... also, with the qualifier that both extremes seem to be minorities "on the team" however defined (Gauss comes to mind here).
But I as well as family and friends have also encountered the other variations, and more often than rarely. Incidentially a close relative has just had this experience in a public sector job (Health Care, Europe):
Person in question is
- competent and nice (as regards to her field of work and work ethic)
Person got hired to a small unit in which everybody else seemed to be:
- INcompetent and NOT nice
... except for the manager who was one of the types discussed here:
- INcompetent and nice
The work environment was fully toxic and not long after enrolling my competent and nice relative was on sick leave as a nervous wreck, and being laid off by the nice manager, because, as he said:
- "I'll have to fire either You or the full rest of the team, but as I need hands I have only one option."
(I have seen flavours of this happening in big private enterprises too, so it's not reserved for public/govt. jobs IMHO)
truth. ran into countless managers who are utterly incompetent but have a stranglehold over their position. of the few i got to know well, it seems intentional. they know they can't win on the competence axis, so they find their way into hiring roundtables, diversity groups, afterwork events, support critical initiatives, etc.
A government is just a very big organization. Armies are big organizations, corporations are usually mid sized, small firms are small.
There is no magic border that separates these entities, and no the fact that some are for-profit and some are not doesn't change much the day-to-day life of a cog in the machine.
Source: decade+ consulting in govt.