Typical

Having worked in both the Private and Public sector I am probably qualified to comment.

In the Public sector I was no less productive or intelligent than I am in the Private sector and I did not suddenly morph from a waste of space to a productive team member overnight on changing my job.

In the Public sector, I did not benefit from Private Medical Insurance for me and my family, did not get a company car, did not have a company credit card and certainly got no bonuses, all things that do go along with my role in the Private Sector. I was a member of a final salary pension scheme in my last job in a bank and that certainly was gold plated.

My terms and conditions in the Private Sector far outstrip those I had in the Public Sector, but I do now find I work with more people I really could describe as a useless waste of space; professional managers who have read a book and think they have an deep technical knowledge, contractors who are in the business because they can't hold down a permie job and so forth.

Before you criticise the Public Sector workers, try doing their job, and remember that no matter how good the job you do is, you will have some prat like Citizen Kaned telling the whole world you are useless and should be grateful for the low wages you are given.

On the subject of Teachers, you miss the point, they have to plan lessons, mark work, run extra-curricular activities and don't get overtime for any of this. They are not paid for the time the spend taking trips away during their holidays or for any of the personal developement they have to undertake. You might also reflect on the fact that without a teacher, you might not be able to produce the spurious, polemic rant you posted here.

Asbestos is known to be a cause of tumours, try nomex.

Double standards

Maybe you would get mad too if you discovered that your pension is being slashed, but your managers are keeping their gold plated ones! There is an eloquent headline in the Guardian today pointing out that MPs are keeping their very nice pensions (they are supposedly public servants too!) while everyone else is having theirs slashed. Maybe people would swallow the pension cuts better if they actually saw the lords and masters sharing in the pain...

This of course ignores the fact that civil servants get paid less than their equivalents in the private sector (don't give me that crap about average pay, compare like for like and you will see that most skilled civil servants are paid less than skilled private sector monkeys) and that a decent penion is part of the contract that is signed between them and the government when they join. If I signed a contract with you for some work and then dropped the payments in the middle because I 'might' not have the money for the whole contract, you are going to quite rightly drag me through the courts in no time. Private companies get away with this because they pay lawyers to write contracts that can be used to shaft you, your fault for signing up to it! If they change the contract without permission, then you would drag them through the tribunals. Why should civil servants have less protection than you? A contract is still a contract and you should get what you signed up for.

For your info I have met a lot of civil servants who work damn hard and are pretty sharp operators. I have also met a few private sector dicks who are supposedly intelligent who worked in the public sector for a bit and then quit because they could not handle the pressure or deliver to the required standard. You should stop reading the Daily Mail, it is bad for you and makes you sound like an idiot!