John Donahue at Harvard's Kennedy School points out that the norms of culture in Western civil services suit those who want to stay put but is bad for high achievers.
It is no use inviting the politician or the professional or business man, who has been working or worrying about serious things for six days, to work or worry about trifling things at the weekend.
The sovereign grant funding doesn't go into the royal family's pockets, it's supposed to “enable Her Majesty to carry out her official duties, ” like to travel, to pay her staff and to “maintain the royal residencies.”
Over the next four years, he established a nationwide literacy campaign, ordered the planting of over 10 million trees, and composed a new national anthem — all while cutting down inflated government employee salaries.
And for two years, I got to work on the shuttle training aircraft, which was this modified corporate jet that we used to basically dive at the runway and train astronauts how to land the space shuttle.
The number of people who applied to take the national civil service exam held last fall exceeded 2 million, up 34% from last year, and over 1.83 million people have passed the initial screening.