Thread: Do you ever wonder if people in government jobs work?

I mean actually go to work 5 days and week, 8 hours a day, and do their jobs? Are they just incompetent, lazy, stupid? I have several CDC workers that live around me, in very high paying jobs. They are never at work, go in late, leave early, shop during work hours, and take weeks of vacation, not to mention trips out of town for work, booked at the last minute and highest airfares, and they stay at expensive hotels. They will go 2-4 times a month for 1 day.

The Immigration Applications can't get processed in a remotely timely fashion. There is a huge backlog, and it is part of the list of excuses on why illegals should be allowed to just hang out and work in this country.

Now it is a couple of years before Disability Claims can be reviewed, and this is for really sick or injured folks. This has been making the news today, and Georgia is the worst offender. Million of folks will not get the disability they paid for and worked for, and many more cannot even get consideration. One guy was turned down who was paralyzed by surgery gone wrong. They say he was not injured "enough". He lost his house and he and his family moved in with his parents.

I guess we have so many Fed and State workers on the Immigration issue, and a bunch of those folks, are also dealing with getting literature and signage written in Spanish.

Lord knows, we have more than enough Government workers on the Payroll. They seem to just get worse. I am afraid to even use the US Postal Service in Atlanta, they are idiots. I have lived in the same place since 1991 and they can't get my mail right. Can they even read?

bootsalinda -

1. I too am one of those Federal employees - albeit, a former one - and have seen how 'the system' works up close. While it is tempting to vent one's frustration with a fairly 'wide brush', there is certainly a large degree of variability of types of people in all sorts of Federal jobs. The particular organization I logged the most time in, is considered the largest governmental organization on the planet (well, maybe until China's recent boom). Anyhow, please do keep in mind that many of these Federal bureaucracies are enormous in size and have many 'vertical' layers as well.

2. Please remember also, that we have several people that are current or former Fed employees here that are good participants and supporters of ALIPAC and our cause. So, by default, they do deserve the benefit of the doubt as well. Many work very hard and most aren't getting paid all that well.

3. Now, having dispensed with the CYA/standard disclaimer type stuff, well, there certainly *is* a host of reasons while an typical onlooker would look on the situation and come away with some fairly cynical impressions.
There *are* lazy, incompetent, people who's only interest in going to work everyday is collecting the direct deposit at the end/beginning of every month. Most are good people; some are so-so, and an even smaller group are just plain bad - it's like anything I suppose.
The upper range of GS (civ. pay scale) 1-2 is barely starvation pay, and at the upper end of the range is about 100-120k for your highest level agency personnel (GS-14s, GS-15s). Those positions are rather rare, and most Fed. employees have jobs rated in the GS-5 to about GS12 range. Most Fed employees make enough to survive, but few are doing really well. The people that live by you are probably GS-11, GS-12, GS-13 professional folks, with a fair amount of tenure in the system.
Generally, the role of tenure is a real hallmark for many gov't jobs. My experience is that such thing is important, but tends to be overemphasized for a lot of career track occupations. Having competent people that work hard and learn fast can be just as good as a large degree of experience I thought was desirable. There are a lot of really entrenched people that sort of 'hunker down' and use the tenure as a sort of 'protective shield' against other folks in their particular work group (for fear of their position, largely, but other reasons as well...)

Sort of related...
Another commonly perpetuated myth is that 'downsizing' and 'outsourcing' regular FT government employees jobs yields money savings - it can, but by my experience, it is usually not the case.

What typically happens is this: the agency 'eliminating a position' (or needing to add some temporary staff due to particular project, workflow, new law, etc), enters into this byzantine process/search to find the appropriate agency / other branch of a Fed agency, by which funds for a documented position can be shuffled in/around, and then that entity then either 'goes shopping' (as in the previous) for either a). another agency to shuffle the funds to actually hire the desired person, or b). the shuffling is perpetuated yet another time .... and, finally, at some point the shuffling ends and a person is hired. Of course, people don't take the time and trouble to do this for nothing, and every time the funds are supposed to changeover, a surcharge is basically added. So, to summarize in other words, one government agency/dept. contacts another one, ...etc., to 'hire' (a contract or temporary employee) and in the process, there is WAY TOO much paperwork and processing, and it ends up costing more as well. The whole thing was quite ridiculous!

I had witnessed cases whereby the time someone was actually hired into a contract position to do a FTE job (of course, because a full FTE regular Federal position wasn't allowed within the local agency's management)...
it ended up costing roughly 150%-160% of what an outright direct Federal hire would have cost. Of course, the layers of nonsense imposed by the OPM and their HR/hiring requirements do little to streamline the process as well.

My 0.02.

HTH,

I wanted to get a County of Los Angeles job when I lived in LA....I scored 96% on the test....but I couldn't be hired because I was not bilingual Spanish....I am bilingual German...but that didn't count.....

Interesting Phred. I don't mean to infer that all of the workers are bad, it just seems as a collective, no one is there, it is no ones job, they don't know who can help you, etc.

The folks I know are young people, that cannot have much tenure. They drive fancy cars, own their homes, etc.

Are you saying that the whole system is just too damned big and bloated to be effective? So what is the solution?

I have a couple of friends that used to be Fed Workers, but quit. They said that they were given a very hard time for trying to do a good job and be efficient. Many times they were told to ignore coworkers that were not doing their jobs. They were frustrated, and felt "dumbed down".

boots - Yeah, about how old are they?

Overall, I do see what you mean. There certainly is a lot of apathy and 'hey, that's someone else's problem' type attitude prevalent too.

I am probably closer to the latter group you describe - try to go in, work as hard as possible to get the job done (often, with resistance and active interference from those around and above you), and never ask for any special treatment along with the way. Of course, the sheer suffocating bureaucracy to just about ANY federal job is horrendous. I worked with a guy that did a lot of interpreting Fed. environmental regulations - I asked him one day:
"hey <you>, don't you ever have to stop and read up on all the changes in law to do your job?"

His answer: "<me>, if I did that, I'd never be able to close the book/manuals and actually get out of the office and do my job".

The complexity of many professional Fed jobs is punishing in many, maybe most, cases.

Another big problem, surrounds the idea of incentives / motivation / promoting up those who truly deserve to 'rise' through the bureaucratic maze. Just one bad manager can monkey-wrench all his/her subordinates. There is little way to go around such a problem and get it fixed. If even 'fixable', that usually doesn't happen for a period of years.
Many times, the 'worker grunts' are smarter than the managers which direct them. This creates all sorts of problems, but they are particularly acute in the Fed system where tenure is the all-important measure.

(again, all IMHO)...

Oh the stories I could tell here...

When my children were in elementary school, I made a decision to leave private industry and work a 9am-3pm job for a government agency. I worked there 7 months and left because I did absolutely nothing during those 7 months and I could not stand being idle. At this agency, you could count on at least once a week, being invited to a baby share, a birthday party, a retirement party, all held during working hours at a local military base's NCO club. I'm not insinuating that all government agencies or workers are like the experience I had, but from what I saw at this government agency, I witnessed a lot of employees being paid to do nothing.

mean actually go to work 5 days and week, 8 hours a day, and do their jobs? Are they just incompetent, lazy, stupid? I have several CDC workers that live around me, in very high paying jobs. They are never at work, go in late, leave early, shop during work hours, and take weeks of vacation, not to mention trips out of town for work, booked at the last minute and highest airfares, and they stay at expensive hotels. They will go 2-4 times a month for 1 day.

The higher up the food chain you go... the more autonomy you have as long as you get the job done.. no clock punching.. but Government jobs are unique.. you do not have to produce.. Think Union.. The government works just like a Union System.. (good and bad)

The other day I was returning home and I followed a Federal Gov't Licensed vehicle.

I find this quite a bit - example: the posted speed limit is 35 but the vehicle is moving at 25-30 -

but what really irritates me is

I find that it's my neighbor WHO FREQUENTLY SPEEDS by the house in his own personal vehicle (at least 10 mph OVER the limit).

I suppose that even if a governmental employee does want to do a better job for the public there are going to be training, protocol and legal issues that could work against that intention. But attitude counts, since this is a relationship of trust---and many government employees seem to have a jaded or cynical attitute rather than a sincere, helpful one.

Is it just me, but it seems that state capitals have an overwhelmingly liberal community that sets the tone for the entire town? I guess all of those government agnecies geared to help the "disadvantaged" eventually set the character--and attitudes --within the local community.

What is a government job? It is administrative paperwork or social work that includes teachers, postal workers, tax collectors, social workers, policemen and the peace corp..and government work projects like bicycle paths and bridges to nowhere..and ..cleaning and caring for government property
The issue with Government Workers is..too much of our work force is working government jobs..selling paper for fees fines penalties or taxes..or working to "help" people who are needy..
Government Office workers may do their jobs, may work very hard, may be conscientious workers who really care..
BUT..what do any of these "Workers" Produce that we can Trade to the Taiwanese for Stoves..or the Saudi's for Oil..?
The government workers do not produce food, clothes, machinery, or any tangible item of worth..
This government is going bankrupt because..more than half of all payroll monies are government checks for work or welfare..
The government pays a worker $100 dollars a week..taxes the pay $10..and has to pay that worker with the collected, collective $10 dollars..
That is Government $$$ deficit..and the person who collects the check buys his shoes, clothes and food from foriegn countries..that is Trade $$$ deficit..
Now ..a foriegn national builds and maintains the house the government worker lives in..
Government "workers" are not productive in real terms ..and that is the problem..We are now importing workers to produce real things because the government creates "administrative" jobs like a sponge to soak up our workers..
It is insanity when a man/boy is working for Ecuadorean farmers in the Peace Corp while his father is hiring illegals to work on his farm. The 29 years old boy wants to be a Social Worker to "migrants" who are "working" in Los Angeles when he comes home..and Social Worker is another government job..
When Kennedy was elected President the US had the strongest manufacturing/military base in the World with a population of 173 million..