Boards.ie is obsessed with the Public Sector

BostonB

gollem_1975 wrote: »

....while I was working in private sector IT jobs during the 00's there were a few people who left IT careers to do the post grad primary teaching qualification

I didn't encounter too many primary school teachers leaving to begin IT careers.

why would they , teaching is in many ways a more rewarding job, and now it seems that the pay is better too!

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/richlist/person/0,,46536,00.html

...Interactive educational software netted McDonagh, 55, a former Dublin teacher, £50m early last year when he sold his 30% of Riverdeep, an e-learning company aimed at the American market. He owns 37% of ThirdForce, the Dublin e-learning company, and the reinvested US proceeds should make £167m. He has other assets. Worth: £226m (€343m) ...

Why would they indeed...

Rantan

imme wrote: »

Just when you thought there wasn't enough time or space or words left, well here it is, ANOTHER public sector thread on Boards.ie.
Boards is a talking shop, right? So, it's fairly representative of society at large. Or is it? I'm pretty new to boards.ie, so wasn't on boards.ie for the Tiger years. Were people on boards.ie as obsessed with house prices/mortgages/child care fees/school fees.
I do understand the need to reform government (in all it's aspects incl PS reform).
Anyway the last few months people on Boards.ie seem to be obsessed with the Public Sector, is this a topic du jour or is it from a genuine societal/economic standpoint.

I'm sick of talking s**te about the public sector, no more for me, I'm off to get my dole and retire to a life of contentment and luxury, safe knowing that all my expenses, bills, mortgage, utilites, etc etc will no longer be a problem for me, that from now on all ye hard working public and private sector proles are working hard for me and my dole head comrades - so long losers!

dan_d

Is there really anything else left to be said on this subject???
Private sector thinks public sector are delusional. Public sector thinks private sector is jealous. We all think the Government should be shot and it's all the bank's faults.
Misery loves company people.I think it's time I removed my company from this misery.In about a month's time, we'll all hopefully be back to just hating the Government as opposed to each other. And it'll still be cold and miserably wet.

gollem_1975

BostonB wrote: »

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/richlist/person/0,,46536,00.html



Why would they indeed...

I would say Pat McDonagh is as typical of IT workers and Teachers as Bill Gates is of college dropouts.

unless you are inferring that he only gave up his teaching post in the 00's

or perhaps he gave up his teaching post in the previous decade when he built up another successful e-learning company called Smartforce.

perhaps he, like Enda Kenny and many of our other esteemed public representatives , is on a sabbatical from the teaching profession.

that itself is a nice perk of the job don't you think?

BostonB

gollem_1975 wrote: »

I would say Pat McDonagh is as typical of IT workers and Teachers as Bill Gates is of college dropouts.

unless you are inferring that he only gave up his teaching post in the 00's

or perhaps he gave up his teaching post in the previous decade when he built up another successful e-learning company called Smartforce.

perhaps he, like Enda Kenny and many of our other esteemed public representatives , is on a sabbatical from the teaching profession.

that itself is a nice perk of the job don't you think?

I'm infering nothing. Because something is outside your experience is not a valid reason for a sweeping generalisation. I know other teachers who left, just as I know public sector workers who switched to the Private sector. I also people who left the private sector for the public.

This is just a high profile one.

gollem_1975

BostonB wrote: »

This is just a high profile one.

A high profile example which didn't take place in the time period I was talking about ( the present decade )

the numbers employed in the public sector increased substantially over the course of this decade as did the salaries paid to people in the public sector.

in the 90's there were people moving into private sector IT jobs from public sector backrounds however in "my experience" this trend was reversed in the aftermath of y2k and the dot-com bust.

One of the main trends I noticed in the 00's were people leaving for more secure public sector jobs. these people were replaced typically by people from outside Ireland ( many from India )

back in 1997 I walked into an development role after a one year post grad diploma. In the 00's I can't count on one hand the number of fresh IT graduates that were taken on in companies that I worked for.

Perhaps the period 1995 - 2005 was a blip in the history of this republic of ours when there was a thriving private sector and the future looked promising. Pre-1995 my parents advised me to get a good secure civil service job and now I can guess thats what parents will be advising their offspring to do.

BostonB

Well I can hardly name people I know who have changed careers can I? Personally wild horses couldn't drag me to be a teacher.

IT is not representative of the private sector. At the same time it limped from crisis to crisis, other industries, boomed, like the building etc.

erictheviking

gollem_1975 wrote: »

I would say Pat McDonagh is as typical of IT workers and Teachers as Bill Gates is of college dropouts.

unless you are inferring that he only gave up his teaching post in the 00's

or perhaps he gave up his teaching post in the previous decade when he built up another successful e-learning company called Smartforce.

perhaps he, like Enda Kenny and many of our other esteemed public representatives , is on a sabbatical from the teaching profession.

that itself is a nice perk of the job don't you think?

:rolleyes: OK...So this multi multi multi millionaire is only on a sabbatical from his teaching job as it is Sooooo well paid he can't afford to give it up:rolleyes:. Not bitter sure your not?;)
One group of people that are SERIOUSLY obsessed with the public sector
are IT workers and their seems to be a lot of them on here.:D
IT must pay crappy wages in the private sector for you all to be so bitter,
but then, the work probably isn't too difficult as the IT lads can pass away their working day posting on here!

gollem_1975

erictheviking wrote: »

:rolleyes: OK...So this multi multi multi millionaire is only on a sabbatical from his teaching job as it is Sooooo well paid he can't afford to give it up:rolleyes:. Not bitter sure your not?;)
One group of people that are SERIOUSLY obsessed with the public sector
are IT workers and their seems to be a lot of them on here.:D
IT must pay crappy wages in the private sector for you all to be so bitter,
but then, the work probably isn't too difficult as the IT lads can pass away their working day posting on here!

yes, I think you know that these were rhethorical questions.
but just in case
i don't think he is on a sabbatical ..

my point was that Pat McDonagh is not an example of somebody who left a permanent, pensionable and well paid job as a teacher to embark on a career in IT during the so-called boom years.
anyway he is an entrepreneur not an IT worker so to speak , he set up a successful business, its not like he did a 3 year degree and a h-dip and immediately became a successful entrepreneur :-)

On the other hand Enda Kenny is on a sabattical from a teaching position as far as I know and he was elected the year I was born!

BostonB

If you think teaching is a golden ticket, make no sense to be doing IT.

gollem_1975

BostonB wrote: »

If you think teaching is a golden ticket, make no sense to be doing IT.

I am not the only one who thinks teaching is a good career choice in relation to IT.

there is more competition to get onto teaching related courses in Ireland than there is to get onto the IT related courses in this country and has been for a number of years.

However it is apparently a lot easier to get onto teacher training courses in the UK though.. the pay and conditions are not as good across the water as they are here.

Its not so easy to move careers, there are barriers to entry.
For example it takes 18 months to do the post grad diploma for primary school teaching ( there is also the need to be able to speak Irish )
not everyone is in a position to be able to give up paid employment to go back to full-time education for 18 months.

however I don't want to drag this off-topic: as you said yourself IT is not representative of the entire private sector and teaching is not representative of the public sector.

interesting debate all the same.

murphaph

gollem_1975 wrote: »

However it is apparently a lot easier to get onto teacher training courses in the UK though.. the pay and conditions are not as good across the water as they are here.

Sure you can see they have to advertise teaching on TV as a career in the UK to try to attract people to it.

BostonB

gollem_1975 wrote: »

...Its not so easy to move careers, there are barriers to entry.....

You said you knew people who had done it. So its not impossible either.

gollem_1975

BostonB wrote: »

You said you knew people who had done it. So its not impossible either.

there is a well-worn cliche that encourages us to believe that "nothing is impossible"

there is another cliche that goes something like ...if people are talking about an opportunity then that opportunity is gone.

the reality is that it is going to be hard ( nigh on impossible ) for people entering the labour market/new grads to get jobs in teaching ( I read on another thread that there are currently 800 unemployed teaching graduates at the moment ) or any public sector jobs for that matter.

while the current batch of public sector workers will not accept the need for cuts in salary or conditions there will be less money to pay for the hiring of new staff and those that are not permanent may be let go.

I think it would be better if there was a salary cut across the entire public sector and that everyone kept their job and possibly even hire more guards,nurses, teaching assistants ,social workers etc.

then we can start looking at redeployment of staff from areas where they are not needed to areas where they are.

TripleXXX

Seems people are taking their eye off the banks and blaming it all on the public sector. Look at Anglo Irish alone, 33 Billion :eek:

gollem_1975

In my opinion the budget deficit and the public sector pay bill is a serious issue in itself and I don't think we should ignore it just because of the financial mess we are in vis-a-vis the banks and NAMA.
In fact the financial mess makes it even more important that we ( "we" as in Ireland/the government.. not specifically everyone on boards.ie :-) ) tackle it.

TripleXXX

TripleXXX wrote: »

Seems people are taking their eye off the banks and blaming it all on the public sector. Look at Anglo Irish alone, 33 Billion :eek:

If we set fire to the banks in the morning,burning them to the ground,this would help exactly how?

I'm fed up with ill informed posts consisting of soundbytes like the above.
The fact is,the day to day cost of running the country is a problem on it's own.
You can't say that we should ignore the banking problems and use the money pumped into them [on which we are getting a return 8 times the ECB rate... and which has to be paid back by them by the way] to finance the budget deficit instead.You can't let irish banks like BOI and AIB go to the wall which they would as they aren't big enough to absorp the liquidity issues from their bad lending.
To do that would be to leave only foreign banks here who will look after their home territories first.

Public service wage cheques would soon be abouncing.

Permabear

This post has been deleted.

Dozen Wicked Words

donegalfella wrote: »

This post has been deleted.

All true, but any other subject wouldn't have double figures threads devoted to it without locking them by Mods. Usually 2 or 3 threads on a similar topic would be lucky to escape the lock, but not this subject. The same arguments by the same people appear on EVERY thread. Here and in AH.

gollem_1975

dooferoaks wrote: »

All true, but any other subject wouldn't have double figures threads devoted to it without locking them by Mods. Usually 2 or 3 threads on a similar topic would be lucky to escape the lock, but not this subject. The same arguments by the same people appear on EVERY thread. Here and in AH.

this topic is a bit more important than thierry henry and jedward though in all fairness

_Kooli_

Can you blame people.
Nobody wants to pay more tax.

If they can get about 300,000 workers to take some extra pain, it means that they can take less paoin.

Thats all ths going on.

Nobody wants to pay an equal amount spread between 3,000,000 or so when they can get the public sector to pay more.

The gas part is that we will just end up worse off in the long run than if we ALL chipped in now.

Dozen Wicked Words

gollem_1975 wrote: »

this topic is a bit more important than thierry henry and jedward though in all fairness

True, but with SO many threads, any point is watered down, I don't think the proliferation of threads adds anything. Are there really any genuinely new points turning up on these threads now?

gollem_1975

dooferoaks wrote: »

True, but with SO many threads, any point is watered down, I don't think the proliferation of threads adds anything. Are there really any genuinely new points turning up on these threads now?

but haven't you heard Boards.ie is obsessed with the public sector...even I have emerged from lurkerdom so don't spoil the fun now

I think you're probably right dooferoaks.

Have a good weekend everyone!

BostonB

gollem_1975 wrote: »

there is a well-worn cliche that encourages us to believe that "nothing is impossible"

there is another cliche that goes something like ...if people are talking about an opportunity then that opportunity is gone.....

Its not cliche unless there were no new teachers in the period you were talking about. 1995~2007. I'd guess over 12yrs there been some new teachers, regradless of embargoes. you even claimed to know a few.

gollem_1975

BostonB wrote: »

Its not cliche unless there were no new teachers in the period you were talking about. 1995~2007. I'd guess over 12yrs there been some new teachers, regradless of embargoes. you even claimed to know a few.

I thought it was clear in my post that I am referring to the present day , 27th November 2009 to be exact.

"nothing is impossible" is a cliche in my mind.. the other one well I'll concede that is more like a paraphrased quotation I heard from a lecturer at college.

good luck

BostonB

gollem_1975 wrote: »

I thought it was clear in my post that I am referring to the present day , 27th November 2009 to be exact.
...

If you started training for it today, its going to take some time to get qualified. Regardless of embargo's. Over time people will leave teaching, die or retire. So they'll always be taking on new people over time. So by the time you are qualified who knows what the situation will be.

Theres few well paying jobs that you can instantly be trained in overnight and get experience overnight to get higher salaries.

imme

A quick scan at boards today confirms my thoughts. Everybody wants a piece of the PS today. They were never so wanted!

nesf

imme wrote: »

A quick scan at boards today confirms my thoughts. Everybody wants a piece of the PS today. They were never so wanted!

Eh, it's first topic in the news and being heavily discussed in the media. What do you expect?

imme

nesf wrote: »

Eh, it's first topic in the news and being heavily discussed in the media. What do you expect?

yeah no I get that, but why do people start so many multiple threads. Has the govt won?; have the unions won?; did Cowen cave in?; what's the answer?

Question: What else does the govt have planned other than pay cuts and social welfare cuts. Have they any stimulus plans?

lmimmfn

public sector not budging on their pay even though we cannot afford those costs, meaning they'd prefer we're all taxed to pay that which we cannot afford, nah, why would anyone be pissed at the PS?