Anonymous wrote:I think it is mostly bad for folks that have policy jobs. At my agency, the current administration selected a leader that would have been the pick of a more traditional R administration as well. I do not agree with many of the policy decisions, but that is not because of the crazy at the top. That said, I moved to a completely politically neutral job within my agency and I am happy because I work with a great team of people and do work I find interesting.

I think the folks that have it hardest are likely scientists, policy staff at agencies whose missions are being undermined such as at the Department of Education and attorneys in places like DOJ Civil Rights.

I am policy and while we do not agree with new initiatives we follow the orders of the President.

The problem here is that the Trump higher ups do no consult us, disrespect us, etc. That sucks.

Love mine. Lawyer/litigator at an independent agency. Morale is not as high as it could be because the Senate is screwing us over with regard to some of our nominees, but at the end of the day it's still a great job with great people, reasonably interesting work, not as demanding as private sector, and good work-life balance (which includes telework and the ability to telework/log on at night -- key when you have young kids).

Yes. Love the job. I've worked in the private sector and academia. Love the govt sector the best thus far. Sure, I don't make the most money, but it is enough for me to max out my TSP and IRA. I still have enough money to travel the world, have a savings account, have $0 debt, and own a home. Sure, I don't own a Bethesda home, but I own a home. Sure, I don't drive a Mercedes, but I have a Honda that gets me from point A to point B that I paid for all in cash. I'll retire with a millionaire doing nothing but simply working for the govt.

The TSP is an absolutely outstanding investment vehicle. I have never had to worry about losing my job during a recession. My benefits are solid. I'll still get a pension which allows me to take more risk on my investments since I have a portion of guaranteed money. I'm in the regulatory world and get to see the most cutting edge stuff and have final judgement over it. I also protect you and your family. And over the years I've definitely probably protected a lot of people from some very bad things. Of course when you do something good that prevents harm to thousands of Americans it never makes the headlines in the news.

I also like the fact that I don't have to spend a lot of money on work attire since I am allowed to work at home 2x per week. I'm sure I could make 2-3x in the private industry, but why bother? After a certain point, cash is just paper and cannot buy happiness. I'm fine not living in a $2 million dollar home with a 4 door garage. I have a sizeable nest egg. I get that it might not be so sweet for the people lower ranked in the govt. But GS13-15+ ain't a bad deal.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Working at an independent agency is great.

I have higher salary, better pension, 8% thrift match, and more leave than most Federal workers. I'm equivalent of GS-15 in my mid 30s and will have a massive pension upon retirement after 30 years of service.

Really enjoy my job, the compensation, the interesting work, and commitment to work life balance. I could go private sector, but I will be working 80 hours week. I'd need to make more than 2x the money to compensate me for the loss of defined benefit pension and flexible work arrangements.

SEC?

Probably FDIC or Fed Reserve. SEC is on FERS and gets the same amount of leave as everyone else.

FDIC gets more leave?

It must be Fed Reserve. FDIC is on FERS and the standard leave schedule.

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Anonymous wrote:My dh left hhs a few years ago for a more lucrative position. While he was at hhs he could work from home 3x a week and loved that. The job was not challenging, had decent pay (gs13) and his boss was pleasant. He could basically do a days work in an hour. He did part time grad school while at hhs and did a lot of his work on his work from home days while still being fully available on messenger and email.

I wouldn’t have posted this if I were you. You are basically telling people your DH conned the govt. telework is not supposed to work like that. He is an unethical guy.

It’s not unethical if your boss does not give you more work.

My guess is there were 3 other really hard working guys pulling the slack for him. He was labeled as a non worker who was just focused on grad school. They could not wait for him to graduate and leave.

Someone always has to carry the load for slackers. Very typical of Govt office. His was "out of sight, out of mind" as far as his boss's concern.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dh left hhs a few years ago for a more lucrative position. While he was at hhs he could work from home 3x a week and loved that. The job was not challenging, had decent pay (gs13) and his boss was pleasant. He could basically do a days work in an hour. He did part time grad school while at hhs and did a lot of his work on his work from home days while still being fully available on messenger and email.

I wouldn’t have posted this if I were you. You are basically telling people your DH conned the govt. telework is not supposed to work like that. He is an unethical guy.

It’s not unethical if your boss does not give you more work.

My guess is there were 3 other really hard working guys pulling the slack for him. He was labeled as a non worker who was just focused on grad school. They could not wait for him to graduate and leave.

Anonymous wrote:Yes I love my job. I'm at an engineering/regulations agency. I will say that the hardest part about doing it right now is the response in the news. Reporters constantly think we're hiding things and covering up data. You wouldn't believe the amount of FOIA requests and how much time it's taking our engineers to answer.

Just curios - what is “an engineering/regulations agency”?

I will in 2 to 4 years. I hope.

Anonymous wrote:Pp’s DH is a perfect example of why people hate govt workers.

I dislike Gov workers because many are inefficient, narrow minded, and impractical. It sounds like PP's DH was the opposite of all these. No problem here. Busy times and slow times. The same dynamic occurs in the private sector too.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp’s DH is a perfect example of why people hate govt workers.

Seriously, if I have quiet period, I’m working to innovate and improve the quality and efficiency of our products and processes, there’s always documentation that can be done as well as investigating new avenues of scope of work. How is the guy able to work in Private , that’s how it works there too.

No. Good workers actually get all this done and don't make excuses for their processes and documents not being up to date. You clearly kill too much time on DCUM.

What are you talking about? Have you ever seen private company software documentation or code comments?

You don't do documentation and processes as an after thought. Maybe you would not be so "busy" if you tightened up your processes.

Being busy is not impressive, being efficient is.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Working at an independent agency is great.

I have higher salary, better pension, 8% thrift match, and more leave than most Federal workers. I'm equivalent of GS-15 in my mid 30s and will have a massive pension upon retirement after 30 years of service.

Really enjoy my job, the compensation, the interesting work, and commitment to work life balance. I could go private sector, but I will be working 80 hours week. I'd need to make more than 2x the money to compensate me for the loss of defined benefit pension and flexible work arrangements.

SEC?

Probably FDIC or Fed Reserve. SEC is on FERS and gets the same amount of leave as everyone else.

FDIC gets more leave?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp’s DH is a perfect example of why people hate govt workers.

Seriously, if I have quiet period, I’m working to innovate and improve the quality and efficiency of our products and processes, there’s always documentation that can be done as well as investigating new avenues of scope of work. How is the guy able to work in Private , that’s how it works there too.

No. Good workers actually get all this done and don't make excuses for their processes and documents not being up to date. You clearly kill too much time on DCUM.

What are you talking about? Have you ever seen private company software documentation or code comments?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Working at an independent agency is great.

I have higher salary, better pension, 8% thrift match, and more leave than most Federal workers. I'm equivalent of GS-15 in my mid 30s and will have a massive pension upon retirement after 30 years of service.

Really enjoy my job, the compensation, the interesting work, and commitment to work life balance. I could go private sector, but I will be working 80 hours week. I'd need to make more than 2x the money to compensate me for the loss of defined benefit pension and flexible work arrangements.

SEC?

Probably FDIC or Fed Reserve. SEC is on FERS and gets the same amount of leave as everyone else.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Pp’s DH is a perfect example of why people hate govt workers.

Seriously, if I have quiet period, I’m working to innovate and improve the quality and efficiency of our products and processes, there’s always documentation that can be done as well as investigating new avenues of scope of work. How is the guy able to work in Private , that’s how it works there too.

No. Good workers actually get all this done and don't make excuses for their processes and documents not being up to date. You clearly kill too much time on DCUM.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My dh left hhs a few years ago for a more lucrative position. While he was at hhs he could work from home 3x a week and loved that. The job was not challenging, had decent pay (gs13) and his boss was pleasant. He could basically do a days work in an hour. He did part time grad school while at hhs and did a lot of his work on his work from home days while still being fully available on messenger and email.

I wouldn’t have posted this if I were you. You are basically telling people your DH conned the govt. telework is not supposed to work like that. He is an unethical guy.

+1 agreed. also, not the norm at all with HHS