Federal Employees

[PeoplesElbow]

In my military career then a decade as a defense contractor, there were more than a few that did next to nothing, other than showing up at the jobsite, but still got a paycheck. Ask 1 of the supervisors and they claim there isn't anything they can do to get rid of them nor make them productive.

As far as I know, federal gov't service is the only field where this happens. Any other sector and you are gone in a heartbeat.

The boss just didn't want to bother. We have gotten rid of quite a few people over the years, it just takes a while and everything has to be documented.

There is also the method of putting the person into #### job after #### job until they quit, that happens quite a bit too.

I know two people that work for a major aircraft manufacture that starts with a B that sleep at their desks for hours a day. One of them even fell out of his chair with a loud crash and when I went around to see if he was OK he claimed that he was just working on his chair that happened to be on top of him. He had a nice red print of one of the chairs casters right in the middle of his forehead.

 

[SamSpade]

Any other sector and you are gone in a heartbeat.

Unless you're the boss's wife or brother - or you're screwing the boss.
Or you're someone's buddy. Seen a LOT of this too, in the private sector.
How many businesses have you seen where someone hired the significant other -
who really had no business BEING there?

My experience is, the occurrence is about the same.

I do think there are quite a number of problems with the way government is managed.
Part of it is - because it's government. Philosophically - it "has to" be funded.
So it's not going out of business if it is managed badly.
I do think government typically wastes human resources - I've been on projects
where very skilled staff are doing stuff way below their skill level because at the time - there's no one
to do it. They have absurdly long hiring processes and more rules as to who can be selected.
Imagine creating a job posting for a job in your office - and you actually KNOW a few people who
would be perfect for the job - and you know they applied - but human resources never sends
them your way for an interview - because they didn't pass their screening process, which might
include all kinds of diversity and EEO requirements. I know of a few positions where they just
chose not to fill the job because none of the ones that got sent to them were qualified.
They often have antiquated ideas of organization, because it's just the way it's always been.

I've NEVER understood how it happens that the highest levels of management I've worked with
are so far removed from the rank and file - that they don't really have ANYTHING to do with what they do.
I remember being invited on a "ride-along" with the director, and I could have named every project
being done under him - and he knew just about nothing about them. If you're working in a car manufacturing
plant - the boss might not know how to assemble stuff, but he knows a thing or two about the car.

You can go to NSA, the Pentagon, Langley - there are some very, very smart people there.
My uncle has been a lawyer his entire career with the federal government and he is brilliant.
I'm pretty smart, but I would say just about all the people I work with are smarter than me.
And they work for the government because of the flexibility - I can take an hour off here or there
for my kid's medical needs in a pinch. I can change vacation plans at the last minute.

 

[steppinthrax]

Unless you're the boss's wife or brother - or you're screwing the boss.
Or you're someone's buddy. Seen a LOT of this too, in the private sector.
How many businesses have you seen where someone hired the significant other -
who really had no business BEING there?

My experience is, the occurrence is about the same.

I do think there are quite a number of problems with the way government is managed.
Part of it is - because it's government. Philosophically - it "has to" be funded.
So it's not going out of business if it is managed badly.
I do think government typically wastes human resources - I've been on projects
where very skilled staff are doing stuff way below their skill level because at the time - there's no one
to do it. They have absurdly long hiring processes and more rules as to who can be selected.
Imagine creating a job posting for a job in your office - and you actually KNOW a few people who
would be perfect for the job - and you know they applied - but human resources never sends
them your way for an interview - because they didn't pass their screening process, which might
include all kinds of diversity and EEO requirements. I know of a few positions where they just
chose not to fill the job because none of the ones that got sent to them were qualified.
They often have antiquated ideas of organization, because it's just the way it's always been.

I've NEVER understood how it happens that the highest levels of management I've worked with
are so far removed from the rank and file - that they don't really have ANYTHING to do with what they do.
I remember being invited on a "ride-along" with the director, and I could have named every project
being done under him - and he knew just about nothing about them. If you're working in a car manufacturing
plant - the boss might not know how to assemble stuff, but he knows a thing or two about the car.

You can go to NSA, the Pentagon, Langley - there are some very, very smart people there.
My uncle has been a lawyer his entire career with the federal government and he is brilliant.
I'm pretty smart, but I would say just about all the people I work with are smarter than me.
And they work for the government because of the flexibility - I can take an hour off here or there
for my kid's medical needs in a pinch. I can change vacation plans at the last minute.

Except one thing you are forgetting. We are comparing private funds v.s. public funds. When my tax dollars goes to a 9-5 clockwatcher that provides little service for what I pay, it's what makes others angry. Why you always hear this common theme of ragging on federal employees. No one cares or cares little what Xerox or HP decides to do with their money, in my opinion it's within their right to pay their CEOs whatever they want and give whatever bonuses they want. They are a business and this is within their full right. Hell, they could spend it all on blow and hookers, I don't care.

 

[GURPS]

They have absurdly long hiring processes and more rules as to who can be selected.
Imagine creating a job posting for a job in your office - and you actually KNOW a few people who would be perfect for the job - and you know they applied - but human resources never sends them your way for an interview - because they didn't pass their screening process, which might include all kinds of diversity and EEO requirements. I know of a few positions where they just chose not to fill the job because none of the ones that got sent to them were qualified.

They often have antiquated ideas of organization, because it's just the way it's always been.

Not if the BOSS Wants someone hired .... 2 Day Announcement - Hire this Guy

 

[steppinthrax]

Not if the BOSS Wants someone hired .... 2 Day Announcement - Hire this Guy

Some agencies can obtain "Direct Hiring Authority" where they can hire a person quicker than the 1 - 2 years it usually takes.

So instead of taking 2 years to get a job it takes 1.

Whereas in private sector you can get a job within mere minutes.

 

[Monello]

Unless you're the boss's wife or brother - or you're screwing the boss.
Or you're someone's buddy. Seen a LOT of this too, in the private sector.
How many businesses have you seen where someone hired the significant other -
who really had no business BEING there?

I had a government worker tell me that is they fired half the people in his division of Friday that come Monday morning there would be complete chaos. The cause of the chaos would be the remaining people going through the desks of the departed workers. Then come Tuesday it would be business as usual.

He is also the same guy who told me that he had planned to retire 2 years previous. Just before submitting his papers he got wind of a buyout. So he hung around, then got offered a nice payoff to retire. He took the cash and left. Great deal for him, terrible deal for the US taxpayers.

 

[SamSpade]

I had a government worker tell me that is they fired half the people in his division of Friday that come Monday morning there would be complete chaos. The cause of the chaos would be the remaining people going through the desks of the departed workers. Then come Tuesday it would be business as usual.

He is also the same guy who told me that he had planned to retire 2 years previous. Just before submitting his papers he got wind of a buyout. So he hung around, then got offered a nice payoff to retire. He took the cash and left. Great deal for him, terrible deal for the US taxpayers.

My supervisor is doing the same - hoping for a buyout. Thing with the buyout is, it's SUPPOSED to encourage those who are trying to decide to retire - to DO it.
So to be honest - they shouldn't float it around for years and years and let people linger to get it - they should make a decision and do it. That's management. Wringing their hands and doing little.
See, the problem ISN'T that the taxpayer got screwed by the buyout - the bigger screw is that management took a long time waffling over it, and thereby encouraged someone who INTENDED to retire to stay on.
I know how that sounds, but what private company would let something like that float around for a couple years?

And there's good reason to encourage retirement, besides things like - skills, although in truth, a young person has tech skills, an older person has organizational and management skills that the young person does NOT have.
But also because the government has chosen to phase in requirements like higher portion of paycheck towards benefits and retirement. The sooner older workers are replaced, the faster that goes in.
So - yeah - a buyout CAN save money in the long haul. At my stage - the buyout isn't enticing enough. They haven't increased the amount in over 20 years.

Regarding half the employees. I think that would be true in a lot of businesses, but it wouldn't be business as usual - they'd just find a way to make it work.
Double up shifts, move tasks around - the work would get done, but maybe some deadlines might slide a little.
I think if half our staff left, yes there would be panic - but we would find a way to make it work and we might have to tell some of our clients that some stuff ain't happening.
We have lots of flexibility with some things - less with others. We have some projects which deliver more than it needs, and some which are still getting off the ground.

 

[SamSpade]

Not if the BOSS Wants someone hired .... 2 Day Announcement - Hire this Guy

In government? Wow. NEVER - EVER - seen that. Unless it was within house.

I'd like to see ANY agency that can do that.

 

[SamSpade]

Except one thing you are forgetting. We are comparing private funds v.s. public funds. When my tax dollars goes to a 9-5 clockwatcher that provides little service for what I pay, it's what makes others angry. Why you always hear this common theme of ragging on federal employees.

(shrug) Heard it all. It also means if your tax dollars go to research, say, nuclear fusion - if you think that's a boondoggle - you'll object, no matter HOW hard people work on it.
Virtually ANYTHING a government employee does or doesn't do is subject to scrutiny and objection by someone.

(I remember once on a construction job when I was working in college - a hard ass boss gave one of - in my opinion - best carpenters crap because he went to take a piss.
He said I'm not paying you to piss, you know. My buddy said, yes, but I work BETTER afterward. Some things you have to take in stride.)

*I* don't see the prevalence of it being all that different from private industry.
I mean, I get it that if you pay for it, you want the likelihood to be ZERO, but what you're fighting there is human nature and American culture - not business versus government.
If say, 5% of any population of persons is going to be a lazy schmuck, I can see why it might piss you off if it's government, but it's not government's fault.

Some time ago, it seemed like every story about Catholic priests were that somewhere, one of them was diddling a little boy.
Statistically the prevalence is about the SAME as in the general population - but - we want it to be ZERO because - they're priests.
Shouldn't they be held to a higher standard? And maybe so - but ignoring that is what got us there to begin with.
If you're getting your people from the general public, prepare yourself for the idea that what goes on in general will still happen to YOU.

 

[Clem72]

He will, He's brilliant. Just axe him.

And totally adrift and irrelevant at the same time.

A dichotomy?

And an idiot. As if he wasn't currently using a computer attached to a network principally designed by a federal government employee (Lawrence Roberts with assistance from other federal employees), not a contractor among them.

 

[nutz]

I'm not going to provide any further information since that and my previous past posts could possibly identify me. I also don't want those persons identified. If you want to say that I'm full of ####, that's fine.

Here's another story.

A woman who started with the DoD back in the 80s as a phone operator. She eventually moved herself up to program manager within the IT dept. She was the most rudest person to work with. She had no IT background or understanding. I was the "go-to-contractor" that had to provide her a weekly report of what was going on in the team. Example, we had an automated process that took a series of files, concatenated them and sent them off to an external interface, this happened 3 - 4 times a day. We had to explain and explain and explain the same process to her. We wrote documentation after documentation and even (for her understanding) created a diagram with arrows of where each file comes from (with pictures) and how the files are combined. She pulled me in her office and explained to me that it was do complicated and no one can understand it. She had this reputation with most everyone. If she didn't understand something she would get angry and blame us for saying it's complicated. This is one of many examples.

The only thing she was ever really good at and we found how she seemed to stay relevant was hold these big meetings with the important people. She was very good at hosting meetings and taking control of the meeting, she made each meeting like it was the signing of the declaration of independence. Lots of dramatization etc. She was good at that and comming to work every day at 5ish and leaving right at 3 (at the dot). She would never say GM or Hi to anyone and had this permanent angry bitch face. Could never understand what was wrong with her.

Anyway, she had the Mary Kay lady come into work almost every month and blast church music from her computer in the office...

Story

3 of 100000

Can one of the IT gurus share the insider lingo? It sounds like he was compiling files and had to create some flow charts.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

I had a government worker tell me that is they fired half the people in his division of Friday that come Monday morning there would be complete chaos. The cause of the chaos would be the remaining people going through the desks of the departed workers. Then come Tuesday it would be business as usual.

He is also the same guy who told me that he had planned to retire 2 years previous. Just before submitting his papers he got wind of a buyout. So he hung around, then got offered a nice payoff to retire. He took the cash and left. Great deal for him, terrible deal for the US taxpayers.

I can't really see that, we had someone die and their #### sat around for months until someone needed the cube and we threw it all in the dumpster.

 

[DoWhat]

So - yeah - a buyout CAN save money in the long haul. At my stage - the buyout isn't enticing enough. They haven't increased the amount in over 20 years.

Regarding half the employees. I think that would be true in a lot of businesses, but it wouldn't be business as usual - they'd just find a way to make it work.

They just increased the buyout from 25K to 40K for DOD, back in the Nov 2017 timeframe.

 

[PeoplesElbow]

They just increased the buyout from 25K to 40K for DOD, back in the Nov 2017 timeframe.

That really isn't enough to stick around waiting for imho, if they are early outs they lose far more than that.

 

[Starman]

And an idiot. As if he wasn't currently using a computer attached to a network principally designed by a federal government employee (Lawrence Roberts with assistance from other federal employees), not a contractor among them.

Oh give me a break. ARPANET-TCP/IP was a government intervention in markets that didn’t need to happen. There were plenty of better network stacks developed at private companies that were arguably better. The government picked one, made it secret and slowed development for all. Government picked a winner and locked out the market. Government didn’t “invent” the Internet as we know it today — they only paid for it — to the winner they picked.

Hmmmmm. There’s a word for that. Something that ends in -ism I’m sure.

Compare this to the CPU (for but one example) market where there was no such intervention and the private sector knocked it out of the park and created real, tangible wealth for broad sectors of society. And advanced the technology at a rate far faster than government. See Moore’s Law.

 

[truby20]

One of the things that always surprises me about conversations like this is the same groups that complain and moan about the supposed lack of work ethic or productivity of federal workers never seem to realize that over 44% of federal hires are veterans. Or maybe they do realize it and while when someone is serving their country in the military is considered honorable, working in a federal job isn’t. It’s kind of a bizarre position to hold.

But reading through this thread it seems that the ones complaining are either giving vague stories with a lot of embellishment, or talking about experiences from over 20 years ago.

Link to WaPo article with the stat about veteran hiring:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wa...ntinue-to-get-jobs-in-the-federal-government/

 

[SamSpade]

One of the things that always surprises me about conversations like this is the same groups that complain and moan about the supposed lack of work ethic or productivity

And to be fair - government workers, whether state or local or federal often have to work under policies that make it hard to do their job efficiently.
You might complain about the MVA - but when you actually KNOW someone who works there, you hear stuff and think - damn, it's amazing ANYTHING gets done.

I used to complain about our timekeepers - we've long since not had "secretaries", since their function has been supplanted with automation and the paperwork has been shifted
back to the worker - but I didn't realize that while our old secretaries handled the paperwork for twenty people, the timekeepers must manage all the documentation for as many
as a hundred and fifty - and not just their work hours, but also the coding for their projects and hours for each task - pretty much everything.
So when someone says they have a "secretary" who gets paid 30k, I might say there's no way you would do what they do, for that small pay.

Ditto our guards. Yep, they're security guards, not widely known for great pay - but they are civilians who DO get shot at sometimes. Because it's happened.

I'm not going to endlessly defend federal employ - certainly a good case could be made for improving things - for example, raises and increased pay based on performance
and not longevity. They've tried them, by the way, in my workplace. Besides the fact that the union usually kills it on the spot, budgets have made it difficult.
In lieu of THAT, they used to have awards that were bonuses given just for excellence on the job - and they have all been quashed over the years due to budgetary
constraints. Ditto quality pay - it's just easier to grant everyone a 1.5% raise than devote resources to determine who gets more.

Here's an interesting factoid - during the three year pay freeze - which was followed by a *1*% increase in the fourth year - numerous analyses were made
to determine what the average worker's increase was, during those poor economic years - somewhere in the vicinity of 3% - a number which continues to be more or less consistent
that way ever since the freeze. I can't recall the last time federal workers got even that big a raise, and that's the national average.

 

[Gilligan]

Oh give me a break. ARPANET-TCP/IP was a government intervention in markets that didn’t need to happen. There were plenty of better network stacks developed at private companies that were arguably better. The government picked one, made it secret and slowed development for all. Government picked a winner and locked out the market. Government didn’t “invent” the Internet as we know it today — they only paid for it — to the winner they picked.

The Head Tech Geek....a friend of mine. Suffice to say, he has done quite well for himself.

https://www.americaninno.com/dc/uunet-mafia-early-employees-where-they-are-now/

 

[Starman]

The Head Tech Geek....a friend of mine. Suffice to say, he has done quite well for himself.

https://www.americaninno.com/dc/uunet-mafia-early-employees-where-they-are-now/

I have no idea what you’re going on about but believe me: I’m sporting my “I’m impressed face” — impressed that you have any friends, that is. That small lot have my deepest sympathy.

 

[Gilligan]

I have no idea what you’re going on about but believe me: I’m sporting my “I’m impressed face” — impressed that you have any friends, that is. That small lot have my deepest sympathy.

You funny.