More Than My Jobs Worth

There is a wonderful British phrase for a ubiquitous, if minor form of civil sector corruption, jobs worth. These are the people on the public payroll who are anything but civil.
Generally the job’s worth has a little ‘vested’ authority which they misuse in a variety of ways.
It could just be an ego thing, using the power to delay and frustrate. Others are just plain lazy, and use their limited power to cover up.

Dead Lazy Jobsworths
In a recent Australian news report a body lay in the driver's seat of his car for up to a week, unnoticed by the council parking officer who stuck a ticket to the vehicle's windscreen after first chalking its tyres.
A friend of the deceased reported: "From what the police had told me, it would have been very obvious he was deceased, so I'm really disgusted."
Mayor, Paul Denham, said “But the car's tinted windows made it difficult for the parking officer to see inside.” He said Maroondah Council's local laws officer, who patrolled the car park weekly also noticed nothing out of the ordinary and was distressed to learn of the situation.
The mayor’s excuse seem as much ‘on the nose’ as the poor old dead guy. But why should a jobsworth be concerned about that…

More about jobsworths: Are you being served?
More than 20 million men and women work in what economists misleadingly call the service sector, doing everything from checking out your goods at the supermarket to working in old people's homes.
Yet though Britain has a vast service sector, it sorely lacks an accompanying service culture, a fatal weakness in a world in which that part of the economy is inexorably the future.