City workers rarely fired for doing a bad job
Are you slovenly? Unmotivated? Slothful? Don't give a rat's @$$ about anything except keeping a chair warm and collecting a paycheck? Well, you may be in luck, my friend- and have I got a deal for you. If you are fortunate enough to get a Civil Service job with the City of Houston, you will likely never be held accountable for your lack of productivity.Yep, your tax dollars are (not exactly) hard at work.
When Houston crime lab analyst Christy Kim was fired in December for mistakes that wrongly sent a man to prison, and police officer Richard K. Butler was fired last week for accidentally killing a teenager, the terminations from a city job were rare events.
When Kim was reinstated last month by the city's Civil Service Commission, it was also rare. The commission only overturns a city employee's firing an average of two or three times a year.
But then again, the commission doesn't get much opportunity.
While the city of Houston has nearly 20,000 employees who have spent more than a year on the job -- passing their probationary period -- just 19 were fired last year for poor job performance.
"That's phenomenal," said Dean Schaner, head of the labor and employment practice group at Haynes and Boone law firm. "They either have an amazingly well-performing work force or they're not rooting out poor performers."
Of course, there are some good things about Civil Service jobs. Employment cannot be used as a reward for politicial fealty, which (theoretically, at least) helps to ensure a competent and professional workforce free of allegiance to a particular politician or political party. This is a good thing in theory, but the reality is somewhat different. Standards are so low that you'd almost have to show up for work wearing nothing but a jockstrap and a smile before you'd run the risk of losing your job.
Man, I am in the wrong damn line of work....
