Where are the laid off feds supposed to work?
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
No! Do not make this mistake as I did. Do you love your recent health care experiences? No? Then absolutely do not become a cog in that shitty profit-driven machine. If you're desperate and you have to eat, wait tables and tutor. Yes, even as a middle aged man or woman. -- 2nd career RN of <10 years |
Anonymous
| 85% of feds work outside the DC region and some of the most common occupations are VA / DOD nurse, customer service rep, federal law enforcement, office management, etc. These people will get jobs in the private sector and the federal customers will suffer. For some of the major red state government company towns like Parkersburg, WV, or Ogden, UT, or Huntsville, AL there could be mass unemployment. For many of us with dc policy jobs things could be tough but more manageable, there are companies and think tanks now looking for these skills. |
Anonymous
IDK what you make, but depending on where you live, nurses can make a very respectable income. Instead of looking down your nose at the options people are trying to offer, you may want to seriously consider how you might pivot. Not to trivialize what is happening, because I truly feel for anyone losing their job, but the keystone pipeline was shut down on day 1 of the prior administration and a lot of workers with less education and experience than you lost their job and had to figure out how to feed their family. Meta just walked out almost 4000 people. I think we all need to consider what our plan B is going to be whether we are feds or not. |
Anonymous
Almost nobody "has the prerequisite classes" in the bag already, that's the problem. Said classes will need to have been taken within the last several years -- your Chem 101 from 1998 freshman year won't be accepted as a prerequisite by any reputable university nursing program. . See also, micro, bio, stats, sociology, anatomy and physiology I and II and whatever math they require. Knocking out the pre-reqs will take another year or two. |
Anonymous
Single mom fed here- already making a list of service gigs I could do and making a more appropriate resume that doenst include my PhD. What else can I do? |
Anonymous
I am not looking down at my nose at nurses. That is your bias coming through. Surely you can understand how someone who spent 5-7 years in a Ph.D. program and 20 years working in that field would be devastated at having their career come to a senseless and cruel end. |
Anonymous
In a few months, no one will be eating out. |
Anonymous
|
You need to pivot. Use your networks. Talk to neighbors. Talks to parents. Let people know you're looking. Look outside your area and be willing to move.
We don't work for fed government, but I was a humanitarian aid worker for years overseas and left that field years ago. I still have connections all over the place and everyone is reaching out because in a different field now. When I changed careers I took a step down, but worked my way up. My spouse who also was in the profession (but more senior and well-known for their work) ended up getting an additional graduate degree in order to pivot. They were funded/got a fellowship though. They did the work to figure out what programs were best for them. There are a lot of online or PT certificate programs you could do if it will help you change fields, but do the research first to see if it is actually needed in the role you want. So many people are reaching out to me including appointees. Don't ask for someones entire rolodex. Give me some concrete asks or say I am looking at Strategy/PM/Operations at Company A or Company B. If I know anyone who works there I will connect you or I might have an idea of someone I know who works at Company C. I had someone tell me they want to be C-level when they were three or four levels below that equivalent at their agency. I gave them advice, said I knew of an opening and knew the hiring manager at X Company for a Director and AD roles. I offered to connect them, but this person thought the roles weren't senior enough for them! Even if it wasn't the right fit, making connections is usually a positive. Getting your resume in front of the hiring manager/having someone recommend or connect you is a good thing. I do have people reaching out who when I was on hard times didn't do anything/ clearly did not think it would happen to them. Now some of those people are asking me for help. Honestly, I reply how sorry I am to hear what is happening (I am), but I probably won't connect them with anyone/look at their resumes. You get what you give so if you were rude/ignored someone I would not reach out or if you reach out do it without asking for anything. Apply to places early. First day or week something is open. Diversify where and jobs you apply for and the roles/ titles. Change up your resume and see what sticks. Write an excellent cover letter. Network and try to get an "in" through your network. |
Anonymous
For the record, I personally wasn't one of these people gaslighting you for the past 4 years (I struggled myself as a truly MC person in the private sector). But explain how it helps you now to punch down and mock civil servants? Does it make you feel good to smirk at the dire situation of, say, a GS9 energy analyst who had no role whatsoever in gaslighting you in 2022? To shit on him makes you a miserable person. |
Anonymous
| Sign up with a temp agency. Network on LinkedIn In..Take any job you can get. I worked as a secretary while looking for legal jobs and I learned a lot. |
Anonymous
Yes the democrats tried to keep the little people down. /s Get real, they passed the ACA to make health care affordable, championed higher minimum wage, increase taxes on the wealthy and lower taxes on middle and working class. And yes; while prices were going up, in general most incomes were going up as fast. Just because you can’t see that doesn’t make it not true. |
Anonymous
Thanks for posting this— got a few ideas just myself from this! I’m a middle aged disabled woman so a lot of the ideas thrown out previously on this thread were just not going to work. |
Anonymous
Listen I’m right there with you. But there are plenty of educated folk who left Iran or India or Korea or Russia and end up in the States and had to pivot to a completely different usually less prestigious field. It’s a tale that is hundreds of years old. Read up on the Cultural Revolution, it’s basically what is happening now. Hopefully with less violence. |
Anonymous
But you will not hire lawyers as paralegals, will you? There are a lot of people with graduate degrees affected. |
Anonymous
| In my more optimistic moments I think some of the work that’s been funded by the federal government may eventually be funded by state governments, which will be forced to increase taxes and raise user fees (e.g., college will get much more expensive to be able to fund research without federal grants). In this way I think there’s knowledge transfer but maybe not total loss. Of course this would still have massive economic implications and solidify a greater inequity between the “elite” and the “poors.” Better than a rapid descent into totalitarianism and chaos though, maybe, which is why it’s my more optimistic idea. It at least resembles our current structure. |