For many people these Titles mean the same thing but not for me. I was employed by my State Government for just over 6 years. While at times I was very proud of my role there were other times that I utterly hated it. In many ways I came to learn what life is like inside the Belly of the Beast and it can be pretty complicated as well as compromising. For me in the end it came down to an internal conflict that I've seen many face – Was I a Government Employee OR a Public Servant? There were times when I could not be both...
I always saw myself as a Public Servant. Someone who worked for the Taxpayers and who was entrusted with Taxpayer money. My allegiance primarily was to THEM. I managed an important department and I took the responsibility very seriously – perhaps TOO seriously. I was always looking for ways to deliver the best bang-for-buck and spread the budget I had as far as I could for maximum benefit to the public. That was a tough job because we never had enough funds to do everything perfect or often even satisfactory to my standards, but it was a goal. It was an ideal that I held to guide the decision making for my department.
This put me at odds with a LOT of my colleagues within this government agency who I saw more as Government Employees. Their allegiance was to the Hierarchy and inevitably this meant that their allegiance was to the Politicians who sit at the top of the Hierarchy. For years I struggled with this conflict of allegiance. I was pretty good at my job and I had earned a couple of promotions in a short space of time but the higher I got, the closer I got to the politicians and the worse I found my ideals being compromised.
It got to the point where instructions coming down from the hierarchy were that we needed to come up with projects and events that would make our politicians look good. Things like photo opportunities and ribbon-cutting ceremonies – because doing this would earn the agency more funding as the politicians would be happy with us and approve our bigger budget requests. To my eye, I saw this as outright corruption. Not the brown paper bag under the table type of corruption but a corruption of the role we were supposed to be fulfilling – serving the public interest.
Eventually it got to the point where I was so internally conflicted that I felt I could not continue in my role with my integrity intact. I surprised a lot of people when I quit. It may be one of the reasons why I am so anti-government today – because I have seen how government operates from the inside and I’m jaded. Yet in principle I agree with the ideals of Public Service and I don’t have a problem with paying Taxes if they are well spent. The problem is that they aren’t well spent and it’s a problem that isn’t going to fix itself. The Empire Builders are entrenched in our government agencies and this is why I am so intrigued by the Decentralised Autonomous Organization concept. There has to be a better way and maybe the DAOs of HIVE are helping to show us that way.