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This is about public servants who, as the chronicler would say “are a bunch of sugar daddies who spend the whole morning or afternoon pretending to work in front of their desks or typewriters, but are in fact chatting with one another or going for a little stroll to the other departments of their bureau or to the nearby café. And this, when they do present themselves to work and are not enjoying an effective or a “plum” of a fictitious leave of absence.” Those employees who are capable and trustworthy are the ones who shoulder the whole weight of the office, those who do not leave their desks nor their typewriters, while the others –the non-working class— behave lazily reading newspapers talking on the phone, taking a stroll through the corridors and other bureau departments... One of the most strongly battered social classes in all the republican years has been –and still is— that of public servants. Various factors contribute to the creation and persistence of this bad state of opinion vis-a-vis the scornfully called bureaucrats. Merchants, industrialists, businessmen, etc., cannot bear to see public servants, because they consider that a huge part or almost the totality of the taxes they pay the State, the Provinces and the Municipalities have no other destiny than sustaining the office employees of the Republic without any corresponding advantage for those who really come to pay for those services, because said services are hardly ever rendered in due form and in accordance either with the needs of the tax-paying public or with the amount of the salary received by each employee. On the other hand, the large mass of people manifest towards public employees the type of resentment –sometimes tacit and internalized, but at other times expressed in an ill-tempered way and even with large-bore adjectives— that can be detected in all those people who are envious of others because they consider them to be enjoying a comfortable economic position that they themselves have not successfully attained but never lose hope of conquering. In the eyes of those envious individuals, eternally hoping for an official destination public servants are sugar daddies of a sort who spend their time, morning or afternoon, pretending that they work in front of their desks or their typewriters, but they are in fact chatting with one another or going for a little stroll to the other departments of their offices or to the nearby café. And this, when they do present themselves to work and are not enjoying an effective or a “plum” of a fictitious leave of absence. Lastly, whoever writes about national problems always aims his/her shots at public servants, on whom he/she pins the cause and reason of all our evils, crises and economic catastrophes, for it is because of them that the Republic squanders millions of pesos that could and should be invested in various works of practical and general usefulness. On their side, public servants constantly complain of being badly paid, of the permanent anxiety they experience vis-a-vis the Damocle’s sword of being laid off hanging over their heads every minute of the day. Besides, they protest about the hard labor to which they are subjected due to the frequent demand of attending demonstrations, meetings, welcomings and banquets, with a severe prejudice, in the last case mentioned, to the contents of their wallets, that is also pillaged during collections undertaken by the boot-lickers at the office to buy some present for the boss on his birthday, wedding, on the burial of some relative of his, etc. To what extent are those ill-feelings, protests and antagonisms towards public servants true and well-founded? What truth is there in the complaints and the discontent of public servants? One cannot deny that a considerable portion of the State, Provincial and Municipal budgets is earmarked to pay the salaries of the office employees, and many of the taxes that weight on merchants, industrialists and businesspeople exist only as a consequence of the need to sustain the official bureaucracy. And it is also undeniable that in every public office we find numerous employees that belong to the type of sugar-daddy bureaucrat, taken by the people as the characteristic modality of the public servant. But to speak in general terms is enormously unfair in this sense, because it victimizes precisely the –not less numerous— family of employees who work and efficiently serve the State, the Provinces and the Municipalities, and they have the double merit of doing their own work and also the portion that corresponds to those who do not. The disaster and the fiasco of our official bureaucracy must be pinned on political intriguing and on the boundless eagerness of thinking that every national who lacks a destiny should fill a public post, and –by the way— not for working, but for enjoying the plum. “Get me a little plum at your office” is the demand that any public servant –considered to have some influence in the department in which he/she works— receives several times a day from his/her relatives, friends or relations. Very few demand a post because they feel capable of being useful in that position. This concept that nationals have about public destinations and that eagerness to live off the budget have fatally produced a super-abundance of employees at every public office of the Republic. But it is only fair and essential to distinguish the two classes of employees to which I referred before: the one of those who work and the one of those who do not. There are very few offices in which, as time passes and through political alternatives, capable and hard-working employees no longer exist, either in their own posts or arbitrarily moved to a lower category, or –more frequently yet— passed over or even laid off, but again posted back in their places so that the office could continue to function, or –in very rare cases— promoted as a reward for his/her merits and services rendered. These capable and trustworthy employees are the ones who bear on their shoulders the whole weight of the office, those who cannot leave their desks nor their typewriters, while the others –the class of those who do not work— are “lazying around” reading newspapers, chatting on the phone, taking a stroll through the corridors and other departments of the bureau, going out to the cafe every half hour and flirting with the opposite sex or, if they belong to the fair sex and are still of age and of the obvious physical conditions to make their conquest among the male bunch at the office or visitors thereof, they will be powdering their faces, putting on rouge, painting their lips red or making their eyelashes and eyebrows darker. It goes without saying that in almost all State, Provincial and Municipal public offices at least half of the employees on the payroll are redundant, because already that redundant half is composed of relatives, friends, fellow supporters and protegés or protegées of politicians, leaders and influential individuals; because one must say that more than one of those trade, industrial and business big wigs, while protesting about the abundance and inefficiency of public servants, have placed in the offices of various Secretariats, of Congress or the Municipalities, one or several relatives and one or several good-looking lady friends, thus turning the State, Provinces and Municipalities into supporters of their relations or their love whims. But hard-working and useful employees are not responsible for the existence of that half made up of useless employees; on the contrary, it is them who suffer the consequences –as I already indicated— of the latter’s uselessness, and are furthermore victimized by the bad name that the useless and plum-enjoying have dumped –as a consequence of false generalizations— on hard-working employees. Useless and plum-enjoying employees also produce the critical evil of disorganizing work at public offices, sometimes because of the absence or the deficiencies of employees and at other times as a consequence of the flagrant incompetence of the heads of areas, departments, sections, etc. What is needed, then, is a total review of the payrolls of every State, Provincial and Municipal office, so that each of them will only have the number of essential and useful employees to offer the required administrative services. A previous capacity test must be passed before filling a post in public bureaucracy, and this will put an end to the regrettable reality experienced for a long time by the administration, that is, that individuals are not used by their posts, but rather posts are used by individuals: people aim –I have said it more than once— not at such and such post because they feel that they have the capacity to perform its functions, but because of a certain paycheck. And, as a result, most public servants serve on a commission basis, and it frequently occurs that a lower-ranked employee fills a senior post, because the formal occupant of said post only aspired to a larger salary but lacks the capacity to fulfill the required tasks, that the employee of a lower category does have, but only landed on this post because he lacked the influence to obtain a more senior one. It has happened many times that, as a consequence of some political commotion or shifts of secretaries or other high officials, some upright and reliable employees have been laid off and replaced by incompetent ones, and this has paralyzed work at the office, to the extent that the same bosses responsible for the outrage have been forced to hurriedly return the good employees unfairly laid off; but then, in order not to injure the influential but incompetent employee, the needed employee has been given an inferior post with regard to the one he previously had, but placed on a commission basis to do the job of the senior post only formally occupied by the influential but incompetent one. The deficiencies observed at our public offices by all those who voice their protests about them are not the fault of hard-working and competent employees, but of the lack of organization that I have just referred to. Moreover, since high officials are frequently moved due to political requirements and –besides— many of them lack honesty, competence, working capacity and spirit of organization, they do not even know how to properly use hard-working and competent employees. And thus, so very many State, Provincial and Municipal offices function because “Allah is great;” Little Cuba is lovely; among Cubans we’re not going to pretend; and competent and hard-working employees who do not want to lose their jobs –it would mean destitution for their families— have no inconvenient to do the work of those who do not work, to take work home, to attend demonstrations, meetings, welcomings and banquets organized by incompetent high officials, boot-lickers and plum-enjoyers.
Emilio Roig de Leuchsenring
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