Government job cuts aren't exactly random, and people know when they are in a safe job versus one of the more volatile positions. Rae bucked the trend of how the public service normally handles expansion and contraction and it pissed off the large core of safe workers to protect volatile jobs that would likely be cut in the short to mid term anyway. I imagine it particularly pissed off those retiring soon who had their highest earning years averaged down under Rae, making for smaller pensions. While the actual effect would likely have been small, it did have an outsized psychological effect on government workers. I'm not surprised the public at large never understood it. Rae didn't either though, and the NDP has never been able to restore their labour party rep since.