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A German state employee got one last hurrah when he sent a farewell email to 500 colleagues detailing how he had been paid €745,000 for “doing nothingâ€￾.

He said he had been “present, but not really thereâ€￾ for the 14 years he had been employed as an engineer at a state surveying office in North Rhine-Westphalia, Die Welt newspaper reported.

Parallel structures of the organisation and shuffling around of work constantly left him with an empty in-tray.

“I am entering retirement fully prepared,â€￾ he wrote in the email, before stating exactly how much he had been paid during his career of keeping his desk warm - €745,000.

The 65-year-old thought he had had the last word before heading out of the office door for the last time – except his email was leaked to the regional media and he is now the focus of some attention.

“I do not wish to say anything else,â€￾ he told local paper Westfalen Post on Wednesday. “That email was not intended for public view.â€￾

The mayor of Menden, where he worked, has expressed his disappointment and said he felt a “considerable pinch of rageâ€￾ when he saw the email, as the man had not once complained to the staff council about not having enough to do.

“This kind of behaviour is very telling,â€￾ he said, adding that he will not be taking the incident any further.

Menden town council has had to make considerable budget cuts, which has seen the man’s former job eliminated.


http://www.thelocal.de/society/20120411-41879.html

Ah, the good old days of civil service. My first job out of college was with the Navy Dept. doing (in theory) management information systems with long lead times. We basically did nothing all day. One of the older guys was kept a bit busier during the summer -- his full-time job was to compile the stats for the office softball team and write little poems about the glorious exploits.

It was all guys, except for the boss's ultra-hot secretary, and we just had a great time. A few years later the place had turned into a feminist hell.

Public sector jobs are a complete joke! Public sector employees are usually very lazy, overpaid, and rude; they act like that because it's very difficult to get fired once you have a public-sector job, so there's no incentive to be a good employee. In the U.S., government jobs are a breeding ground of corruption and malfeasance. Notice the recent scandal involving the GSA employees all over the news, recently. And the employees they hire are usually affirmative-action hirees.