Denver Elections Division

Yes, government employees have it rough these days: jobs set for life, incredible salaries, slow work schedules, zero accountability, and the only way to get hired for one of these gravy jobs is to either get a temporary job that nobody cares about or have a friend (as in dating) who can get you in the back door.
If I sound a little jaded, true believers, it’s because, quite frankly, I am.
I worked for the Denver Elections Office. First I was told that I’d have a job for several months. On my first day at work, I was told that the several months had been changed to several weeks; and therefore my pay had also been lowered. Ooops! Sorry we didn’t tell you before or were not honest with you at the beginning of the process! Oh well, too bad for you.
Then I went to work. Nobody knew what anyone else was supposed to be doing from any given time. My job description changed immediately from being a technical liaison using my mind, to being a working stiff used to carry ballot boxes and stop signs around and set up traffic stops. My set hours were changed to «we can’t say because it changes daily. «My «boss» talked constantly about drinking at a local pub down the street, played Glen Beck on his office stereo system constantly, while taking 2 – 3 hour lunch breaks, during which time (of course) he could not be found and did not answer phone calls. His «assistant» was the same.
So…let’s see so far: lied to me about the job description, lied to me about pay, lied to me about hours and working conditions and job duration. Also, parking was always an issue. Even though you worked for the Denver Elections Office or Division, you could not take for granted that you could park in their own lot. Also, it was not uncommon to report for work only to be told that you were late or too early or simply not needed that day.
Then the co-​workers at the Denver Elections Office: everyone is either in their seventies, retired, and very wealthy Republicans (and not afraid to tell you so) or young guys unable to get anything else. One younger guy in his twenties told me that he lived by working at the Denver Elections Office, riding out unemployment until they needed him again a year later, hustling on the street, and just kept doing that repeatedly. He also took very strong, addictive pain medications (I think it was Oxycontin) while driving in their hybrid cars 75 miles per hour through neighborhood streets. Another young guy kept saying how happy he was just to have anything and that no one should complain lest they be dismissed.
My wife, who also worked for Denver Elections as a temp told me how one senior citizen worker came to work with a huge knife, and delighted in showing it to everyone. And how no one did anything about it. How there was virtually no training to speak of and you could work for hours without end without any breaks or meals allowed. When we applied for the positions together at a mass «orientation,» we actually had to submit our paperwork 3 times before anyone could pay us accurately.
And the Clerk and Recorder, who has 4 – 5 offices scattered throughout the State of Colorado, will come by to visit her minions once every week during election season, to look at everyone scurrying around. She won’t speak to you directly, but she’ll show up for local corporate-​owned media press junkets to explain how diligently her staff are working on counting each and every ballot. This may or may not be true, and rests in the eye of the beholder.
What do the full-​timers do when there is no election season taking place? Who knows? They surely don’t know. I say this because every election season, no one seems to know where to set up traffic stops, where to put ballot boxes, how many people to hire, or how to use them, or how they should be trained, or what working hours or conditions should be. The two men who made maps as their full-​time jobs seemed to spend most of their day getting sandwiches whenever they were actually there at the office. The main «boss» was always changing everything at the last minute, when he was in his office or could be found. His «assistant» was either on the way somewhere or had already left somewhere else. The person in charge of inventory was never there, so no one could find anything to use to set up actual elections. It’s not as if they did not know that A) an election time was coming or B) that this had been done before for the last 50 years or so so some things should already be in place.
But I ask for blood from a stone, don’t I? Compassion from a corpse.
Certainly, to openly mislead about working conditions, allow people to work while showing off shiny knives to co-​workers, or pop Oxycontin pills while poppinjg wheelies in community rec center parking lots (and scoping out cute girls), not set job parameters or organized conditions of any kind… it just ain’t my ideal work place.
And now you know… as Paul Harvey used to say… the rest of the story.