Reply to Dinged for being "too smart" - how do I transition out of government?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]

I hate generalizations like this.  I've met a lot of smart and capable people in Government.  [b]The people who were the most frustrated and left for the private sector were the people who couldn't handled collaborating, building consensus. [/b] That is part of bureaucracy, and it slows things down, but it is actually necessary for many government missions.  Things move faster in the private sector, but it isn't because people in government are lazy.  It's because in government, risk is handled differently. The private sector can take risks and move in leaps and bounds in a way that government agencies cannot -- and should not.

It's fine if you prefer an environment where risk-taking is embraced more, where things move faster.  But don't suggest that things move slower in government because government workers are lazy.   Government agencies have a different mission and different priorities than the private sector.  And that drives the pace.

Frankly, I don't think that is OP's issue.  I think OP just doesn't like working with other people or doing anything that isn't high profile.  There's a lot of work in government that isn't high profile or glamorous.  And it's expected that everyone play a part in doing that work, because it's necessary.  If OP marched into a job and took all of the exciting projects and refused to do the more mundane work and her boss indulged that, then of course her coworkers are going to get irritated, especially if they have been there a while and understand that everyone has to do some grunt work.

[/quote]

Or they left because they were sick of too many checks and balances to the point they couldn't do their work, or because the contract vehicles were so cumbersome and slow that they couldn't do their work, or because the technology available was from the 1990s, or because they were sick of working with people who were promoted up to get them out of the way, or because they were sick of pulling dead weight of other coworkers, etc, etc.

If collaborating and consensus-building were all you needed for government positions, I'd still be there.[/quote]

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