I agree to some of what you say
I've worked with loads of people that could be classed as career civil servants, and they have certainly become institutionalised. I saw the horror in their eyes when computers started replacing pen and paper - big, burly hardmen being reduced to gibbering wrecks because they suddenly had a typewriter with a telly attached to it on their desks.

I could be classed as a career civil servant, I suppose, having always worked in the public sector. Not really through choice initially; I started on a casual contract because I would rather work than not, it was the first job that came along, and I ended up being sucked in and trying to get out of it again for a few years.

I eventually found something that I get a buzz out of, that just so happens to still be in the public sector, and so now I don't mind. My current organisation is a bit different in that it has a very definite private sector vibe to it in terms of the work ethic. It actually threw me a bit for a few months and I did question my decision to join, but stuck with it. Now - I love it, I'm busier than I ever have been and it's great.

Point taken about the sick leave stuff though. And sacking. I've only ever seen two people sacked - one a senior manager who was discovered to have a stash of hard core porn in his desk; the other a casual admin person who was marched off the premises for managing to reconfigure the stand alone stationary ordering PC in order to send emails to his girlfriend - in the days before emails were commonplace. The kid was a genius...
( Davros' Granddad a voice of calm reason in a world of spastics., Wed 28 Jan 2009, 14:18, Reply)