Imagine this happening at your workplace: Your managers cannot figure out what tasks ought to take priority, and what the workplace rules ought to be, so they announce that no official action will occur for a month. Never fear, though: Everyone still gets paid.

Actually, this would never happen at your workplace. Politicians like to boast about how much real-world experience they’ll bring to elective office, but they seem to forget it all once they’re voted in.

So, instead of legislating, the Pennsylvania House is currently playing a high-stakes game of freeze tag. The Democrats and Republicans can’t agree on their working rules, and the two sides don’t trust each other, so House Speaker Mark Rozzi literally locked the House chamber, perhaps to keep the Republicans from staging another late-night photo op like they did earlier this month.

Rozzi said the chamber will meet again after Feb. 27, after three Feb. 7 Allegheny County special elections that Democrats are expected to win — which would, as Spotlight PA reported, “cement the party’s first majority in 12 years.”

In the meantime, the Pennsylvania Legislature is in recess — a word that’s never seemed more apt, given the childish bickering that’s been going on among Democrats and Republicans in the state House.

And the issues that Pennsylvanians care about — property tax reform, education, the environment, the state of democracy, the state economy — remain on the back burner.

Holding a narrow — and likely temporary — majority, state House Republicans seemed to enter the new legislative session with one goal in mind. And that was to push through — as quickly as possible — proposed constitutional amendments in time to get those amendments on the May municipal primary ballot, when fewer Pennsylvanians are expected to vote.

Those amendments would impose stricter voter ID requirements and enable the Legislature to overrule the governor on environmental and business regulations.

Rozzi, a Berks County Democrat who won the House speakership with the support of both Republicans and Democrats, is aiming to get a worthier constitutional amendment passed — one that’s been in the works for years. Unfortunately, Republicans have sought to bundle it with the other proposed constitutional amendments.

The amendment prioritized by Rozzi would create a two-year window during which victims of childhood sexual abuse — who have aged out of the statute of limitations — could sue their abusers, and those who enabled their abuse, in civil court. (Rozzi was sexually assaulted by a Roman Catholic priest when he was 13.)

Rozzi vowed not to consider any legislation until the General Assembly agreed to pass the litigation window for childhood sexual abuse survivors.

That didn’t happen. So Rozzi recessed the House — in spite of objections from Republicans — and now is on a statewide “listening” tour to get input about the state House from voters and good-government groups.

As longtime observers of the goings-on in Harrisburg, we find none of this surprising. But we are nevertheless saddened because we want state government to work for the betterment of Pennsylvanians.

We are sad, too, for the adult survivors of childhood sexual abuse who once again were pulled into the wake of political chaos, hoping for the chance to finally seek justice, only to be left disappointed.

One such survivor is Cathleen Palm, founder of The Center for Children’s Justice, an independent nonprofit dedicated to protecting Pennsylvania’s children.

Speaking of the state Legislature to Spotlight PA, Palm said, “The bottom line is the dysfunction is bipartisan and bicameral.”

Indeed it is. But we don’t have to be resigned to this. We can and ought to demand better.

— LNP/Lancaster online