Why do some private sector workers hate Fed workers so much?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Have you ever sent anything out via the United States Post Office that needs extra service.

The slowness (every time) is hard to deal with.

Then contrast sending something out at the UPS store or at the Fedex Office. You get fast competent workers at the UPS store and the Fedex Office.

UPS and FedEx are significantly more expensive than USPS, and there are many areas they do not physically deliver to - they contract to USPS for those areas because USPS is legally required to go there anyway.

As a public service, not a business, USPS is frankly astonishing in its scope. The fact you can get paper mail delivered anywhere in this ginormous country in ~3 days for under a dollar is amazing. You'd never get it established today because we keep insisting government should work like a business that turns a profit, instead of like a service we all help fund for our joint benefit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I see the feds have rushed in to defend themselves - all the best performers I'm sure. I ask you though, if you're doing such a great job it must really piss you off seeing all those co-workers coasting along right? I was a DOD contractor for 5 years in the DC area and it was egregious how little some people did. They also didn't have to answer to anyone and had so many early releases/"trainings" etc they barely even had to show up.

Are you telling me you don't know anyone in the private sector who get paid for doing nothing lol?

This would be exceptionally rare and unusual in the private sector.

This is laughable. Have you ever worked in a law firm? I am a fed and I spent 10+ years in the private sector. Incompetence is plenty everywhere. I’ve seen (and still see from across the table) attorneys who bill hundreds of hours for complete shit work. People get paid for doing nothing all the time and people get paid for doing a lot of crappy work all the time.

+1. I spent 10 years in the private sector in giant corporations that are every bit as bureaucratic as the government. They also have people who barely work and skate by. There was one woman who spent 1 hour a week updating a spreadsheet and just hung out the rest of the week. But her spreadsheet was the only record of an entire P&L for the company and was so illegible only she could decipher it, so her job was secure.

I've worked both in private and Fed jobs. There are slackers everywhere. But Fed certainly enables it much more easily than in the private sector, where layoffs are frequent and culls of low performers happens all the time. People wanted Fed jobs because of the security and promise of a pension. The Feds I worked with all openly admitted it. They willingly accepted lower salaries (historically) in exchange for security and no fears of being pushed out at 55.

The Fed efficiency isn't great either. I've seen many paper pushing jobs, even at the G13 levels. Big corp isn't immune to this either but these roles are ruthlessly scrutinized when there's a tightening of belts. I've lived through mass layoffs and it was brutal. Very few Feds have that experience.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I see the feds have rushed in to defend themselves - all the best performers I'm sure. I ask you though, if you're doing such a great job it must really piss you off seeing all those co-workers coasting along right? I was a DOD contractor for 5 years in the DC area and it was egregious how little some people did. They also didn't have to answer to anyone and had so many early releases/"trainings" etc they barely even had to show up.

Are you telling me you don't know anyone in the private sector who get paid for doing nothing lol?

This would be exceptionally rare and unusual in the private sector.

This is laughable. Have you ever worked in a law firm? I am a fed and I spent 10+ years in the private sector. Incompetence is plenty everywhere. I’ve seen (and still see from across the table) attorneys who bill hundreds of hours for complete shit work. People get paid for doing nothing all the time and people get paid for doing a lot of crappy work all the time.

+1. I spent 10 years in the private sector in giant corporations that are every bit as bureaucratic as the government. They also have people who barely work and skate by. There was one woman who spent 1 hour a week updating a spreadsheet and just hung out the rest of the week. But her spreadsheet was the only record of an entire P&L for the company and was so illegible only she could decipher it, so her job was secure.

I've worked both in private and Fed jobs. There are slackers everywhere. But Fed certainly enables it much more easily than in the private sector, where layoffs are frequent and culls of low performers happens all the time. People wanted Fed jobs because of the security and promise of a pension. The Feds I worked with all openly admitted it. They willingly accepted lower salaries (historically) in exchange for security and no fears of being pushed out at 55.

The Fed efficiency isn't great either. I've seen many paper pushing jobs, even at the G13 levels. Big corp isn't immune to this either but these roles are ruthlessly scrutinized when there's a tightening of belts. I've lived through mass layoffs and it was brutal. Very few Feds have that experience.

Your mistake is equating private sector layoffs with culling poor performers. That is not what layoffs are. They do not target poor performers and are often done for reasons unrelated to actual efficiency.

Feds will talk about wanting security from layoffs, from age discrimination, from the company closing. Not about security from being fired for poor work. And the accountability required on the federal side is much higher, in terms of working when you say you are, spending only what you are allowed, etc.

As a side note, I don't understand the repeated mention of "paper pushing" on this thread. Government programs and funds are documented, and records of government activities are preserved and made public, because of the public accountability required. What is the "paper pushing" you think shouldn't happen? Reports required by Congress, maybe, but our hands are tied there.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I see the feds have rushed in to defend themselves - all the best performers I'm sure. I ask you though, if you're doing such a great job it must really piss you off seeing all those co-workers coasting along right? I was a DOD contractor for 5 years in the DC area and it was egregious how little some people did. They also didn't have to answer to anyone and had so many early releases/"trainings" etc they barely even had to show up.

Are you telling me you don't know anyone in the private sector who get paid for doing nothing lol?

This would be exceptionally rare and unusual in the private sector.

This is laughable. Have you ever worked in a law firm? I am a fed and I spent 10+ years in the private sector. Incompetence is plenty everywhere. I’ve seen (and still see from across the table) attorneys who bill hundreds of hours for complete shit work. People get paid for doing nothing all the time and people get paid for doing a lot of crappy work all the time.

+1. I spent 10 years in the private sector in giant corporations that are every bit as bureaucratic as the government. They also have people who barely work and skate by. There was one woman who spent 1 hour a week updating a spreadsheet and just hung out the rest of the week. But her spreadsheet was the only record of an entire P&L for the company and was so illegible only she could decipher it, so her job was secure.

I've worked both in private and Fed jobs. There are slackers everywhere. But Fed certainly enables it much more easily than in the private sector, where layoffs are frequent and culls of low performers happens all the time. People wanted Fed jobs because of the security and promise of a pension. The Feds I worked with all openly admitted it. They willingly accepted lower salaries (historically) in exchange for security and no fears of being pushed out at 55.

The Fed efficiency isn't great either. I've seen many paper pushing jobs, even at the G13 levels. Big corp isn't immune to this either but these roles are ruthlessly scrutinized when there's a tightening of belts. I've lived through mass layoffs and it was brutal. Very few Feds have that experience.

Your mistake is equating private sector layoffs with culling poor performers. That is not what layoffs are. They do not target poor performers and are often done for reasons unrelated to actual efficiency.

Feds will talk about wanting security from layoffs, from age discrimination, from the company closing. Not about security from being fired for poor work. And the accountability required on the federal side is much higher, in terms of working when you say you are, spending only what you are allowed, etc.

As a side note, I don't understand the repeated mention of "paper pushing" on this thread. Government programs and funds are documented, and records of government activities are preserved and made public, because of the public accountability required. What is the "paper pushing" you think shouldn't happen? Reports required by Congress, maybe, but our hands are tied there.

+1 and federal agencies are already digital. No one is pushing paper. The fed accounting system isn't like in the private sector where a single employee keeps P&L logs in a handwritten spreadsheet.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I see the feds have rushed in to defend themselves - all the best performers I'm sure. I ask you though, if you're doing such a great job it must really piss you off seeing all those co-workers coasting along right? I was a DOD contractor for 5 years in the DC area and it was egregious how little some people did. They also didn't have to answer to anyone and had so many early releases/"trainings" etc they barely even had to show up.

Are you telling me you don't know anyone in the private sector who get paid for doing nothing lol?

This would be exceptionally rare and unusual in the private sector.

This is laughable. Have you ever worked in a law firm? I am a fed and I spent 10+ years in the private sector. Incompetence is plenty everywhere. I’ve seen (and still see from across the table) attorneys who bill hundreds of hours for complete shit work. People get paid for doing nothing all the time and people get paid for doing a lot of crappy work all the time.

+1. I spent 10 years in the private sector in giant corporations that are every bit as bureaucratic as the government. They also have people who barely work and skate by. There was one woman who spent 1 hour a week updating a spreadsheet and just hung out the rest of the week. But her spreadsheet was the only record of an entire P&L for the company and was so illegible only she could decipher it, so her job was secure.

I've worked both in private and Fed jobs. There are slackers everywhere. But Fed certainly enables it much more easily than in the private sector, where layoffs are frequent and culls of low performers happens all the time. People wanted Fed jobs because of the security and promise of a pension. The Feds I worked with all openly admitted it. They willingly accepted lower salaries (historically) in exchange for security and no fears of being pushed out at 55.

The Fed efficiency isn't great either. I've seen many paper pushing jobs, even at the G13 levels. Big corp isn't immune to this either but these roles are ruthlessly scrutinized when there's a tightening of belts. I've lived through mass layoffs and it was brutal. Very few Feds have that experience.

I agree with everything you have said. However, we in the private sector are the lucky ones not them. We earn significantly more. We have better career progression. And we have less ethical BS to worry about. Honestly, their low salaries and pensions just aren't good enough in my opinion to forgo a more lucrative career in the private sector.

I do worry about the direction of this country. As the public sector shrinks, so will benefits and working conditions in the private sector.

And how many Americans work for the FED? 2 millions. I have no idea. There are just enough for them for some us to have this attitude that these hours somehow won the jackpot at our expense.

[Anonymous]

My son works in beg tech. Hus starting salary was more than my gs14-10. He tries to make sure he is working by 10 30 each day. No one clocks his hours. Work from home is allowed. Lots of free lunches and fun outings after milestones are met.

I do not think he is at all jealous of my fed job!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I see the feds have rushed in to defend themselves - all the best performers I'm sure. I ask you though, if you're doing such a great job it must really piss you off seeing all those co-workers coasting along right? I was a DOD contractor for 5 years in the DC area and it was egregious how little some people did. They also didn't have to answer to anyone and had so many early releases/"trainings" etc they barely even had to show up.

Are you telling me you don't know anyone in the private sector who get paid for doing nothing lol?

This would be exceptionally rare and unusual in the private sector.

This is laughable. Have you ever worked in a law firm? I am a fed and I spent 10+ years in the private sector. Incompetence is plenty everywhere. I’ve seen (and still see from across the table) attorneys who bill hundreds of hours for complete shit work. People get paid for doing nothing all the time and people get paid for doing a lot of crappy work all the time.

+1. I spent 10 years in the private sector in giant corporations that are every bit as bureaucratic as the government. They also have people who barely work and skate by. There was one woman who spent 1 hour a week updating a spreadsheet and just hung out the rest of the week. But her spreadsheet was the only record of an entire P&L for the company and was so illegible only she could decipher it, so her job was secure.

I've worked both in private and Fed jobs. There are slackers everywhere. But Fed certainly enables it much more easily than in the private sector, where layoffs are frequent and culls of low performers happens all the time. People wanted Fed jobs because of the security and promise of a pension. The Feds I worked with all openly admitted it. They willingly accepted lower salaries (historically) in exchange for security and no fears of being pushed out at 55.

The Fed efficiency isn't great either. I've seen many paper pushing jobs, even at the G13 levels. Big corp isn't immune to this either but these roles are ruthlessly scrutinized when there's a tightening of belts. I've lived through mass layoffs and it was brutal. Very few Feds have that experience.

Your mistake is equating private sector layoffs with culling poor performers. That is not what layoffs are. They do not target poor performers and are often done for reasons unrelated to actual efficiency.

Feds will talk about wanting security from layoffs, from age discrimination, from the company closing. Not about security from being fired for poor work. And the accountability required on the federal side is much higher, in terms of working when you say you are, spending only what you are allowed, etc.

As a side note, I don't understand the repeated mention of "paper pushing" on this thread. Government programs and funds are documented, and records of government activities are preserved and made public, because of the public accountability required. What is the "paper pushing" you think shouldn't happen? Reports required by Congress, maybe, but our hands are tied there.

There are Fed employees on this thread who openly admit it is very difficult to fire people for incompetence. I don't know where you come from but having worked for both major F500s and smaller firms, people are terminated all the time for low performance. Sometimes it's because they didn't hit their revenue targets if a seller, other times just because they were the weakest of a group and orders were one out of every 10 had to be laid off. Sometimes it's incompetence. Others because an entire division is closed down because it wasn't performing well. It's very easy to lay off / terminate people in the private sector.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:…
And since the rest of us are paying for these mediocre people, it leads to resentment. Especially since almost no one gets a pension outside of government these days. It feels like federal employees are grifting off the rest of us who tend to work much harder than the bureaucratic class. And have to perform without recourse to federal unions that entrench bad performers.
...

First of all, there’s no metric that I’ve ever seen that says federal workers are mediocre. Is this just a made-up feeling?

Second, over 25 million American workers are enrolled in pension plans. Feds are less than ten percent of this total. The vast majority of people working toward a pension are not Feds. (Cf. https://pensionrights.org/resource/how-many-american-workers-participate-in-workplace-retirement-plans/).

Third, “it feels like” is not a justification for willful denigration of a class of people. It just reflects poorly on those who hold that view.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So I see the feds have rushed in to defend themselves - all the best performers I'm sure. I ask you though, if you're doing such a great job it must really piss you off seeing all those co-workers coasting along right? I was a DOD contractor for 5 years in the DC area and it was egregious how little some people did. They also didn't have to answer to anyone and had so many early releases/"trainings" etc they barely even had to show up.

Are you telling me you don't know anyone in the private sector who get paid for doing nothing lol?

This would be exceptionally rare and unusual in the private sector.

This is laughable. Have you ever worked in a law firm? I am a fed and I spent 10+ years in the private sector. Incompetence is plenty everywhere. I’ve seen (and still see from across the table) attorneys who bill hundreds of hours for complete shit work. People get paid for doing nothing all the time and people get paid for doing a lot of crappy work all the time.

+1. I spent 10 years in the private sector in giant corporations that are every bit as bureaucratic as the government. They also have people who barely work and skate by. There was one woman who spent 1 hour a week updating a spreadsheet and just hung out the rest of the week. But her spreadsheet was the only record of an entire P&L for the company and was so illegible only she could decipher it, so her job was secure.

I've worked both in private and Fed jobs. There are slackers everywhere. But Fed certainly enables it much more easily than in the private sector, where layoffs are frequent and culls of low performers happens all the time. People wanted Fed jobs because of the security and promise of a pension. The Feds I worked with all openly admitted it. They willingly accepted lower salaries (historically) in exchange for security and no fears of being pushed out at 55.

The Fed efficiency isn't great either. I've seen many paper pushing jobs, even at the G13 levels. Big corp isn't immune to this either but these roles are ruthlessly scrutinized when there's a tightening of belts. I've lived through mass layoffs and it was brutal. Very few Feds have that experience.

Your mistake is equating private sector layoffs with culling poor performers. That is not what layoffs are. They do not target poor performers and are often done for reasons unrelated to actual efficiency.

Feds will talk about wanting security from layoffs, from age discrimination, from the company closing. Not about security from being fired for poor work. And the accountability required on the federal side is much higher, in terms of working when you say you are, spending only what you are allowed, etc.

As a side note, I don't understand the repeated mention of "paper pushing" on this thread. Government programs and funds are documented, and records of government activities are preserved and made public, because of the public accountability required. What is the "paper pushing" you think shouldn't happen? Reports required by Congress, maybe, but our hands are tied there.

There are Fed employees on this thread who openly admit it is very difficult to fire people for incompetence. I don't know where you come from but having worked for both major F500s and smaller firms, people are terminated all the time for low performance. Sometimes it's because they didn't hit their revenue targets if a seller, other times just because they were the weakest of a group and orders were one out of every 10 had to be laid off. Sometimes it's incompetence. Others because an entire division is closed down because it wasn't performing well. It's very easy to lay off / terminate people in the private sector.

Many people cut for not being buddies with a manager rather than performance. See it all the time.

[Anonymous]

As a former fed in various agencies and supervisory positions - and as somebody with a variety of private sector experience both prior to and following my decade as a fed - there is a much higher tolerance for low performance and misbehavior in federal agencies. That's not to condemn all feds and I get why it's intentionally difficult to dismiss federal employees, but the stereotypes about lazy feds has more than a kernel of truth.

If you're grinding away in the private sector, constantly worried about downsizing, a new boss not liking you, or just instability in general, the exaggerated narrative of the federal employee is going to be really frustrating.

They could easily address this by making it easier for individual supervisors to dismiss low performers, but 1) that could reintroduce the spoils system and 2) that would remove the convenient scapegoat that the political class likes to have to blame for their ineptitude.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a former fed in various agencies and supervisory positions - and as somebody with a variety of private sector experience both prior to and following my decade as a fed - there is a much higher tolerance for low performance and misbehavior in federal agencies. That's not to condemn all feds and I get why it's intentionally difficult to dismiss federal employees, but the stereotypes about lazy feds has more than a kernel of truth.

If you're grinding away in the private sector, constantly worried about downsizing, a new boss not liking you, or just instability in general, the exaggerated narrative of the federal employee is going to be really frustrating.

They could easily address this by making it easier for individual supervisors to dismiss low performers, but 1) that could reintroduce the spoils system and 2) that would remove the convenient scapegoat that the political class likes to have to blame for their ineptitude.

This post is spot-on. My federal boss once joked that firing a federal employee would practically take an act of Congress—and he wasn’t wrong.

I spent my first four years at the Bureau of Labor Statistics starting in 1990 and, honestly, did absolutely nothing. Not only did nothing happen to me, but I was promoted from GS-7 to GS-9 after six months, GS-9 to GS-11 after a year, and GS-11 to GS-12 a year later. I was even on track for a GS-13 promotion when I decided that it wasn’t the place for me.

I left the federal government to join AOL for a much higher salary, and later, in 2000, I moved to the Carlyle Group for even more. The private sector, however, was far more stressful—because there, the only thing that truly matters is profit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a former fed in various agencies and supervisory positions - and as somebody with a variety of private sector experience both prior to and following my decade as a fed - there is a much higher tolerance for low performance and misbehavior in federal agencies. That's not to condemn all feds and I get why it's intentionally difficult to dismiss federal employees, but the stereotypes about lazy feds has more than a kernel of truth.

If you're grinding away in the private sector, constantly worried about downsizing, a new boss not liking you, or just instability in general, the exaggerated narrative of the federal employee is going to be really frustrating.

They could easily address this by making it easier for individual supervisors to dismiss low performers, but 1) that could reintroduce the spoils system and 2) that would remove the convenient scapegoat that the political class likes to have to blame for their ineptitude.

This post is spot-on. My federal boss once joked that firing a federal employee would practically take an act of Congress—and he wasn’t wrong.

I spent my first four years at the Bureau of Labor Statistics starting in 1990 and, honestly, did absolutely nothing. Not only did nothing happen to me, but I was promoted from GS-7 to GS-9 after six months, GS-9 to GS-11 after a year, and GS-11 to GS-12 a year later. I was even on track for a GS-13 promotion when I decided that it wasn’t the place for me.

I left the federal government to join AOL for a much higher salary, and later, in 2000, I moved to the Carlyle Group for even more. The private sector, however, was far more stressful—because there, the only thing that truly matters is profit.

You have been out of the loop for 25 years, you have no idea what you’re talking about.

I am a federal manager. It’s hard to fire people yes, but that’s not the biggest problem we have. For every loser employee there are five rock stars doing the work of ten people. I don’t know or care why people hate us, but I do know that it’s not the employees that are responsible for where we are today. Public servants that show up and do their work are some of the finest employees a private company would be lucky to have.

[Anonymous]

I am near retirement and in my last private sector job. It is job 12. Not a job hopper.

But working 40 years and 3.5 year average per job. A 3-4 year run is a good run in private. I don’t think most govt workers could ever land 12 jobs. They are not overly qualified other than their niche field or ambitious.

I think govt workers should be appointed and tossed after 3-5 years. Keep them fresh

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a former fed in various agencies and supervisory positions - and as somebody with a variety of private sector experience both prior to and following my decade as a fed - there is a much higher tolerance for low performance and misbehavior in federal agencies. That's not to condemn all feds and I get why it's intentionally difficult to dismiss federal employees, but the stereotypes about lazy feds has more than a kernel of truth.

If you're grinding away in the private sector, constantly worried about downsizing, a new boss not liking you, or just instability in general, the exaggerated narrative of the federal employee is going to be really frustrating.

They could easily address this by making it easier for individual supervisors to dismiss low performers, but 1) that could reintroduce the spoils system and 2) that would remove the convenient scapegoat that the political class likes to have to blame for their ineptitude.

This post is spot-on. My federal boss once joked that firing a federal employee would practically take an act of Congress—and he wasn’t wrong.

I spent my first four years at the Bureau of Labor Statistics starting in 1990 and, honestly, did absolutely nothing. Not only did nothing happen to me, but I was promoted from GS-7 to GS-9 after six months, GS-9 to GS-11 after a year, and GS-11 to GS-12 a year later. I was even on track for a GS-13 promotion when I decided that it wasn’t the place for me.

I left the federal government to join AOL for a much higher salary, and later, in 2000, I moved to the Carlyle Group for even more. The private sector, however, was far more stressful—because there, the only thing that truly matters is profit.

You have been out of the loop for 25 years, you have no idea what you’re talking about.

I am a federal manager. It’s hard to fire people yes, but that’s not the biggest problem we have. For every loser employee there are five rock stars doing the work of ten people. I don’t know or care why people hate us, but I do know that it’s not the employees that are responsible for where we are today. Public servants that show up and do their work are some of the finest employees a private company would be lucky to have.

They can’t cut it in the private sector. We all know that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:As a former fed in various agencies and supervisory positions - and as somebody with a variety of private sector experience both prior to and following my decade as a fed - there is a much higher tolerance for low performance and misbehavior in federal agencies. That's not to condemn all feds and I get why it's intentionally difficult to dismiss federal employees, but the stereotypes about lazy feds has more than a kernel of truth.

If you're grinding away in the private sector, constantly worried about downsizing, a new boss not liking you, or just instability in general, the exaggerated narrative of the federal employee is going to be really frustrating.

They could easily address this by making it easier for individual supervisors to dismiss low performers, but 1) that could reintroduce the spoils system and 2) that would remove the convenient scapegoat that the political class likes to have to blame for their ineptitude.

This post is spot-on. My federal boss once joked that firing a federal employee would practically take an act of Congress—and he wasn’t wrong.

I spent my first four years at the Bureau of Labor Statistics starting in 1990 and, honestly, did absolutely nothing. Not only did nothing happen to me, but I was promoted from GS-7 to GS-9 after six months, GS-9 to GS-11 after a year, and GS-11 to GS-12 a year later. I was even on track for a GS-13 promotion when I decided that it wasn’t the place for me.

I left the federal government to join AOL for a much higher salary, and later, in 2000, I moved to the Carlyle Group for even more. The private sector, however, was far more stressful—because there, the only thing that truly matters is profit.

You have been out of the loop for 25 years, you have no idea what you’re talking about.

I am a federal manager. It’s hard to fire people yes, but that’s not the biggest problem we have. For every loser employee there are five rock stars doing the work of ten people. I don’t know or care why people hate us, but I do know that it’s not the employees that are responsible for where we are today. Public servants that show up and do their work are some of the finest employees a private company would be lucky to have.

PP here. I came back in 2024 as a contractor at the EPA after being layoffs in the private sector. It is still extremely hard to fire fed employees in 2025.