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

Forum Index » Jobs and Careers

Reply to "Why do some private sector workers hate Fed workers so much?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=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.[/quote]

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.[/quote]

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. [/quote]

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.  [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics