Change

I work for the government, and as many of us know, change comes very slowly if at all for the government. There are, of course, several reasons for this. Often times it is because change has a cost which no one wants to pay. Other reasons include the inability for the institution to change due to rules or procedures which prevent it. There are still many others which I will not mention here, but there is one which I will discuss more thoroughly, and that is the unwillingness of the staff or bureaucracy to change what it has grown used to. I've noticed this more and more at work lately, mostly concerning one specific individual, though I'm sure he represents the majority of the workers in his position. We, at the work place, tend to discuss various things happening in our workplace, as most employees do in any industry. One such issue is how we select schedules every six-months to one year. This basically involves having individuals choose a work schedule from a list of possible choices. This is done over the course of a few days and by seniority. I, as a more recent employee, have argued that the way the system works is unfair and biased for reasons which I will not go into now because it would make this blog into an essay. But what I want to mention is the fact that, concerning this issue, those who have only been with our agency for about as long as I have, see the flaws that I point out and tend to side with the fact that change needs to take place. Those who have been with the agency much longer, for instance the man I am referring to, think things should stay the way they are. He specifically makes the argument that things should stay the same because "that's the way they've always been". This argument, to me, is ludicrous. What kind of world would we live in if everything stayed the way it's always been? Without change we would be nowhere, and humans would accept a fate both dire and depressing, without the will to change things for the better. Just because it's what people are used to does not make it right. But what is the reason for this fear of change? I'll leave it there for now.

Vocabulary:

Subsistence: noun 1: The state or fact of subsisting 2: The state or fact of existing 3: The providing of sustenance or support 4: Means of supporting life; a living or livelihood 5: The source from which food and other items necessary to exist are obtained 6: Philosophy, existence, the quality of having timeless or abstract existence, mode of existence or that by which a substance is individualized
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/subsistence

Diffident: adjective 1: Lacking confidence in one's own ability, worth, or fitness; timid, shy 2: Restrained or reserved in manner, conduct, etc. 3: Archaic: distrustful
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/diffident?db=luna