Don't Touch the Banana

Heh, heh. No, really, it’s not meant as an innuendo.

I tend to write only about my personal life in blog posts and in other online venues, and then only in limited detail with a degree of anonymity lent to all involved. There are a number of good reasons for this. First and foremost, my professional life is boring as hell to the average human being. This is true of most lawyers, believe it or not. As exciting as you may find Law and Order, life just isn’t that enthralling for your run-of-the-mill J.D.  I’m currently a securities attorney, or more precisely, a securities regulator since I work for the state and not for a private firm. Aside from patent law, I’m not sure there is another job less exciting to the average Joe. This is not to say I don’t enjoy my job, just that I acknowledge most people don’t want to hear wild stories about securities law. Nor could I share a lot of stories if you did want to hear them. That, also, is in the nature of being an attorney.

I am also painfully aware of the fact that your online presence follows you. Everywhere. What you say online reflects on you in the eyes of potential employers, potential clients, and judgmental strangers.

But, I don’t want this blog to become about nothing but our new baby. Cute as she is, there are thousands of baby blogs out there discussing the same stuff I’m likely to find interesting about being a parent. While I may deny it kicking and screaming, there is more to life in this universe than admiring the cuteness that is my daughter. Also, and more to the point of this post, I’m not all that interested in working with or for people who have no sense of humor, so if I can’t make the occasional observation about working for the government or the practice of law, what’s the point of having a blog and a regular audience of three or four readers? I would never bite the hand that feeds me, but making sweeping generalizations about lawyers and government is the God-given right of every freedom loving, red-blooded American. Vulcan-Americans, on the other hand, do not have this right.

Ba-dum-ching.

I’ve worked for more than one state agency in my professional life, and have a number of friends who work for various state and federal agencies, so I feel this qualifies me to comment on the condition of such employment generally. Not necessarily from my own direct experience, mind you, but from direct and indirect observation (that should be enough disclaimer for now).

 The truth is that, from the standpoint of an employee, working for state government is not a bad gig. The pay is generally low, but if you aren’t shackled with obscene amounts of debt (read: if you didn’t go to law school), it’s generally enough to make ends meet. It is also an employment position that allows you more flexibility in terms of having a personal life than many similar private sector positions. Here I am thinking specifically about the legal industry. Many of my law school classmates made double my annual salary in their first year out of law school. They also worked double the number of hours I did, staying in the office for late nights, weekends, and holidays. It works for some people, and I’m not saying I couldn’t or wouldn’t do it, but I have definitely enjoyed the fact that I get to come home to my wife at a fairly reasonable time every night, and can take advantage of vacation days without falling behind on the ever-looming “billable hours goal.” Now that we have a kid, this quality of life aspect of any given job is even more important.

All of that is great, but we love to poke fun at state government, and for good reason. Governments of all shapes and sizes do have some incredible bureaucracies. There are aspects of government (some would say “all of it”) which are inefficient, out-dated, inflexible, and downright useless. One thing in particular the government does not do well is respond well to change, or adapt to new situations. See, e.g., the federal government’s response to Hurricane Katrina, or the BP Horizon disaster in 2010.

A friend of mine (one I should stress works for a different agency than I do) shared this story with me over a beer not too long ago about an apocryphal scientific study that may or may not have actually taken place (but probably didn’t):

In this study, they (the ubiquitous, scientific “they” who always conduct these studies) placed three chimpanzees in a room where they lived, worked, and played. The chimps were well-adjusted to each other and generally cooperated with each other. After an initial period of happy coexistence, a new element was introduced to the experiment: a short set of stairs leading up to a banana hanging from the ceiling.

The natural reaction of the chimps was to immediately try and storm the stairs for the banana, but each time one chimp reached for the banana, a fire hose would loose a painful stream of water not only at the chimp reaching for the banana, but at his two compatriots as well. After an initial adjustment period, the scientists no longer needed to turn the hose on the apes - each time one started up the stairs, the other two pulled him down and beat the snot out of him.

Eventually, they replaced one of the original chimps with a new chimp who had never seen the fire hose, or experienced life in this room. The new chimp immediately saw the banana at the top of the stairs and went for it, only to be pulled down by the old-timers and beaten unceremoniously into submission. It went on in this fashion until the scientists had eventually replaced all of the original chimps with chimps that had never experienced the wrath of the fire hose. Any time one of the apes reached for the banana - BAM. None of them had any idea why it was done that way, they just knew it had to be done.

This, in my friend’s view, is how many government agencies, offices, and divisions are operated. No one currently working in many such offices was around when key decisions were made, and no one is aware of why things are done the way they are. They’ve just always been that way. And if you deviate from them, expect to catch a beating.

My suspicion is that virtually every workplace has some element of this mentality rearing its ugly head from time to time. With government, it just never goes away. Gotta end this post quick. I think I hear a fire hose turning on.