I worked in the government for 20 years, and I agree completely. We used to say the same idea as, “Never blame a conspiracy when incompetence will explain it.”
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Well for sure there’s plenty of incompetence around and the government has more than its share.
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Of course there’s incompetence. That’s what happens anytime workers are measured by the volume of jobs they do (forms processed a day, hours billed by a mechanic, number of parking tickets issued) rather than by the quality of the work they do. Anyone who takes a few extra minutes to hand torque a bolt, or check over a document, or make sure they did whatever they were supposed to do correctly gets criticized for taking too long to do a job.
So they do a crappy job, but they do it fast.
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Speaking of parking tickets issued . . .
I heard a new despicable story yesterday, from what I consider to be a credible source
Our local parking enforcement officers have quotas to meet . . . we all know it, even though city management DENIES the existence of these quotas
Anyways, apparently one parking enforcement officer decided to meet her quota all in one location, and then goof off the rest of the day
So they just hang out at a specific daycare facility, in a very busy area, with limited parking
They just hand out ticket after ticket, to parents double-parked, parked in the red, expired meter, etc. while they are waiting to pick up their kids
And the rest of the day, they were observed to be doing essentially nothing at all, as I mentioned
I was almost sickened when this was related to me
Talk about cold-hearted people 
I’ve never see a traffic cop on a motorcycle here except between the 20th and 28th of the month. Between those dates I see at least one of them pretty much every month, sitting along side the road or in a driveway watching for traffic infractions. Haven’t seen one yet this month. Tomorrow’s the 20th, and I’ll bet I see one in the next week.
Oh, I don’t know that I agree with that. I’ve made my living as a flat-rate mechanic and as a shop owner, and both of those required that I bill/charge out/flag as many hours a day as possible. If the quality of my work is so low that I’m likely to spend tomorrow re-doing a repair I did today, I would rapidly go broke. So there is a built-in incentive to maintain quality. There’s nothing wrong with compensation based on production, often it’s a winning proposition for everyone.
I’m currently looking to hire another mechanic. One candidate indicated that his pay requirements were hourly at $18/hr or flat-rate at $25/hr. I looked at this and remarked that it appeared he knew he would produce about 28 hours a week. I asked him what it was about his work that made only 28 hours a week acceptable. He had no answer to that, other than he believed he did quality work.
There’s a point where improving the quality of your work does nothing to improve the final product but merely increases the cost of the work. What sort of quality would justify only producing 28 hours worth of work in a 40 hour period?
Flat rate seems to work well in rewarding the talented/motivated mechanics and discouraging others. And in my experience a good mechanic can average 40+ hours/week when given the opportunity. It was my responsibility to assign work to suit the strengths of mechanics but all too often shop managers play petty games throwing work orders out in a seemingly spiteful manner. While that was more common in dealerships I saw an independent shop owner dealing with high turnover due to his determination to show employees that he was the boss.
So you’re saying the management is incompetent, not the workers. Either that, or they just don’t have the backbone to stand up for their workers to their bosses. Either way, that is a corrosive work environment. Most larger companies are measuring quality at various stages of the product lifecycle so this comes home to roost sooner or later. They may try to blame the workers but a decent manager above them should be able to see the root cause. By and large, most people want to do a good job. All you have to do is enable them…
Then there’s apathy- not caring even if you know it’s wrong…
Sounds like that guy has poor time-management skills, or maybe he’s slow as molasses
Even the nicest and most thorough guys have to actually get some work done
Can’t speak to how shop’s function, but in technology companies I’ve noticed people seem to spend a lot more time at work compared to the work that they actually accomplish. There’s a lot of time spent gabbing about the latest football game, or asking around how to fix their home’s leaky roof, or flirting with the young interns, etc. I’ve propositioned a theory that it isn’t possible for a person who works a technical job that requires a lot of detailed thinking and planning to do more than 6 hours of useful work per day (over the long term, not short intervals). It’s like a brain limit. And anyone who appears to be working more than 6 hours per day, really is just goofing off the other time.
If I have a brake job and a water pump replacement to do I raise the brake job to chest high on the lift next to the brake lathe and park the water pump job behind it. While the radiator drains on the pump I pull the wheels, inspect and check stock and order parts as needed for the brakes and pump. Then while turning the rotors/drums remove and replace the water pump. Whatever holdups occur on either job there will be no interrruptions in moving ahead on the other. A shop can go broke when mechanics are ‘watching’ rotors turn and water drain or waiting for parts to arrive. On the other hand a mechanic and the shop can be very profitable when the hour of flat rate allowed for turning drums/rotors can be simultaneously spent and billed on the water pump.
Years ago I was the manager at the shop I would eventually buy. We had a tech there who was a perfect fit for us–got along with everyone, good set of tools, never complained about anything, good quality work, a virtually perfect employee, but he was horribly slow. I never could put my finger on one particular thing that made him slow other than double checking every single step.
Late one afternoon we had a drop-in for a brake noise. It was a Toyota Camry and the rear brakes had gone grinding. I sold the work and ordered the parts. When he clocked in at 8:30 the next morning, the car was still on the hoist, and sitting on the bench were shoes, cylinders, hardware, and 2 new drums. He drove out for his test drive at 11:30. All morning on a rear brake job. I finally had to ask the owner to let him go and find someone who could produce a little more. Hard decision to make.
You must be remembering the days when replacing a water pump didn’t require hoisting a car and working through the wheel well and brakes still had drums!
So I am training my replacement as I will retire in a couple of years, now I go through everything at a whirlwind speed and rarely make mistakes, but training someone I am not able to think and train with explanation at the same time I think. I am like ok I am showing you the things not to do, it takes longer to train someone than to do it yourself, and I am so used to doing things, it is by rote, and when I have to think about what I do to explain it sometimes I get lost, You ever had that happen?
I agree, you’ve got 45 minutes to complete that brake job, there is no time to begin a water pump replacement.
Today I replaced a water pump on a 2008 Lexus RX400h, it payed 2.7 hours, (warranty time) I’m not performing that job in the driveway.