Fed employees and work ethic

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I'm a non fed with a few fed and state gov friends/acquaintances. For years I've always been mildly annoyed at what I've seen in terms of their work ethic. I get annoyed bc it is such a waste of taxpayer dollars which is paid by every single one of us.

I do think that gov employees should be able to be fired for poor performance etc. I do think gov workforce should be cut bc there are too many fat cats.
Some gov friend stories:
One friend barely works and spends most of her time shopping and texting friends her various shopping finds during the day.
One friend has weeks and weeks of ptonbc she doesn't have to take any. If she needs a day or a few off she only has to check email once or maybe make a call and she does not need to take pto for the entire 8 hrs
One person I know who works for a hhs told me that her job involves supervising others but she literally just does zero work all day long. She works on her side business.
I could go on.

So I personally am looking forward to a trimmed down government employee model. I'm sure this will get a lot of hate. But this is just my own opinion after years of observation.

You are the average of the people you associate with. This doesn't look good for you.

Make better choices, OP.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you are friends with low value folks got it.

I’m a remote fed and I freaking WORK because I love my job and I love the mission and that I make a difference. I help people every single day and I show up.

I took an oath and I follow the rules and loathe to see people who do not and just add more workload that I have to pick up. But you know that’s not why you wrote the post, my MAGA friend.

Same. I wouldn’t say I love my job but I take it seriously and work all day. If I am out during work hours, I am flexing or on leave. How do you know the pickle ballers and golfers aren’t putting their time in later or before? I hate this misconception about feds.

I am a federal worker who works from home. My neighbor is the same but private sector. She is available to go for a run or to the gym around any scheduled meetings she has. I on the other hand must be available during my working hours aside from a lunch break. I am sure she is a hard worker who gets her work done as am I ... we just have different requirements.. Its fine.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I just want one of those lazy jobs. Sign me up.

You must be a member of protected class, preferably intersectional. Those are unfireable.

To the OP's point, I estimate that around 40% of Fed gov workers are like her friends, so the other 60% need to work harder. There is a lot of dead weight that can be offloaded.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Another point - if the federal government is decimated and regulatory work goes away, so does much of Biglaw work. No merger enforcement work, no advising companies on regulatory compliance, no SEC defense, no government litigation. Have fun making your hours without this work! Enjoy doing insurance defense!

THIS!!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Also about to head out of the house at 6:33 am. I work hard all day and deserve every penny I’m earning for my work, which is helping all citizens and keeping our country safe. Sounds like OP needs better quality friends.

m

Sounds like OP is the poor quality friend, actually.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have the same problem in corporate America. There are the hard workers and then those who skate by. It took me almost a year to fire a person who was doing basically no work.

For every Fed worker reading a newspaper I see a nepo hire. There are inequalities all over.

The Feds are the last bastion of MC life though where the expectation is just 40 hour weeks for many and some stability, the same deal corp workers had in the 60s.[i][u] I can see why the corporate masters want to end it.

I think this is exactly it. People who have really crappy jobs are bitter that some people have jobs that actually are what they say - 40 hour weeks for reasonable pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We have the same problem in corporate America. There are the hard workers and then those who skate by. It took me almost a year to fire a person who was doing basically no work.

For every Fed worker reading a newspaper I see a nepo hire. There are inequalities all over.

The Feds are the last bastion of MC life though where the expectation is just 40 hour weeks for many and some stability, the same deal corp workers had in the 60s.[i][u] I can see why the corporate masters want to end it.

I think this is exactly it. People who have really crappy jobs are bitter that some people have jobs that actually are what they say - 40 hour weeks for reasonable pay.

I'm not bitter about it but I am really envious of it. It's the best scenario.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I have both discussed the fact that as we get older our jobs seem to get easier and we work less hard, but here's the thing. I'm an academic and I have studied history and there's this phenomenon where you need to keep certain types of people in strategic professions 'in reserve'. In other words, you might not need that military planner or that economist now, but if you need hundreds of them at some point because you go to war or something, you can't just suddenly find these people and train these people -- so there's this idea of backfill. You have extra people who don't appear to be working hard at the moment, but what you are paying for is to keep their expertise on retainer, to keep their skills up to date in the event that they are needed. I realize that what I bring to the table at the age of 60 is mostly institutional memory, knowledge of procedures, etc. and this is why they keep me around -- because I can answer the question without your having to research it, rather than because you need me to fulfill some other function. And my husband has also added that countries historically keep a lot of ex military around and on the payroll because it's good for these guys to be kept busy and happy -- mostly so they don't riot, carry out a coup, etc. This has been a thing historically since the ROman Empire. I worry that Ramiswamy et al do not understand these basic facts. At the beginning of World War Two, Britain was losing badly against the Nazis because they had cut back on ship manufacturing, and at times they were using civilian fishing boats and the like to patrol the coastline because someone thought defense cuts were a good idea. Short sighted. We can learn from that.

Actual just in time staffing is how most private companies work. There is no slack in labor supply, so if someone takes maternity leave, quits, gets sick, etc there is no backfill at all in the staffing so EVERYONE works unpaid overtime to get work done. This is by design, and why they created salaries employees.

Why would oyu work somewhere that has no contingency planning and requires you to work unpaid time on a regular basis? Sounds like you have a really crappy job and should probably improve your skills/education so you can find a better one.

[Anonymous]

In my federal career I averaged 10 hour days and was on call 24/7, sometimes being called out at night or on weekends. I also interacted with criminals who would have been happy to kill me if they had the chance because they had committed federal crimes and preferred not to face incarceration.

The federal government is large and encompasses a huge range of functions. Federal employees likewise run the gamut from hard-working and dedicated to not so much, pretty much like the private sector. Stereotyping and generalizing from a few acquaintances is not really sufficient to draw conclusions about the other 2.3M civilian federal workers.

[Anonymous]

There are lazy workers in all areas.

I'm a corporate worker and I'm currently cleaning up the mess of someone who "worked" at the company for 18 months but who probably didn't actually DO any work for the last 8-9 months.

I've found that eventually something happens in the cog-of-non-working that causes a huge fk up and causes it all to come crashing down.

This one worker leaving has caused 2 other people to lose their jobs.

1. OG worker found a new job & put in his 2 weeks notice
2. His direct supervisor was told there was a hiring freeze and told to distribute his tasks to others on the team
3. A team member received one of the tasks and found that it hadn't actually been done for months & started asking questions
4. The direct supervisor was let go after it was found that they were submitting that checks had been done when all their checks entailed was "hey bob, you did XYZ, right" "yup!"
5. My department was brought in to audit this department and found that another person on their team had falsified records for the fired supervisor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My husband and I have both discussed the fact that as we get older our jobs seem to get easier and we work less hard, but here's the thing. I'm an academic and I have studied history and there's this phenomenon where you need to keep certain types of people in strategic professions 'in reserve'. In other words, you might not need that military planner or that economist now, but if you need hundreds of them at some point because you go to war or something, you can't just suddenly find these people and train these people -- so there's this idea of backfill. You have extra people who don't appear to be working hard at the moment, but what you are paying for is to keep their expertise on retainer, to keep their skills up to date in the event that they are needed. I realize that what I bring to the table at the age of 60 is mostly institutional memory, knowledge of procedures, etc. and this is why they keep me around -- because I can answer the question without your having to research it, rather than because you need me to fulfill some other function. And my husband has also added that countries historically keep a lot of ex military around and on the payroll because it's good for these guys to be kept busy and happy -- mostly so they don't riot, carry out a coup, etc. This has been a thing historically since the ROman Empire. I worry that Ramiswamy et al do not understand these basic facts. At the beginning of World War Two, Britain was losing badly against the Nazis because they had cut back on ship manufacturing, and at times they were using civilian fishing boats and the like to patrol the coastline because someone thought defense cuts were a good idea. Short sighted. We can learn from that.

Actual just in time staffing is how most private companies work. There is no slack in labor supply, so if someone takes maternity leave, quits, gets sick, etc there is no backfill at all in the staffing so EVERYONE works unpaid overtime to get work done. This is by design, and why they created salaries employees.

Why would oyu work somewhere that has no contingency planning and requires you to work unpaid time on a regular basis? Sounds like you have a really crappy job and should probably improve your skills/education so you can find a better one.

Everywhere does this unless you are unionized or have a professional gatekeeper like the AMA.

[Anonymous]

I work as a Fed in cybersecurity. I have a heavy workload with tons of deadlines and massive burnout and cannot take time off until April. What positions do these “lazy feds who do nothing” have? I clearly am in the wrong field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a fed lawyer, headed to work at 6:30 am. Will probably be home around 6 pm, spend an hour with my family, and then work from home until bed. That is typical for me. Similar to when I was in biglaw but a much lower salary.

I am fed lawyer as well and work similar hours, as do my co-workers--weekends too sometimes. There are those who do not work as many hours and they typically either work smarter or have a level of expertise that enables them to get their work faster. Are some feds that abuse the system? Yes, absolutely, no more than those you would find in the private sector. I have seen bad employees, lawyers and non-lawyers, get fired. So much hate for federal employees that stems from ignorance. I've also ensured a ton of verbal abuse from bosses and complainants. If I wasn't so far in, I'd think about going into the private sector. My sibling makes triple, if not more what I do, works quite hard but also has much more flexibility and gets incredible perks. For a variety of reasons, I took a risk averse approach to my career and stayed where I thought I had job security. As I get older, I regret that decision.

[Anonymous]

OP sounds like a troll.

[Anonymous]

Guess who really dislikes the handful of crappy feds like OP’s buds? Hardworking Feds who have to pick up the slack. We have been able to get rid of poor performers- it’s a process but it’s possible especially within the first year. I actually have no problem with making it easier for supervisors to get rid of feds who aren’t performing. The problem is in many case, in my field where you can easily earn multiples of a fed salary in industry and still be fully remote, is it’s very hard to recruit good people. The hiring process is also ridiculous. I wish we could fix those things rather than just saying yeah feds are lazy lets blindly slash away at the government.