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Free Lunch

The old saw about there being no such thing as a free lunch harkens back to the days when saloons or bars offered a free lunch with your drinks.

The old saw about there being no such thing as a free lunch harkens back to the days when saloons or bars offered a free lunch with your drinks. The idea being to entice you to buy more drinks that the salon owner priced to cover the cost of the lunch. We consider getting something for nothing as always better than paying for the item even at a discount or at a sale price. Free-loading or eating at the trough and padding expense reports are in the same class of getting something for nothing.

Before joining the workforce at City Hall in the late 70s I worked in the private sector where there was seldom a chance to grab a 'free lunch'. The rewards of work were a wage and occasionally a bonus for extra effort or success in doing your job. Goofing off or pilfering supplies was simply a no-no and everyone knew that if caught you would be fired or in serious cases, charged by the police. Things have changed in the present day as the free lunch malaise has crept into the private sector from the public sector, however the tide may be changing on the entire free lunch concept.

New to the public sector and City Hall, I soon learned how things worked - or did not work. Coffee breaks could stretch another five minutes if you were in midst of a good fishing story as long as you hustled back to your desk carrying a handful of papers. If you needed a photocopy or two you just ran them through the office machine. Short of pencils at home - take a couple in case you had to do some office work at home. With a budget in the millions of dollars, what was a pencil or two?

How that attitude may have developed at City Hall puzzled me until one day I heard a couple of steno clerks talking about the councillors having a free lunch on the fifth floor. Not only were the mayor and councillors were getting sandwiches for Monday lunches, but if they had a meeting before the 7 o'clock meeting of council, they had a free dinner. Also on the free lunch bandwagon were the CAO and the City Clerk or any senior manager who had something on the agenda. Worse still, in the minds of the two stenos, was that any leftover sandwiches were shared by the staff on the top floor.

This was scandalous in the eyes of those unionized workers who never shared in this largess at the public's expense. Word spread that 'they' even over-ordered so there would be leftovers for the entitled few on the 5th floor. Of course the lunch thing for council had been happening for years but it was not until we were all under one roof at the New City Hall that that the hungry clerks on the lower levels discovered the free lunches. The lunches came out of a budget line that council approved for themselves, justified by the need to get to the meetings at meal time. That they could pay for these lunches out of their stipend and allowances never occurred to them. Or did it?

So the peons, as we called ourselves, never felt much guilt over using City resources for our personal needs. What was the odd telephone call on company time? Or a quick run down to the bank to get some cash or pay a bill? Alas, that attitude in all sectors of public service seems to have grown over the years. Now we have inquiries into expense reports that turn up $16 glasses of orange juice or packages of chewing gum listed as a legitimate expense because . . . We have elected members fudging expense claims, even the Premier of Alberta thinking she could use an aircraft for her private use. We have the Orang scandal; the EHealth boondoggle; the gas plants; the G8 gazebos . . .

The Feds are now checking on First Nations expenses, worried that the administrators of those funds are misusing money like their counterparts in Ottawa. They call it transparency or some other buzzword. There are initiatives to try to control sick days for employees who just need a day off for their mental well-being; compassionate leave days are audited; mileage reports checked; cell phone and email usage monitored and yet the free lunches continue.

The sense of entitlement perhaps came with technology improvements and more information sharing and may have been inevitable. Machines and computers worked for us so we could coast a little. The cost in lost productivity may have been covered by some new efficiency but we are slowly losing our technological advantage over the developing nations. We are frittering away our jobs, wealth and standard of living like Aesop's grasshoppers. Perhaps the developing nations too will eventually fall into the free lunch mode and slow their momentum that threatens to overtake us.

Can we or do we want to change our 'free lunch' attitudes? Where would we start? Any ideas?





Bill Walton

About the Author: Bill Walton

Retired from City of North Bay in 2000. Writer, poet, columnist
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