Friday, July 17, 2009

It's a Tough Job Market

So, naturally one of the country's largest employers - your federal government - is doing its darndest to recruit capable people. It will pay employees' student loans, or at least $10,000 a year towards these loans for six years. It offers what is called job-related training. But what relevance courses such as "Home Buying for Beginners". "The Senate's Bust Collection", "Antibiotics: Use and Abuse", Punctuation Pointers", "Emotional and Social Intelligence", fitness, yoga, pilates have to the job of running our government is an open question. They are even offered a course in effective writing, which, as the Chief Administrative Officer points out, raises the issue of why there should be a need for such a course.

The Senate has 16 people working in the Office of Education and Training. The House has its own group. In the most recent year for which there are numbers (2007) we spent over $40,000,000 on these perks. Money well spent? You have to be kidding me.

No comments: