After many years temping in Ottawa in almost every govt department, I've always thought that the civil service is just a big kindergarten or daycare for big children, who get paid waaaay too much for what they accomplish.
According to Stuart Ewen in his "Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of Consumer Culture", this was an explicit goal of the setup of the public school system. The earliest factory workers had agricultural work habits, with working habits set by seasonal and the cycle of day and night. This type of habit was not conducive to industry, where machines can work continuously and, with electric light, day or night. Public schooling in England, the United States, and eventually everywhere other country was designed to adapt the workers to this work schedule.
Some lessons last a lifetime. Unfortunately.
After many years temping in Ottawa in almost every govt department, I've always thought that the civil service is just a big kindergarten or daycare for big children, who get paid waaaay too much for what they accomplish.
According to Stuart Ewen in his "Captains of Consciousness: Advertising and the Social Roots of Consumer Culture", this was an explicit goal of the setup of the public school system. The earliest factory workers had agricultural work habits, with working habits set by seasonal and the cycle of day and night. This type of habit was not conducive to industry, where machines can work continuously and, with electric light, day or night. Public schooling in England, the United States, and eventually everywhere other country was designed to adapt the workers to this work schedule.
I have long thought that government/public schools prepare people for a dreary existence. Many people know little else.