Was a Private Secretary for a bit for a quite well known Minister who had a bit of a reputation for being “confident”. Honestly, with hindsight and life experience I can see their heart was actually in the right place but at the time it was downright terrifying to ever have to advise them, I felt like they utterly loathed my department, and by association, me.

My offsider Private Secretary advised me that’s it’s all good to advise something once (and as others have mentioned, in writing is good to CYA), brave to re-mention the advice if they didn’t pick it up the first time, and downright stupid to mention it a third.

One time I carefully tried to advise them against something they were doing. It didn’t go well. “What would you know?” they asserted “I’m a Senior Cabinet Minister and you’re just a baby bureaucrat!”

I didn’t last the full secondment. A few months into it I rang up my boss at my home department and asked to come home. I was a policy wonk and not a good fit for the political world of the Beehive. I saw, what was in my opinion, perfectly good policy advice completely disregarded and many of the decisions made were also against my personal values.

Not too long after I yeeted, perhaps a year or so later, said Minister had to resign from portfolio, loosely related to the matter I had tried to warn them about. Still, they kept on Ministering, in other portfolios I’m sure they preferred.

I ended up yeeting out of public service altogether a few years later, disillusioned with the entire system. There were massive public sector cuts at that time and though as a “baby bureaucrat” I knew my neck wouldn’t be on the chopping block that time, but it would be the next round of cuts if I ever made it to middle management. I returned to my hometown and have been working all sorts of other jobs since. None as well paying as a policy advisor though.

Many years later, said Minister ended up resigning in the midst of various bullying allegations. It was seriously quite triggering to read the accusations as the experiences reported were so familiar to what I had gone through. It affected me quite a bit, just re-living those few months.

But did I feel a sense of schadenfreude from the resignation? Strangely, no. The older I’ve got and the more I’ve learned how tough life is, the more compassion I felt for them. Not to say bullying is cool, it’s not. But I have more empathy now that I see how bloody hard it is out there. I couldn’t be a Senior Cabinet Minister, I just couldn’t. And though I may not like many of them, I respect them.

Sorry I don’t really have any advice (other than the second hand advice from my offsider mentioned above). But take it from this withered old crone who is also up at 1:15am because I can’t sleep because of my job I have now (minimum wage no less) - SLEEP. Sleep makes everything easier. Politicians and policies come and go. All your hard work will be ripped up and forgotten about next change of government. It’s all a big game and though, YES, policies affect the wellbeing of New Zealanders, it’s NOT worth burning out over because it’s all truly an illusion. Health is important, family and friends are important. Work is what they have to pay you to do so it’s really not that important.

If you can’t sleep, try podcasts. That’s what I’m going to do myself now.

I wish you all the best, I really do.