I am just another face in the crowd, an ordinary person. You may have walked past me in the street or sat beside me on the tube. I am a public sector worker, but I don’t provide frontline services and you will never meet me while I’m at work.
That’s because I work in one of the many arms of intelligence, quietly keeping this country and its people safe. It is not as glamorous or as sexy as you might imagine. Like many people I work nine to five, sitting at a desk and fighting an endless tide of emails.
But I am also a target for terrorists and my life is on the line for the job I do. Why do I do it?
I don’t save people in the same way that a firefighter pulls someone’s daughter from a burning building, or a paramedic fights tirelessly to save the life of someone’s brother. But I do see you on the bus and in the pub, and I take great pride in keeping you safe.
Sometimes at work I’m told of the death of a friend or colleague. But at 5pm I head home to my wife and children, put the events of the day out of mind and try to return to normality. I cannot share my day with them, but I wouldn’t want to either.
This may seem a unique situation, but actually many public sector workers find themselves in a similar position. Police officers, firefighters, paramedics, military service men and women, doctors – they all often face harrowing experiences that they would never share with friends and family.
So it fills me with sadness when I witness politicians trying to outbid each other on cutting public sector jobs, like they did during the 2010 general election. As part of this process they often vilify the public sector. When public sector staff stand up for their jobs and the services they provide – through strikes by doctors, firefighters, civil servants and so on – the government accuses them of irresponsibility. It’s heartbreaking; they aren’t just talking about taking away people’s livelihoods, or reducing services to the public, but they are vilifying people who are willing to give their lives for the jobs they do.
Those of us in the public sector cover many jobs and come from every walk of life. The pay is nothing like what some factions of the media would have you believe, and many of us receive little or no recognition for the jobs we do. Most of us do it simply because we want to help.
This series aims to give a voice to the staff behind the public services that are hit by mounting cuts and rising demand, and so often denigrated by the press, politicians and public. If you would like to write an article for the series, contact tamsin.rutter@theguardian.com.
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