but they aren’t compensated in the same way. Ignoring their title, a fireman might make 85k and drive the truck. A batallion chief might just seem like a fireman to you, but he may be in charge of 100 firemem, yet to some people, they are the same. I think they should be compensated differently and they probaby are.
There’s also another huge variable, quantity of work, as in how many hours do they work? I have hundreds of employees that report to me and I spent most of my morning today in budgeting and forecasting meetings. Public or private, employees cost far more than the actual money you give them. Their benefits cost money, their vacation and sick leave cost their employer money, their training costs their employer money, when their mom dies it costs their employer money. Anyone with an employee has to figure out what an employee actually costs them and sometimes it’s cheaper to overwork an existing employee than hire an additional one, because overtime rates are sometimes cheaper than the total compensation for a seperate employee. For public employee’s I’m certain this is probably the case because of the pension costs, but it holds true for private sector employees who get some form of employer matching 401k.
So these two public employees may have elected to work 6o hours a week each, essentially earning three salaries. Their employer may have run the numbers and decided it’s cheaper than hiring a third employee. Like it or not, envy it or not, bosses (public and private)look at their bottom line and that’s why some people seem to be making out. The same principle applies to consultants and contracted employees. My people may envy the hourly rate of a consultant but they lack the big picture information that I have, which is the overpaid consultant is actually cheaper for the company because all they get is cash, no insurance, vacation, berievement leave, etc.
One other note on the quantity of hours issue, more than once in my career, my subordinates have outearned me. Why? Because they work more hours than I do, by choice.
I also have a personal friend who is one of those hated high paid public employees. His name was in the paper as one of the top ten earning government employees, earning more than double what the posted salary that his position should be paid. The average newspaper reader probably cursed his name. But he was putting his kids through college, including at least one in ivy league medical school and some of his kids were spending their summers treating people in third world countries and in ghettos in this country. He worked 7 days a week, 12-16 hours a day, for a few years. Volunteered for anything and everything, because his work was financing the saving of lives and he felt it was his way of saving the world. So people were mad at him because they think a public employee shouldn’t make almost 200k, f%^&k those people. I suppose he could have just gotten loans and defaulted on them like everyone else, or just had our government send financial aid to those poor people, but I admire him, while many are angry and envious of him. If they only knew what a humble and simple life he leads, they just see the numbers.
Will it make you feel better that a chunk of his pension is already earmarked to pay back all those medical school loans, because even an extra 100k doesn’t finance 3 kids through school. I told him to get fired, then it would all be free, as a taxpayer, would you prefer that? Keep that in mind, 55% of studetns in public universities don’t actually pay, you do. That costs you more than all the cops and firemen.
