Will Fed Workers be much better quality in the 2030s?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a lot of fat with some of the fed agencies and their support contractors. Our work is actually more efficient after some of the dead weight is gone.

Name the agency, your occupation, and the contracts.

Defense agency, program manager and all kinds of contracts. Tons of people are around that should not be there and noone can ask them to leave. DRP did let some of them to get retirement but a few are still around and they openly say that it is easy work and they would just hang around for a few more years. We have to give them 1-2 support contractors since they can't even do basic work under their PD.

It sounds like none of your problems got solved, then.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:For all the downsides of Trump forcing current Fed workers out, doing hiring freezes and making it miserable so you quit will this be bright side?

A hiring spree in 2030s of much younger, AI skilled and IT savvy Fed workers.

The Boomers, GenX and most of millennial gone by 2030 to be replaced by Gen Z and Gen alpha people from 2030 to 2040.

Imagine it is 2035 and a Democratic President and Fed offices are filled wirh young, cool and trendy people with Google like offices.

I think there is something to this (I say this as a GenX Fed in the IC). I "joke" that I don't think I could get hired now when the credentials I had when I came in. But I don't know if it's entirely a joke. Which isn't me saying I think I am or was unqualified - I have STEM degree from a respected state flagship and a JD.

What makes me really agree is that when DOGE started and deferred resignation was offered all of our Boomer leadership was 100% certain that DOGE wasn't looking at them to leave because, and I quote, "What would they do without us?" I'm sitting there silently screaming that we'd actually make progress on some major issues if we weren't dealing with all our Boomer SES who are very clubby and loathe to rock the boat.

[Anonymous]

Federal employees may hate President Trump now, but many years from now, Americans will regard President Trump as the father of the modern day civil service.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think federal employment will increasingly be the domain of younger, cheaper workers who gain some experience and then move into industry. I'm fine with that.

And I don't know if you've met any younger people but most of them make more money than I do at age 50. The federal government will.o my get the dregs if they don't pay well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:There was a lot of fat with some of the fed agencies and their support contractors. Our work is actually more efficient after some of the dead weight is gone.

Name the agency, your occupation, and the contracts.

Defense agency, program manager and all kinds of contracts. Tons of people are around that should not be there and noone can ask them to leave. DRP did let some of them to get retirement but a few are still around and they openly say that it is easy work and they would just hang around for a few more years. We have to give them 1-2 support contractors since they can't even do basic work under their PD.

It sounds like none of your problems got solved, then.

yes, more fat needs to be cut.

[Anonymous]

I think overall, the answer is no. But there may be some fluctuations depending on the economy. We recently onboarded someone through the career transition program. They were caught up in RIFs earlier this year. They are massively overqualified to work in our office, so I would consider them excellent quality, but the function of them being there is likely an exception to the rule and probably primarily economically driven.

[Anonymous]

A recent Computer Engineering grad from CMU will make 57K per year as a GS-7 in the government, but he will make at least 150K per year in the private sector. He/she will probably make 130K in the government after five years, but 400K in the private sector. Unless he has family money, why would he/she want to work for the federal government? At the 130K salary, he is invisible to women in the DMV.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A recent Computer Engineering grad from CMU will make 57K per year as a GS-7 in the government, but he will make at least 150K per year in the private sector. He/she will probably make 130K in the government after five years, but 400K in the private sector. Unless he has family money, why would he/she want to work for the federal government? At the 130K salary, he is invisible to women in the DMV.

Do you think that most federal employees are single and childless?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Federal employees may hate President Trump now, but many years from now, Americans will regard President Trump as the father of the modern day civil service.

lol. Yes, the civil service that nobody wants to work for.

[Anonymous]

There will be no one to train them and all the institutional knowledge is leaving/left. I’m one of those gray hairs that knows stuff and the number of calls I get from all over my institution now have gone up immensely in the last few months. When I try to think of where to direct them, I find that those people took the out. I can’t hire to get new people in to get them up and running and have some knowledge base because particularly in government it doesn’t matter how smart and capable you are, there are so many things peculiar to the government that you just have to learn and it takes time. In a lot of places at the moment you have the blind leading the blind.

So what’s going to happen is that in a few years, everyone will be trying out a whole lot of “new ideas” (most of which were probably tried and found lacking in the past) and it will take about five-ten more years to have things winding up looking kind of like they did in 2024. Also, they won’t have funded long-term budgeting for all the new tech but will have discarded the older systems that were clunky and doing the job, so things will get worse.

[Anonymous]

You will find contracting going through the roof as they will have to find ways to rebuild everything that is being broken and thrown away, so the retirees will be a hot commodity.

[Anonymous]

My office is hemorrhaging every smart, skilled employee.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You will find contracting going through the roof as they will have to find ways to rebuild everything that is being broken and thrown away, so the retirees will be a hot commodity.

Yup. I know someone who was RIFd into early retirement. The agency is absolutely desperate to have them to come back as a reemployed annuitant.

[Anonymous]

The folks in charge need to find a way to fix shoddy business processes from the bottom up and at the core issue. A prime example is the FAR “overhaul” that is being spearheaded by GSA. All they did was line out a large chunk of the reg. but they didn’t add anything “new” to it. The processes are still archaic and convoluted . They put lipstick on it, but it’s still a pig.

[Anonymous]

It was a combination of outright grifters and people who were so uncurious about everything that had happened before that they thought they could just show up and fix stuff.