Photo by Caitlin Fairchild
It's Easy to Pretend Government Doesn't Matter
Author Gautam Mukunda says critics of government employees don't realize how good they have it.
Gautam Mukunda, author of Indispensable: When Leaders Really Matter, recently told Excellence in Government that critics of government employees have forgotten what life was like before government regulations made life simpler.
“It’s a shame that [government employees] are being vilified because the people who are doing that, at a basic level fail, to understand the extent to which the activities of the government—especially the federal government—undergird every part of the day-to-day life of the United States,” said Mukunda.
From Mars Curiosity and military families to the inspectors at the Food and Drug Administration, Mukunda said that those who broadly criticize government services are being shortsighted.
“It is easy to pretend that these things happen without organization precisely because the people in our government do those jobs so well that the people who make these critiques do not even know what a world where these jobs are not being done would be like,” said Mukunda. “They have forgotten what the world was like because these institutions existed to make their lives smooth.”
Mukunda advised federal employees feeling discouraged by negative media attention to take joy in their jobs and not worry about what others think. Happiness comes from doing your job and doing it well, he said.
“What [government employees] can take away from the book and the message as a whole is that a job worth doing done well is rewarding whatever other people think of you,” said Mukunda. “There’s a difference between honor and reputation. Reputation is what other people think of you and honor is what you know about yourself. To do your job well is to do it honorably and at the end of the day that’s all you can ask for.”
Watch Mukunda’s full interview:
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