PolyWogg.ca

So. *cough* Right, a way forward. Sure.

Why am I hesitating so much? Because this instalment is inherently challenging to nuance correctly. When I write, I try to stick to “explaining what is”, not “what should be” nor even very often “what could be”. I describe, I elaborate, I explain. I unpack complex elements. I try very hard to leave “shoulds” to others. And even in this post, I’ll try to stick only to what is possible, not what we “should” do.

As I’ve argued in the last four posts on this topic, there are certain realities we have to face:

a. There is nothing sexy about the rack rate (i.e., how much it costs for you to get out of bed), and any room for enhancement is likely limited to arguing that certain basic human needs (like food) might have gone up by a much larger inflation rate than the average consumer cart/basket;

b. Within the commute rate, there might have been some room to build out some nuances around transportation or childcare, but well, the narrow group of FMs who didn’t understand the issue and yet went on blast with their opinions forced TBS into a blanket one-size-fits-all response that stifled any hint of creativity.… Read the rest

In a previous post, I argued that most rhetoric espoused by some of the f***muppets (i.e., a narrow group of PS who disseminate ill-informed opinions on blast and crowd out more productive conversations) doesn’t accurately reflect how wages and labour markets work, not even in the public service context. My original argument was that the PS combines three wage elements (reworded here for simplicity) that are already baked into wage rates:

• R — The “rack” rate, i.e., how much it costs for you to get out of bed;
• C1, C2, C3, C4, C5 — The commuting compensation to leave your house to go to a job site; and,
• L — the cost for actually expending energy to do the “physical” labour of the job.

I also apologized to academic specialists for renaming the elements and ignoring the long history of these elements, and to non-academics who will likely still find me too wordy.

What about C(ommute) costs?

As I outlined in my initial post, wages in the public sector agreements are based on rates that were in existence before widespread telework and the wages already had commuting costs baked in. They weren’t and aren’t generally visible, but they’re there.

And as I said above, there are some very important groups who go off the rails when sh**diots and f***muppets wrongly suggest that we should suddenly “start” getting a premium for RTO, when in fact, we are already paid for our commuting costs.… Read the rest

I am active in the Canadian Public Servant /Reddit forum, not the least of which for issues that I generally cover in my HR Guide. People share the link regularly, which is humbling, but the forum is about way more than simple HR. I often have views but I don’t often engage, deferring to others who have better insights and/or more palatable ways to explain some things. On a few topics, I try to avoid engaging because, well, there are too many idiots in the forum who have virtually no understanding of how compensation works in a formal system, and think whatever they “want”, the unions can and should get just by asking. FFS, really?

The latest started off innocently. Someone legitimately asked a question about costs of living, costs of commuting, etc., and then said, “Why don’t unions take this on and get us more money now that we have RTO?”. Then a bunch of people chime in saying something like “Right on, power to the people, man” having virtually no understanding of how labour markets work, or even how wages are set. They often make outrageous claims that they’re entitled to this or that, and generally make the PS look like a bunch of self-entitled idiots.… Read the rest

Over the last twenty years, I’ve given numerous presentations on preparing for competitions in the federal public service (aka my HR guide called Be The Duck!). Lately, it is less of a presentation and more of an “Ask me anything (AMA)”-type format. I did one a few years ago with Health Canada, and they invited me back again this year as a joint presentation organized between Health Canada and PHAC, plus various friendly departments around town.

My presentation was called Career Compass: Navigating your career in the public service, and I knew some of the Qs in advance. I grouped eight of them in two questions before moving on to general Qs from the inbox. I promised to follow up on any of the ones I missed in the group AMA, and I’ll cover a bit of the first two again just for comprehensiveness (I’m anal retentive, I admit it!).

As always, these answers are my personal opinions based on my experiences in the public service, presented as candidly and transparently as I can. Even for some of the tough ones where I don’t think the government track-record is great.

With fewer job opportunities today, are there other classifications besides EC where there is policy work?