I used to wonder how GoIrish41 kept his job with all his 9 to 5 posting. Then he revealed he was a government employee.
I worked for a county government for about 6 months. I was written up over taking work home at night ( I carried my lunch in a briefcase), meeting taxpayers during lunch hour, on break time, and after business hours in our offices (when the taxpayers could get there). I was told there had been complaints registered by co-workers. I was making the other county workers look bad.
I've seen the same stuff in both gov jobs, and in the union workforce. It's really, truly, sad.
My father was a state auditor for 20+ years, and he experienced the same thing. When he started, he did twice the audits of his peers. He was then told to slow down. He didn't... So they went from a work-when-ready environment to a round robin assignment of audits. When that happened, he was done between noon and 2pm every day. He ended up doing work on the side in the afternoons. Total waste of taxpayer money.
In my early days of managing work centers for a fortune 10 company, I was grieved multiple times from the union for rewarding top performing groups and centers, and creating an environment of competition lol. On one occasion, I bought pizza for a group that was killing it 2Qs in a row. When I met with the union rep, they told me I had to cease, or buy pizza for all groups regardless of performance. I told them I was going to cease, and go announce to the division that I could not longer treat teams to pizza because the union said so... I got up and walked out only to be followed with a "well hold on" lol... That same situation happened multiple times and finally only the union VP would step foot in my office. The union leadership threw a party when I got promoted to INTL lol.
And lastly, I'm friends with a guy who dates a public school teacher. She has raised the performance of her classes more than anyone in the district, maintains fantastic stats, and is known for holding kids and parent accountable. She has been told on several occasions she needs to slow down because she's making others look bad. From talking to her (she's in her 20s), half the teachers hang out at the pub down the street almost every night till midnight or later, and simply don't give a F.
Pitiful..