Reader Mail: City Slackers
01
May
5/1/2008:
Today’s reader mail segment is from an irate Hoboken resident, who thinks that a particular parks “employee” over at Elysian Park does absolutely jack squat.
I go to that park daily, and while this woman does nowhere near what the other guy did (Mike – who was apparently re-located to a different park, shucks), I did witness her go after someone who let their dog poop on the basketball court, and she did help me find the water bowl once they turned the fountain back on. But I’ll have to pay more attention after getting this letter:
Almost no-show city worker
“Hey 411,
Has anyone else noticed this lady that works over at Elysian Park?
She’s a taxpayer-funded city employee that does absolutely nothing every day. In fact, last week she pretty much lounged in the patio chair all day – every day, chatted on the cell phone (is this a city cell phone?) and goes to the lunch truck. What a stunning list of accomplishments.
I also noticed a Poland Spring water bottle filled with what was definitely NOT water. It looked strikingly familiar, say, Red Bull? I can only wonder if that’s mixed with something.
Whereas other city workers seemed to care about the parks they were assigned (like maintaining the dog run, mowing the lawn, etc.), this lady seems to have an attitude, and responds “I don’t know nuthin’” each time someone asks her a question.
Where are the park supervisors? Does she have any responsibilities? How did she get this job, and should slackers like this be allowed on the payroll?
Disgusting to say the least.”
May 2nd 2008 - 12:02:55 |
WHOA, EVEN BETTER !
Sunshine in the park
Children run and play all day
Retarded cousin
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May 2nd 2008 - 12:20:39 |
I have no-work job
Cousin, elected honcho
Short bus, I knew well
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May 2nd 2008 - 12:37:42 |
ANOTHER EXAMPLE OF HOW YOU PEOPLE DON’T THINK BEFORE YOU WRITE…
andynnj | May 2nd, 2008 at 11:21 am
“…And it’s Cumbayah.”
Hey, AndyNJ:
Kumbaya: Not to be confused with Cumbayá, a town in Ecuador.
“Kumbaya” (also spelled Kum Ba Yah) is a song claimed to have been composed by Reverend Marvin V. Frey (1918–1992) in the 1930s in Portland, Oregon.
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May 2nd 2008 - 12:58:56 |
Well you certainly showed them tomcat_mc.
On the city dole
Just snoozing the day away
Cause yuppies don’t vote
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May 2nd 2008 - 13:16:07 |
BarefootBull wrote:
Personally it irks me to see this quote used this way, criticizing someones work ethic and the Holocaust are light years apart in severity.
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May 2nd 2008 - 13:33:44 |
I have been quiet on this subject so far.
I have seen city workers that are diligently doing their jobs and I have seen some that are not.
We don’t know for fact if this is how the woman spends her whole day. We don’t know if she was on a break. Moaning on the internet will not really change anything.
I have never had a problem telling someone something critical. I told a co-worker that thought she was more important than the person I was on the phone with, that if she does it again I’m going to her boss. I also told her I was helping a Regional Vice President of department log into the system remotely, and because of her rude, demanding interruptions, he hung up on me. (She has been much more considerate ever since.) I did similar things when I worked at my college computer lab and I was in charge of training the librarians how to use new systems. There was one that was letting compu-phobia get in the way, I talked to her first, then latter went to my boss to let her know what was going on.
If I saw this woman habitually slacking off personally, I would talk to her first. Then I would go to the city department head in charge of the parks, explain what I have seen, that I talked to the employee, wishing to give her the benefit of the doubt, then went to them.
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May 2nd 2008 - 13:57:08 |
“Personally it irks me to see this quote used this way, criticizing someones work ethic and the Holocaust are light years apart in severity.”
Journey- my apologies to you and anyone else who may have gotten the wrong impression by my comment. I was actually referring, not to a person’s work ethic (because I still believe that none of you truly know the person in question & what her work ethic truly is), but rather I was referring to how frightening it is to me that not only have you all condemed someone that you don’t know, but more concerning is the idea that any of us could step outside of our homes in this beautiful city and someone could snap a picture (in or out of context) and post it on the internet with whatever caption they choose to put.
You all have made your judgments, and comments… but really, do you not care that there are people out there in this town running around following people, taking pictures of people from behind trees, and so on? Think about it.
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May 2nd 2008 - 14:17:34 |
The reason why we’re able to complain, or discuss, whether this woman is doing anything or not is because she showed up! I’d be curious how many are on the city’s payroll who have no-show jobs that we’d never know about…
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May 2nd 2008 - 14:20:10 |
I tend to agree with your last comment to some degree Barefoot
Yes it’s possible she was taking a 5 minute break ….however there is a substantial amount of commentary from our anonymous reporter tending to suggest otherwise.
Also the previous City Employee came in for huge accolades so I don’t buy the 411 reporter is biased argument.
Let’s face it the City/School payroll is a joke!
Cops and Councilman going to Hooters in New Orleans on a charity/party boy jiggle mission.
Garden Street parking garage destroying cars and an out of control parking utility
10 cops disciplined a few years ago for sleeping on the job
A City budget that increased what 100% in 5 years?
A school budget at $27k per pupil..that’s so outrageous the School Administrators actually recruit kids from other towns to bring down the per pupil cost????
A soccer field that turned out to be a toxic waste dump
Give me a break ….Precedents have been set
No benefit of the doubt
Chop!Chop!
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May 2nd 2008 - 16:22:32 |
BarefootBull wrote:
Read my comments in particular. Be mindful of the statement “you all”. All inclusive statements is one of the ways that people start pigeon-holing folks, such as yuppies/born-and-raised.
On occasion I have taken pictures, so far of things I find funny or beautiful, or dangerous double parking. I do not take this pictures from behind trees. I do it out in the open. I also call the police department and report the double parking. I have also been accosted by a police officer while I was taking pictures of his car that was double parked. So I don’t do this in hiding.
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May 5th 2008 - 10:16:14 |
matt_72 wrote:
right, in the “real world” you just take a 10 minute cigarette break every hour.
i agree that city workers appear to not do much a most of the time we see them, but i’m wondering how you know that w ehave 15-20% more city workers than we need? i mean, i have no idea how many employees the city should have, just wondering how you do. have you worked in government or city management before? i’m not disagreeing with you, i’m just honestly asking.
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May 5th 2008 - 10:41:22 |
I read all the comments, and honestly, we all know that some city employees in every city slack off. Sometimes, this isn’t a measure of their work ethic, rather, it’s a measure of the job they perform. Maybe her job is to sit there all day and monitor the park. Maybe this only requires her to walk around the parl every 30 minutes, pick up trash, pick up poop, tell people if they are using the park incorrectly, etc etc. I don’t know.
But we all forget that people slack off in every job. It’s also not a measure of their work ethic (all the time). Smokers take numerous smoking breaks throughout the day that non-smokers do not get to take. I knew one guy that was a Network Administrator for a college….he set up the environment so well that there were rarely any issues, so he played World of Warcraft all day. Is he a slacker? Can they fire him? No, because if something does go wrong, he needs to be there to fix it. There’s lots of jobs like this.
Maybe the writer is correct and she’s slacking off. The proper thing to do would be go talk to city hall about it. I’ve seen a lot of discussions on this board about all the horrible things that Hoboken does at a city, and I often wonder, how many of us complainers actually vote? How many actually go to city council meetings and speak up? How many write letters to their representatives and ask for change?
There’s 40-50,000 people in this city…yet few even vote. If someone was in office and abusing their power, how do you think they’d respond to 25,000 citizens writing letters saying they better change or they will be voted out?
It’s amazing. Maybe many of you are politically active and do these things, but I would not be shocked if few of the complainers actually do things to get change (other than take a picture and post it on the internet).
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May 5th 2008 - 12:23:46 |
Maybe the new Acting Director can get to the bottom of this. I understand that the current Diretor is on vaction and will be retiring like the police and fire chief. Seems the mayor is cleaning house for his Mayoral run. Give me a break 4 more years of this nut.
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