List of Toxic Federal Agencies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The Federal Reserve is one of the most toxic places I’ve worked in. Mean people, fragile egos, and completely ineffective.

Wow, not true at all in my experience. Great place to work.

Yeah, outside of some RAs grumbling, never really hear any complaints about the Fed.

The pay is good enough to stifle dissent and unrest. But it’s a messed up place full of messed up people. I warn good people to stay away (and they can’t keep talent).

Which division? Many divisions have little to no turnover.

Agree with this. Most people really like it and stay forever. This sounds like one person who was in a bad area or had a bad experience.

Eh, I agree there is an extremely low turnover, but that may have more to do with the amazing pension than people actually liking working there.

In my experience, the place is overall very dysfunctional and disjointed in terms of processes and collaboration. It takes FOREVER for any decision to actually get made. But the work itself is interesting and rewarding and that often makes up for it.

Yep. I’m the OP of this post. You’re right— some divisions don’t have as high attrition but I have found that people with real talent and an understanding that the Fed’s management/decision making processes are the stuff of nightmares move on. The people who stay are ones that have either bought into a broken system or are ok not raising problems because of a lack of courage or caring about it. There are lots of people who have left recently and most people at other agencies doing similar work think the Fed is a joke.

^ This excludes the 3-4 people working on monetary policy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Federal Reserve is one of the most toxic places I’ve worked in. Mean people, fragile egos, and completely ineffective.

Wow, not true at all in my experience. Great place to work.

Yeah, outside of some RAs grumbling, never really hear any complaints about the Fed.

The pay is good enough to stifle dissent and unrest. But it’s a messed up place full of messed up people. I warn good people to stay away (and they can’t keep talent).

Which division? Many divisions have little to no turnover.

Agree with this. Most people really like it and stay forever. This sounds like one person who was in a bad area or had a bad experience.

Eh, I agree there is an extremely low turnover, but that may have more to do with the amazing pension than people actually liking working there.

In my experience, the place is overall very dysfunctional and disjointed in terms of processes and collaboration. It takes FOREVER for any decision to actually get made. But the work itself is interesting and rewarding and that often makes up for it.

Yep. I’m the OP of this post. You’re right— some divisions don’t have as high attrition but I have found that people with real talent and an understanding that the Fed’s management/decision making processes are the stuff of nightmares move on. The people who stay are ones that have either bought into a broken system or are ok not raising problems because of a lack of courage or caring about it. There are lots of people who have left recently and most people at other agencies doing similar work think the Fed is a joke.

I'm going to assume from the bolded that you are mostly talking about S&R b/c it really is the only division that has work similar to other agencies. And if that is the case, I agree with you 100%.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Just look at the rankings online. Don’t touch the bottom 25% with a 6 foot pole. I’m in a top 25% agency and can’t imagine being in a more wonderful place- great leadership, interesting work, smart coworkers

Anyone have a Link?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just look at the rankings online. Don’t touch the bottom 25% with a 6 foot pole. I’m in a top 25% agency and can’t imagine being in a more wonderful place- great leadership, interesting work, smart coworkers

Anyone have a Link?

Google does - best places to work federal

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Just look at the rankings online. Don’t touch the bottom 25% with a 6 foot pole. I’m in a top 25% agency and can’t imagine being in a more wonderful place- great leadership, interesting work, smart coworkers

Anyone have a Link?

Google does - best places to work federal

NP. And when you're looking at the results, make sure you look at the component breakdown (it's a tab, along with Large Agencies and Small Agencies). There are some poor components within otherwise high-scoring agencies.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:TSA

+2.5 million. TSA is truly bottom of the barrel

That place is rotten from the top down. I know folks that have went from TSA to WMATA and the DC Government and it was seen as an improvement in quality of life.

Let that sink in. Metro is less clustered than TSA.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:USAID OIG. STAY VERY FAR AWAY FROM THIS ORGANIZATION! The all-caps is VERY INTENTIONAL

Agree.

USAID OIG, very toxic!

[Anonymous]

USAID OIG and State department seem like the winners of the most toxic agencies. They both have been mentioned by several posters!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:FDA is terrible. Thank Scott Gottlieb for putting a bunch of hacks in permanent positions without competition. Can’t do a thing without begging HHS for permission.

I work for another OPDIV and I think this is an HHS problem. They want to have their hands in everything.

[Anonymous]

My ex took at 2 grade downgrade to get out of TSA. He went from a 14 (band equivalent) to 12! That tells you all you need to know about TSA.

[Anonymous]

CFPB. Constant political turmoil and terrible work-life balance for many. Everyone has “ideas” and it results in a crazy workload all because there is one person with an idea at the staff-level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The Federal Reserve is one of the most toxic places I’ve worked in. Mean people, fragile egos, and completely ineffective.

Wow, not true at all in my experience. Great place to work.

I’ve worked at three different federal bank regulators. Fed was the worst work environment but not as bad as this poster above me describes. My coworkers were fine, they just kind of has a private sector mentality that we needed to be working 50+ hour weeks. Sorry, the reason I took a pay cut to come to government was for a chiller working environment. The two finregs I’ve been at since then get it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:USAID OIG and State department seem like the winners of the most toxic agencies. They both have been mentioned by several posters!

I work at State on the CS side and quite like it. Some parts of it are better than others. There are some bureaus that can’t keep people because of the toxic culture within.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:USAID OIG and State department seem like the winners of the most toxic agencies. They both have been mentioned by several posters!

I work at State on the CS side and quite like it. Some parts of it are better than others. There are some bureaus that can’t keep people because of the toxic culture within.

My spouse is at state and I think would say his office is less toxic than it used to be, but he’s incredibly overworked. He regularly works 10 hour days and with the commute that leaves little time for anything else, like working out. It’s starting to wear on both of us because when our kids participate in evening activities he insists on signing up for say, 630pm swim lessons rather than just working a normal 8hr day on those days (we have a toddler too so I can’t manage everything on top of my own job).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:CFPB. Constant political turmoil and terrible work-life balance for many. Everyone has “ideas” and it results in a crazy workload all because there is one person with an idea at the staff-level.

Really? I know several people who work there in legal positions, they seem really love it and talk about the positive culture.