Blaine’s Blog

This little rant was prompted by my buddy Capsun’s blog post, here: ‘In Defense of State Employees.’

What follows are my comments posted on his article. For the record, I am an employee of the Office of Hawaiian Affairs, an agency of the State of Hawai’i — a state employee. (I should note, these words and thoughts are my own, and do not necessarily reflect the opinion of anyone who signs my paycheck.)

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I second Capsun’s statements. I am his coworker at OHA.

I was at home, working on a remote video feed from Washington, D.C., from 4:30 p.m. yesterday (Sunday), to 12:45 a.m., today. I woke at 5:30 a.m., and jumped back on the computer (my own, personal computer), extracted and edited some audio from the video, and uploaded it to my own, personal, web server, then alerted the folks on the Na ‘Oiwi ‘Olino radio show, who downloaded that audio file and put it on the air between 7 and 8 this morning.

I will now be heading in to the office to put in my regular work shift. My regular work hours are 7:45 to 4:30, Monday through Friday. I routinely work nights, weekends on special events and projects. None of my after-hours work makes it onto my timecard or is recorded with anyone. I am not compensated any extra for this work. I do it because that is part and parcel of my job. I do it because that is what I do.

If anyone thinks I’m getting rich working at OHA, consider this: I took a massive pay CUT when I left my private-sector job to join OHA. And now, 2 years later, I am being asked to take another massive pay cut.

I am giving OHA no less of the work and passion than I have at any of the other jobs I have held in my lifetime.

I do not deserve to be made to pay for the services that benefit all the citizens of this state. If you guys want the freeways fixed; you want your prisoners guarded well; you want your children educated; and you want to benefit from any of the myriad of services provided by the state, YOU SHOULD NOT EXPECT ME TO PAY FOR IT BY MYSELF.

I will gladly pay my fair share, but so should ALL beneficiaries of services provided by the state pay their fair share for those services.

The worst part about my job is withstanding the blanket insults and derision leveled at all state employees, even from the Gov., our commander in chief. I am a state employee. I work insanely hard. I do not deserve to be insulted.

Thanks for letting me vent.

Blaine