Every time I post that I always hear My this or My that or I worked.
I realize that was a very general statement. I worked at the Pentagon most of the time I worked for the government.
I worked for the Army, Air Force and a short time for the Navy (quite few different places).
I have worked for Major Generals, Colonels, Lt Colonels, Captains .
For a long time I worked in an office where there were Wing Commanders (the equivalent of Lt Colonels) who were right out of the British Embassy. They were from Australia, New Zealand and England. Also in that office was a Sergeant who worked directly for his boss (another Colonel)
Like I said, I have a lot of friends who worked at the Pentago especially.
Obviously, there are people who work (hard) for the government. But there are a lot who don't.
Look! Every year I was up for a promotion, no matter what I did. I moved down the line every year, no matter what I did.
I could have been promoted even higher if I'd been willing to go into D.C. but I was young and knew I had no intention of working forever.
Ride by the Pentagon on a nice Spring or Summer day and you'll see lots and lots of people running around the basin. Most of those are government workers....on their lunch hour.
I cannot begin to tell you how many times we'd be looking for someone and it would be, "Where's John Smith"? "Oh! I forgot! He's taking another of his 1 1/2 hours lunch". There were places where they could come in and shower, etc.
Now in those cases I'm mainly talking about the GS-16, GS18, etc. Also the higher ranking (Major, etc).
My point is there are people who work for the government who would have a tough time on the 'outside'.
I've seen people promoted who showed up every day, sure, moved papers around, and always, always left at exactly 5:00PM.
I cannot remember seeing many people working past 5:00 in the afternoon.
Now you must remember this was back in the mid 60's and up until I quit in around 1974.
I'm sure there are always people who work hard at their job....
But I've seen many who just show up and never give more than they have to.
It's very, very hard to get fired from the govenment. Very, very hard.
Hummm??
https://www.dailysignal.com/2018/07/19/firing-a-bad-federal-employee-may-get-a-little-easier/
Holding federal employees accountable is essentially impossible. They have the highest job security of any sector of the economy. In fact, out of a federal non-military workforce of 2.1 million, only 11,046 persons—or 0.5 percent—were fired in 2017.
One reason for this is the cumbersome process managers must endure to fire a single employee. Multiple appeals involving as many as four separate agencies, as well as union representatives, are not uncommon. This process can last years even in the most cut-and-dry cases.
Faced with such obstacles, federal managers often let misconduct go unaddressed.
But two bills moving through Congress now would make it much easier for federal managers to take action when an employee is simply not getting the job done. The Modern Employment Reform, Improvement, and Transformation (MERIT) Act and the Merit Systems Protection Board (MSPB) Reauthorization Act would strip away several layers of red tape that insulate federal employees from accountability.
The cost of unaddressed misconduct and poor performance is hard to calculate. Not only do bad employees draw a paycheck, but permit applications fall through the cracks, welfare fraud goes undetected, and government projects run over budget because of employee negligence. All of that creates a drag on the economy.
Not only do American people deserve better, but so do diligent and competent public servants. Good workers do not want to be dragged down or asked to pick up the slack for bad employees. In fact, when President Donald Trump recently issued three executive orders that made it easier to fire poorly performing government employees, a majority of public-sector workers were on board.
Don’t be surprised if good public-sector employees are the catalysts for the sort of reforms members of Congress are attempting to implement.
So,basically, what I gather from the article is there is hope for getting rid of government workers who don't do their job.
How might it happen (i.e. easier to get rid of them) might come from the workers who do their job and see the slackers as giving THEM a bad name.
That's the same thing as any work place. A few people who don't do their job affects other's.
At one time or another (in recent years) those running for President have announced they would lower work force of the Federal government.
https://www.careerproplus.com/blog/presidential-politics-and-the-federal-workforce-what-happens-if/
I have heard many stories about people who don't do their job (government employee). Rather than even try to get them fired, they end up being sent somewhere else (often resulting in a promotion).
I don't know how familiar you are with the way the federal government works (I assume it's the same) but periodically (forget how often, but it's clockwork) you don't move a grade up (like GS-4 to GS5); but you will move along in that grade (resulting in more money).
My point to all of this is I've always felt that people who work in the private sector (no matter what the job is) work harder at their jobs than a lot of those employed by the federal government.
I'm not talking about the higher grades. I'm also not talking about the lower grades. I'm talking about mid-level employees.
Myself and several of my friends worked at one time or another for Generals (1, 2 and 3 stars). I don't know personally anyone who works for a 4 star general, but I do know people (myself) who worked for the lower stars. We/they can tell you most of the people who did the work (paperwork, etc) were the lower ranking secretaries.
People who sat "in the front office" were the gate keepers. We kept people from bothering the Generals, took care of their day to day business. Those people who gave us the papers to give to the Generals to sign, they did most of the work.
Most of those people (speaking generally here, remember that) were say, a GS-6 or maybe some GS-5's, a few GS-7's.
Again, there are very few people who do most of the work in the government (AT THE PENTAGON) who stay past 5:00 unless they go in later.
I have a few friends who were in the office at 6:00AM and worked 10 hour days so they could get Friday's off.
I'm sure everyone and THEIR friends and family worked very hard.
Again...get it...again...I am generalizing. I worked most of my time employed by the federal government in the Pentagon.
At the Pentagon Generals are coming out of the woodwork. There are so many Generals there one gets used to seeing them.
Whereas out in the 'field' on bases a General is a big deal in that he often runs the base.
A General who ran Vandenberg AFB in California used to come into our office all of the time. At Vandenberg he was a big deal but at the Pentago, there were lots of them.
Anyway, what I said was a sweeping generalization. I do see a lot of waste (manpower, etc) living in this area.
My family goes back 4 generations living in the DC/Va area. So I'm very familiar with the government, etc.
I've never felt the private sector gets the credit they deserve.
But then when was the last time someone thanked a farmer or people who work on the oil rigs, or anyone who works hard manual labor? I'm as guilty as anyone.
If a person doesn't do his or her job in the private sector, they're fired.
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