Anonymous wrote:I love all of these lawyers at an alphabet agency saying they could be making more at firms. The jobs are so different so as to not even be the same career.

Anonymous wrote:I moved to DC 30 years ago from "fly-over country" and noticed, in particular, an entitled mindset over the past 10 - 15 years. Trendy restaurants have popped up all over town, several counties have the highest incomes in the country and notice several websites that didn't exist 10 years ago that focus on the society aspect of this town. Most people here are nice and even in upper NW and Bethesda there are normal people, however its changed. I see high end cars every day, people are now taking 4 vacations a year and several people have "changed" where I no longer want to be around them with their "me" attitude. That is why many in America hate DC and my tolerance of this town is wearing thin.

Anonymous wrote:I remember playing out in my front yard in the 1980s and watching a carpool of four neighborhood dads dropping one off at a time on our street at 4:30 on the dot each afternoon, not much later than I'd gotten home from school. They'd get out of the car in their short sleeve dress shirt and tie. Many government workers didn't value hard work, at least in the 80s, they just valued having a secure job that required light work. The dads in our neighborhood would talk about how they could never be fired from their jobs and bragged about having 6-8 weeks of vacation a year, so much they would take days off to just lounge around the house and do nohting. My dad worked 60-70 hours a week at a private company and then later, as a business owner. I would sometimes ask my dad why those dads could leave work at 3:30 every day and he had to stay at work until much later, and his departure time was never so cut and dry like theirs. And why those dads never had to go into work on a Saturday like mine often did.

That's when he taught me about the difference between going to a job day in and day out that was predictable, unstimulating and comfortable, versus one that was challenging and dynamic. He explained that most jobs of substance and that I should aspire to don't involve punching the timeclock and have a clock tell you when it's time to finish up your work for the day. Those lessons shaped me and who am I am today, the career path I chose, set a standard for the person I would eventually marry, and the values I impress upon my children.

Combined with all the negative comments on this thread about "flyover states," those are the reasons my midwestern mom and dad hated living in DC and felt the way they did.

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Anonymous wrote:I was born and raised in a very middle class suburb of Detroit. I graduated at the top of my high school class, got a scholarship to an Ivy League school, and moved away from Michigan never to return for longer than a couple of weeks for a few summers. Fast forward 25 years, my husband is from similar circumstances, we met here in DC and are both GS-15s. I've been proud to be s civil servant and have worked pretty hard to provide high quality services through my department.

In this election season I've been totally shocked by the level of fury and anger directed at Washington, "the system", and even me personally by my hometown friends on both the left and right. They hate us. One woman I haven't seen in 20 years called me a cancer who would need to be removed once Donald Trump gained the presidency after I posted something fairly neutral on the election, the Bernie supporters were pretty similar.

Frankly my husband and I could have had more lucrative careers in the private sector like many of my college and law school classmates but we came to government out of a sense of patriotism and civic duty. I work hard because I want our government to function well, I had no idea how many people assumed I am a lazy drain on the economy.

What have we done to earn this vitriol and how do we change this perception?

How tone deaf can you get, PP. you are the very embodiment of why people hate the government. You work very little have paid vacations and medical benefits that are the envy of the world. Of course people resent you. It comes with, being a fed. You are a nice life at the expense of others who are not.

Jealous much?

Not really. I am a GS-15 at DOJ and DH is a GS-14 at HUD.

Then shame on both of you for sitting on your asses instead of working for your paychecks.

Anonymous wrote:Guess what? There are plenty of terrible federal employees. For example, the FBI NY Field Office Agents who seem to have a bug up their asses about the Clintons and don't mind telling the papers about their nothingburger investigations less than a week before the election? Those "patriots" are make 20% more base pay than your average fed, which is also used to calculate the defined benefit pension that they get. Coupled to the fact that they also get half a percent per year greater for their years in service, they make out like the bandits they actually are. Then, when they retire at 57 (maximum), they get to waltz into a cushy six figure security consultant job while collecting their pension. For the many federal LEOs who make this and are actually doing their jobs, I tip my hat. To these right wing political charlatans disguising themselves as agents, I say OPR needs to crawl up their asses.

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Anonymous wrote:I was born and raised in a very middle class suburb of Detroit. I graduated at the top of my high school class, got a scholarship to an Ivy League school, and moved away from Michigan never to return for longer than a couple of weeks for a few summers. Fast forward 25 years, my husband is from similar circumstances, we met here in DC and are both GS-15s. I've been proud to be s civil servant and have worked pretty hard to provide high quality services through my department.

In this election season I've been totally shocked by the level of fury and anger directed at Washington, "the system", and even me personally by my hometown friends on both the left and right. They hate us. One woman I haven't seen in 20 years called me a cancer who would need to be removed once Donald Trump gained the presidency after I posted something fairly neutral on the election, the Bernie supporters were pretty similar.

Frankly my husband and I could have had more lucrative careers in the private sector like many of my college and law school classmates but we came to government out of a sense of patriotism and civic duty. I work hard because I want our government to function well, I had no idea how many people assumed I am a lazy drain on the economy.

What have we done to earn this vitriol and how do we change this perception?

How tone deaf can you get, PP. you are the very embodiment of why people hate the government. You work very little have paid vacations and medical benefits that are the envy of the world. Of course people resent you. It comes with, being a fed. You are a nice life at the expense of others who are not.

Jealous much?

Not really. I am a GS-15 at DOJ and DH is a GS-14 at HUD.

Then shame on both of you for sitting on your asses instead of working for your paychecks.

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Anonymous wrote:One of the mottos of Princeton, my alma mater, is "Princeton in the nations service"

It is so sad that none of these anti-DC posters see that many of us working at the FDA, Fed, NIH, or other agencies feel that public service serves a vital function in our country, and are willing to accept lower pay to contribute to society.

This. Thank you.

+2.

I work in the public service, and I DO appreciate that I have a job that is stable and gives me enough time for my family. I am also proud to be working on behalf of the American people instead of a money-grabbing corporation. I make less money than people in the private sector, but I am not jealous or angry, and some of the people on this board should try it sometime!

Ha ha! The federal government is a money-grabbing corporation, haven't you seen the news lately? Difference is, it's funded by tax payer dollars and not private dollars. Stop whining about how much less money you make, we don't care, you can get another job that pays more. Please don't sacrifice for us, we didn't ask you to. I do want you to have to use Obamacare though and I am fighting the have all federal and congressional employees to be on the exchange with the rest of us soulless losers.

+ 1 to having all the federal and congressional employees on Obamacare. I am so fed up with my fed friends and neighbors telling me how wonderful Obamacare is, as they enjoy wonderful taxpayer-funded plans and access to the best doctors, while I lost my great (and affordable) plan and am now paying a ridiculous amount of money for poor coverage and sub-standard care. They need to experience what we peons have been suffering with - which includes the financial sacrifices to provide free care to lower income - before I give any credence to their opinion.

Well said! I agree, don't care of your opinion until you are swimming in the same health care pond I am in, just don't have an ounce of respect for any of them.

I agree! Federal health insurance for EVERYONE!