I see why people think federal employees are lazy

[Anonymous]

I'm sorry, but I work my ass off. My small agency is desperately underfunded and understaffed, and 60-hour weeks are the norm for me, and most of my team.

"Feds are lazy" is an easy trope. I wonder if it's due to the fact that procurement and contracting takes FOREVER in fed-land, and thus makes us appear slow-footed to the outside world.

[Anonymous]

The reality is there are some lazy and stupid people but we can't fire them. So people think everybody is like that.

What that does is that makes the other 80% work more and it sucks but it is what it is.

I'm waiting for my 10am meeting to start so I jump on DCUM to kill the time.

Oh, meeting started, gotta go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The government is supposed to move slowly. It’s supposed to have lots of checks and balances and not act suddenly. People complain about this but they don’t realize that dynamic and chaotic changes in government are a disaster in many countries. You really don’t want a gigantic ship to make sudden turns. That’s what the private sector is for. And why we shouldn’t bail them out.

While I sort of agree, I can’t stand all the busy work. Like to have a credit card so that you can purchase supplies for your team it requires hours of work every month to reconcile. Or the internal control reviews. Or all the budget exercises. Or records. Some weeks it’s very hard for me to get any work done and I am a hard worker. It’s like someone messed up once with their credit card so they put all these checks and balances in place, hire an FTE to manage it and in the end it costs more

It’s true. Too much money is spent on making sure $4 isn’t spent on better pens. I get that the $4 adds up over all agencies and that there are rules for big things that trickle to small ones, but it is super annoying.

People think Feds are lazy because they don’t know what we do and we can’t easily be fired. There are lazy people who brag about it. Contractors also often make comments that they do all the work because they often do. In many places they do “the work” and we spend all our time getting them “the money” and they don’t know what that means. They aren’t privy to conversations that are inherently governmental. So, they assume we must do nothing. Then they tell everyone. But, really, it’s the difficulty in firing people that gives that reputation. Or the people who never change jobs so they become super efficient and don’t have to do much. I’ve worked with great people who just stayed so long they were able to quickly analyze data that it would take other people days to figure out. They sleep half the day but their output is equivalent to their grade.

NP and I can see the bolded. Govt is so big that in some agencies the jobs are so siloed/specialized that they don't have a ton of variety of work and you can really build processes that enable you to do your job very quickly. I know in my place we have a lot of turnover so it takes the new people a long time to learn the job but people that have been doing it for years can do it much faster than they can.

If you are super efficient in the private section, you would be given a larger work scope, and paid more for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The government is supposed to move slowly. It’s supposed to have lots of checks and balances and not act suddenly. People complain about this but they don’t realize that dynamic and chaotic changes in government are a disaster in many countries. You really don’t want a gigantic ship to make sudden turns. That’s what the private sector is for. And why we shouldn’t bail them out.

While I sort of agree, I can’t stand all the busy work. Like to have a credit card so that you can purchase supplies for your team it requires hours of work every month to reconcile. Or the internal control reviews. Or all the budget exercises. Or records. Some weeks it’s very hard for me to get any work done and I am a hard worker. It’s like someone messed up once with their credit card so they put all these checks and balances in place, hire an FTE to manage it and in the end it costs more

It’s true. Too much money is spent on making sure $4 isn’t spent on better pens. I get that the $4 adds up over all agencies and that there are rules for big things that trickle to small ones, but it is super annoying.

People think Feds are lazy because they don’t know what we do and we can’t easily be fired. There are lazy people who brag about it. Contractors also often make comments that they do all the work because they often do. In many places they do “the work” and we spend all our time getting them “the money” and they don’t know what that means. They aren’t privy to conversations that are inherently governmental. So, they assume we must do nothing. Then they tell everyone. But, really, it’s the difficulty in firing people that gives that reputation. Or the people who never change jobs so they become super efficient and don’t have to do much. I’ve worked with great people who just stayed so long they were able to quickly analyze data that it would take other people days to figure out. They sleep half the day but their output is equivalent to their grade.

NP and I can see the bolded. Govt is so big that in some agencies the jobs are so siloed/specialized that they don't have a ton of variety of work and you can really build processes that enable you to do your job very quickly. I know in my place we have a lot of turnover so it takes the new people a long time to learn the job but people that have been doing it for years can do it much faster than they can.

If you are super efficient in the private section, you would be given a larger work scope, and paid more for it.

That's very nice that's your experience. Trust me, it's not universal (at least the second part - the first , maybe so).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The government is supposed to move slowly. It’s supposed to have lots of checks and balances and not act suddenly. People complain about this but they don’t realize that dynamic and chaotic changes in government are a disaster in many countries. You really don’t want a gigantic ship to make sudden turns. That’s what the private sector is for. And why we shouldn’t bail them out.

While I sort of agree, I can’t stand all the busy work. Like to have a credit card so that you can purchase supplies for your team it requires hours of work every month to reconcile. Or the internal control reviews. Or all the budget exercises. Or records. Some weeks it’s very hard for me to get any work done and I am a hard worker. It’s like someone messed up once with their credit card so they put all these checks and balances in place, hire an FTE to manage it and in the end it costs more

It’s true. Too much money is spent on making sure $4 isn’t spent on better pens. I get that the $4 adds up over all agencies and that there are rules for big things that trickle to small ones, but it is super annoying.

People think Feds are lazy because they don’t know what we do and we can’t easily be fired. There are lazy people who brag about it. Contractors also often make comments that they do all the work because they often do. In many places they do “the work” and we spend all our time getting them “the money” and they don’t know what that means. They aren’t privy to conversations that are inherently governmental. So, they assume we must do nothing. Then they tell everyone. But, really, it’s the difficulty in firing people that gives that reputation. Or the people who never change jobs so they become super efficient and don’t have to do much. I’ve worked with great people who just stayed so long they were able to quickly analyze data that it would take other people days to figure out. They sleep half the day but their output is equivalent to their grade.

NP and I can see the bolded. Govt is so big that in some agencies the jobs are so siloed/specialized that they don't have a ton of variety of work and you can really build processes that enable you to do your job very quickly. I know in my place we have a lot of turnover so it takes the new people a long time to learn the job but people that have been doing it for years can do it much faster than they can.

If you are super efficient in the private section, you would be given a larger work scope, and paid more for it.

That's very nice that's your experience. Trust me, it's not universal (at least the second part - the first , maybe so).

Very easy for experienced and accomplished people to get promoted whether internally or new job. If you keep quiet and don't promote yourself you won't get much traction either in public or private.