Tax dollars at work
Pat Freund has a job most people would envy. She spends her days at work reading the newspaper and finishing crossword puzzles, and earns about $100,000 a year for her troubles, including benefits.
But Freund isn’t content to put up her feet and watch the paychecks roll in. Rather, she is suing her employer, the state of New York, for not giving her any real work to do.
“It could have been a lot easier for Pat had she continued to sit in her office and do nothing, and continue to basically be the most avid reader that the state has employed,” says Sue Adler, the attorney representing Freund in her federal civil rights lawsuit. “But she decided that was not how she wanted to live out her years working for the state.”
Freund, who has been a New York State Liquor Authority employee for 25 years, says it all started in 2000. She believes her superiors were angered after she questioned the practice of colleagues attending Gov. George Pataki’s annual prayer breakfast. But instead of firing her, Freund says, her responsibilities were taken away.
January 26th, 2005 at 8:54 am
She gets paid to do nothing? And she’s unhappy about it?
She’s nuts!
January 26th, 2005 at 1:16 pm
Thib: When I was in the Air Force, I occasionally was “lucky” enough to have days like this. A few hours are good, but then it’s boring. And everyday? I’d be afraid I’d lose my edge and not be able to dig in and work when it became necessary again…
Or is it possible that this high-ranking government employee actually has a work ethic? Hard to believe, but according to her story, that’s what got her in trouble in the first place.
OTOH, I rather fear that the real story isn’t that she’s not allowed to do useful work, but that she’s a proper gov’t employee with a compulsive need to stick her nose into other people’s business, and they aren’t letting her do that…