List of Toxic Federal Agencies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:TSA

+2.5 million. TSA is truly bottom of the barrel

[Anonymous]

They're likely all toxic. I've spent 15 years across 3 federal agencies and they're all toxic. The incompetence, apathy, and laziness in all three was quite consistent. I would highly discourage anyone who actually enjoys their field to join the federal government. It will literally kill any joy you have in your field. When I got in 15 years ago I noticed a lot of old people who won't leave but hate it there. I always said I won't end up like that. But the system beats you to submission.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They're likely all toxic. I've spent 15 years across 3 federal agencies and they're all toxic. The incompetence, apathy, and laziness in all three was quite consistent. I would highly discourage anyone who actually enjoys their field to join the federal government. It will literally kill any joy you have in your field. When I got in 15 years ago I noticed a lot of old people who won't leave but hate it there. I always said I won't end up like that. But the system beats you to submission.

I get it, but there are some good divisions in each agency. I've been in the fed for 17 years and worked for 3 agencies, and 7 different divisions across the agencies. 2 of the three agencies were toxic. but in one of the toxic agencies there was one division that was actually not bad at all. Ambition got me and I left for a promotion. Worst mistake of my career. but then that led me to my current agency of 4 years and I couldn't be happier. So maybe it wasn't a mistake.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If I were looking for a job at a state agency, wouldn't it behoove me to come here and post anonymously that it's really toxic and no one should work there?

No because this thread is about federal agencies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:CPSC

Lol

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Agree.

+1. I worked there for 12 years and left last year. The leadership is the worst and it's always been like this. The scandals in this organization would make amazing reality TV.

I am in the community and was about to ask if you thought things might improve when your new IG was confirmed... But then I saw she's an internal. Sorry.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

Agree.

+1. I worked there for 12 years and left last year. The leadership is the worst and it's always been like this. The scandals in this organization would make amazing reality TV.

I am in the community and was about to ask if you thought things might improve when your new IG was confirmed... But then I saw she's an internal. Sorry.

She's actually a good person and is very competent. The issue is her leadership bench. They all SUCK (except two executives, but they are deputy AIGs). They are NOT leaders. They don't know how to lead people or change, or build coalitions. And they certainly hate accountability. They are good technicians. I'll give them that. They survey the organization to death but never seem to address any of the issues. When they do address issues, they only get the perspective from the staff they like. Then they roll out initiatives half-baked and wonder why they have to start from scratch every 6 months.

[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.

So not all that different from a top tier econ department

Ha ha. Yes!

[Anonymous]

IRS is soul sucking! I had to get therapy after just 2 years of working there.

[Anonymous]

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

[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.

Depends on the area. Some are just as described here and others are extremely collegial. I've been in both.

[Anonymous]

FEMA

[Anonymous]

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

Where in the Fed did you work? I worked in IT and it was better than other govt agencies that I worked for as a contractor. It was outrageous to me though that they didn't have security on a lot of their old mainframe stuff and had a couple of incidences where new hires who were working on tasks ran jobs that modified production data. That was really the fault of one very bad c level manager who had no clue what they were doing and didn't know things needed to be locked down.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:State Department has been a shitshow for a while, even before Trump was in office. Some bureaus are better than others, but CS is always second fiddle to FS. CA is a mess, and I am sure DS and OBO aren’t much better.

Oh DS is full of a bunch of self important pricks. That's said, I know the nicest guy that just joined. No idea how long he'll last. He hates DS agents too but doing it for his wife.

I feel like DS folks are either great or terrible. There is no in-between. The best ones I have worked with, at big Embassies overseas, later became the head of DS, and the other one was acting at one point. So, anecdotally, it seems to me that they might actually promote on merit.

What amazes me about State is how they treat their folks like absolute trash and people stick it out. Payroll has been messed up for some people going on a year now. I just saw someone on my social media post that they had a routine medical test in the US, returned to post before they got the results as they didn't have any indication something was wrong, and now State won't treat it as a medevac. People buying their own computers for virtual language training. People were being urged to travel to post before they were vaccinated for COVID and post couldn't guarantee when they'd get the vaccine.

I would have been figuring out how to jump to an international org or corporation after my first post.

This is the one that shocks me the most. People work for the money[u]. They string together surges and task forces to procure toilet paper. Why can't they fix this backlog?

Anything financial that goes through Charleston is messed up. I don’t know what they are doing down there.

[Anonymous]

HHS Early Childhood Development.