Where Do Our Tax Dollars Go: A Workplace Extortion Story

Let me tell you a story. This story connects a small shop in an Indian city to how economies carry losses through systems that appear to function on the surface.

Picture a small local shop in a busy street in an Indian city. The space is narrow but full. Shelves carry everyday items stacked close together. A ceiling fan turns steadily above. The shopkeeper arranges packets near the counter, checks a delivery, greets a familiar customer. The street outside hums with movement. Scooters pass, voices rise and fall, the day builds its rhythm.

Mid-morning, a man walks in. The shopkeeper looks up for a brief second, then reaches into the drawer. No one announces anything. No one asks a question. The man stands at the counter. The shopkeeper places cash in his hand. The man leaves.

No item changes hands. No bill is written. The shop continues as if nothing has happened. Customers keep coming in. Transactions continue. From the outside, everything appears in order.

I grew up watching versions of this scene in Bollywood films. Many of those stories followed an ordinary person navigating a system that extended beyond formal rules. Within that system, one figure appeared again and again. He did not sit at the top. He did not write policy. He stayed close to where people lived and worked.

He belonged to a local gang. His role was consistent. He created pressure in small, repeated ways. He sustained that pressure through presence. He collected money under the language of “protection.” Everyone understood the meaning. The payment ensured continuity. It also ensured silence.

The Goonda.

Now place that same pattern inside a workplace.

Sunita joins a team as a manager. She has been hired to deliver outcomes that have stalled. She spends her first few weeks understanding the work, how it has been handled so far, and where it needs to go. She is ready to move it forward.

In that process, she realises that a key piece of work has been sitting with Sam for a long time without progress.

She raises it with him and asks for an update. He responds with explanations about how things work in the team, how long he has been there, and why the work has been handled in a certain way. The update does not include the work itself, so she brings the conversation back to what needs to be delivered and agrees a clear timeline with him.

That timeline comes and goes, and the work remains where it was.

When she follows it up again, the conversation shifts further away from the task. Sam speaks about his experience, positions himself as someone who understands the system better, and questions whether Sunita’s approach fits this environment. The work still does not move, so she continues to return to the requirement, holding the line on delivery.

As this continues, the tone begins to change. Sam starts to challenge her authority in front of others. He interrupts her in meetings, dismisses her direction, and takes control of conversations without contributing to the work he is responsible for. His influence in the room grows, even as his work remains undone.

Jon, the team leader, is present through all of this and does not intervene to address either the behaviour or the lack of delivery. Instead, he engages with Sam in a way that reinforces his position, and that response makes it clear whose behaviour is being accepted.

The team reads that signal quickly. Conversations begin to centre around Sam, others align themselves with him, and the behaviour spreads across the group. The focus shifts from getting the work done to staying in his favour and within the comfort of the leadership that backs him.

Sunita continues to carry responsibility for delivery, while working in an environment that resists it at every step. Moving the work forward now requires repeated follow-ups, re-explanations, and constant effort to hold ground that should already exist. Over time, this begins to show. Her confidence shifts, her energy drains, and the work still does not get done.

At that point, she is left with two options. She can stay and continue to absorb the impact of this environment, or she can leave with that impact already carried.

In both cases, the outcome remains the same.

The work remains incomplete.

Sam remains in place. The organisation continues to pay him. The same pattern continues, ready to repeat with the next person who steps into Sunita’s role.

Now look at the cost side of this whole arrangement.

Sam is paid a full salary to do a role that is meant to deliver outcomes. In many cases, that salary sits well into six figures. When more than one role in the same team operates in a similar way, the number compounds quickly. Two such roles can account for around $250,000 a year.

That money is allocated for work that should move, decisions that should be made, and outcomes that should reach the public.

The work does not move in the way it should. Time that should go into delivery is diverted into managing behaviour, repeating conversations, and holding basic expectations in place. Capability that was hired to produce results is used to keep the system functioning despite the behaviour it is accommodating.

At a director level, salaries typically range between $200,000 and $275,000. That salary is meant to fund leadership, decision-making, and accountability. When that authority is used to sustain this behaviour, a portion of that salary is directed away from delivery.

The same shift occurs across the team. In a team of 20 people, with salaries distributed across bands, the total salary cost can easily sit between $2 million and $3 million a year. When this behaviour spreads across the group, a significant portion of that collective time and cost is absorbed into maintaining alignment, managing perception, and sustaining the status quo.

When Sunita leaves, the organisation loses the person it brought in to restore delivery, and the pattern remains in place for the next person who steps into the role. The work remains incomplete while the salaries tied to delivering it continue to be paid.

If just two teams within a single agency operate this way, the cost sits conservatively between $4 million and $6 million a year.

Across 50 public service agencies, even if this pattern exists in only two teams per agency, the cost ranges between $200 million and $300 million annually.

Over time, the cost extends beyond money.

In a team of 20 people, each cycle of this behaviour removes a portion of high-performing, delivery-focused individuals. If even 3 to 4 capable people leave every 12 to 18 months and are replaced with average or lower-performing employees, within five years more than half the team can shift away from strong performers. The behaviour stabilises. The system adjusts to it.

The same tax dollars now fund a system that delivers less than it is capable of delivering.

In the shop, money is handed over so that the person collecting it does not harm the business he is claiming to protect. The payment secures relief from the very risk he represents.

In the workplace setting, money continues to flow while the system sustains that same risk. It draws on public funds to maintain a structure where work remains incomplete and those who challenge it carry the cost.

We pay taxes with the expectation that public services will deliver outcomes that improve our lives, strengthen our workplaces, and support the economy.

In practice, we are funding a system that pays for the presence of Goondas, protects their behaviour, and removes the people who are capable of delivering outcomes, while the public struggles to put food on the table, access healthcare, and receives lower quality services from the same system they are funding.

• Is this the use of taxpayer money we are willing to accept?

• Do we want public service leadership that allows or participates in this behaviour while delivery continues to stall?

How long do we want to ignore this cost, or do we want to do something about it NOW?