Envy's Lidded Gaze

The Bee puts out a searchable database of state employee salaries. They say, hey, it’s public info. If I was a state employee, I’d be pissed. They didn’t have to make it so easy.

But that’s not the worst of it. The worst of it is it bothers me and for the shallowest of reasons. I’ve spent a couple decades in private industry but, because I live in the region of the state capital, surrounded by state workers. The impression one gets is that state office workers have well-defined low-stress jobs and go home at five every day, that the jobs don’t pay so well, but that they wind up with a great retirement package. By contrast, I am always on the edge to figure out how to remain valuable lest I wind up unemployed, I come in about seven in the morning and feel like a shirker if I leave before seven at night, get paid about the average for my generic job description and have almost no retirement at all. Many of us have said over the years, yeah, well, we could work for the state and take it easy, but the state doesn’t pay very well.

Busted. I looked up some old colleagues who left industry to feed at the public trough. I don’t know what they’ve actually been doing since then, but they make more money than I do -– and still, I imagine, go home at five, coddled by state employee union rules, and will have medical benefits when they are old and really need them.

So now I’m just sort of pissed, even though, fuck, I’m lucky to be here.