A friend of mine who is always sending me articles floating around the internet swears this one is true: Two-thirds of all civil servants on long term disability (LTD) are there because of stress issues.
Is that not shocking? It is also mathematically impossible: That a disease so hard to prove should coincidentally be the most prevalent. Don’t take me for a person who is not sympathetic to mental illness in all its forms, as one in 10 of us will feel its sting through family or friends, if not ourselves. But that figure is ludicrous.
In my day, back pain was the sickness of choice – very difficult to diagnose without apart from evidence gleaned from the patient himself, hence thousands of days lost. If you said you were depressed back in those years it just meant you were rather sad about things or people around the place. Then clinical depression became a seemingly awful problem and society made room for yet another recently discovered disability. The endless back problem faded away, as one was not required to lie on a hard floor with depression. I am sure I will be attacked for these jottings, but I am old and don’t really care.
My teachers certainly could have made a case for feeling put upon and needing a break. During the summer months a fair number took trips on cheap sea cruises where they ate with the crew and were openly drunk. They would return having seen the flesh-pots on the underside of the world, refreshed and ready to do battle with us jammy-faced and ink-stained ruffians.
By the following spring the same teachers were beginning to burble. Some might well have stepped off a bridge or into oncoming traffic and more than a few wanted watching. Each year they were saved by the wondrous glow of summer and the reconfirmation of enviable bachelorhood.
It was an open secret a few years ago that a B.C. deputy minister’s wife who also served in government was surfing through doctors in Victoria searching for one who would sign a letter that would say something along the lines of “work is exacerbating what is clearly clinical depression, and she cannot return in the foreseeable future:” The lottery win of the civil service. She found such a doctor and the last I heard was well into her sixth year of full salary at home. What makes it really hurt is that both husband and wife would openly boast about their good fortune at parties around the neighbourhood.
Oh well. She is far from alone, obviously. When will society finally say, “We have gone just a little over the top, chaps?”
I also love the idea of “accrued sick days.” A good friend who worked tirelessly for our government and never took a sick day in his career was tempted into retiring early, having saved up so many sick days that he walked out the door five years ahead of schedule. This is nonsense.
The rebuttal is, of course, these perks were negotiated fairly at the “bargaining table,” as if that is an excuse for outrageous gains by the unions in a world that cannot afford such overspending. Can we not say between giggles that it was easier at the time to simply say “Yes” to everything so that the public servants would get back to work?
These are ridiculous causes brought forward by unions whose cupboards are now bare of worthwhile ideas, outside boycotting goods from Israel, which seems to have become de rigueur.
On the other side of things are the incredible salaries we pay to heads of hospitals and lottery corporations, not to mention the 52 vice-presidents in the B.C. ferry system. Everybody gets a huge package no matter how egregious their behaviour, along with endless benefits that stretch decades into the future. In the legislature itself, the only full quorums reached are on sittings when they are voting for their new salaries. Imagine being asked to vote on your proposed raise. “Upon further thought, Madam Speaker, I believe we deserve a hefty increase.” Sounds of cheering can be heard blocks away. You might think it was a vote for elder-care or orphanages, but no.
And so it goes. Politicians who once saw their jobs as a calling now lead the pack in salaries and benefits that no private company could dream of emulating. Not and survive.
My apologies to all the civil servants and politicians who do work hard for us, but this wants saying. Some of you agree with me but don’t want the attendant publicity that goes with it.
Copyright The Major’s Corner 2015
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