I thought So Many People Where Looking For Work

[MTK]

There are incompetent, overpaid and lazy folks in just about every line of work. Why do gov't employees specifically get people so fired up??

[firstdown]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

There are incompetent, overpaid and lazy folks in just about every line of work. Why do gov't employees specifically get people so fired up??

I have 5 friends that work for the goverment and 4 of them will tell you they are under worked and could do their job working 2 days a week. The 5th you can find every Friday morning on the golf course working his ass off and he will tell you so after each hole. I'm not saying all goverment workers are lazy they just do what they are given.

What incentives are they given to work harder and get more done? They might do that when first hired then the other get them in line. LOL

[firstdown]

Good news I got another job application in today. I guess the guy has had several changes sense he first wrote his resume because he srached through stuff and hand wrote over the scratched out words. Maybe he sent me the rough draft in error.LOL

[Daseal]

I have 5 friends that work for the goverment and 4 of them will tell you they are under worked and could do their job working 2 days a week. The 5th you can find every Friday morning on the golf course working his ass off and he will tell you so after each hole. I'm not saying all goverment workers are lazy they just do what they are given.

What incentives are they given to work harder and get more done? They might do that when first hired then the other get them in line. LOL

I work on site at a government site, and I see some of this. There seems to be a correlation between age and amount of shits they give towards their job. They young govies are motivated, hard working, and really trying to make a positive change. Where I work we have a forum where people are constantly posting ideas to save the taxpayer money. They actually care about the taxpayer, because they're taxpayers too.

Now, not all of the older members are lazy and have 'given up,' especially the ones that are division heads or higher. To me, one of the most unfortunate things I see in government is people being forced into positions they don't fit. They slam a round peg in a square hole because of pay brackets, levels, experience, etc. I constantly see non-technical people in technical roles -- and often that is not because of choice, it's because they've been placed there.

A lot of the govies I know are hard workers and want to do a great job and make this country a better place for everyone. Those of us in DC know that the traffic gets a lot lighter Friday, that's just not people being lazy. Many govies work a staggered work schedule where they work either 9 or 10 hour days then get every other or every Friday off. I've worked that schedule before and it's awesome. It seems that working more hours in one day with the promise of others off increases productivity.

That said, I've had tons of govies tell me they prefer to have contractors on staff rather than government employees. Why? Because you can say "I don't like him/her, get him/her out." to the contract lead and that person is gone. Getting rid of a government worker is not that easy. To me they need to change the way government folks are paid. Drive, work ethic, and knowledge should be rewarded more than time served. Make promotions rely less on years of experience and more on how the person has performed in their current role and if they're ready for a bigger challenge. I'm not saying experience isn't valuable, but I think it is inflated in the work place, especially when that is a primary factor.

All of my experience with govies are based on higher level organizations. I'm not sure how state/local employees are, but in my time with DOD, DEA, and DOS I've seen some hard workers.

[MTK]

Depends on the gov't agency. My wife is a state worker and she is definitely not underworked. Not in the least bit. If anything her dept. is understaffed and seriously overworked.

[MTK]

Originally Posted by firstdown

Good news I got another job application in today. I guess the guy has had several changes sense he first wrote his resume because he srached through stuff and hand wrote over the scratched out words. Maybe he sent me the rough draft in error.LOL

Sounds like your kind of guy!

[cpayne5]

All Feds are a bunch of deadbeats!

I'm a Fed. I have been for three years (was a contractor for 6 years before that). I like to think that the taxpayer gets their money's worth out of me. There are a lot of Feds out there like me. There is also a fair number of deadbeats, but that exists in the private sector as well.

[cpayne5]

Originally Posted by Daseal

...
That said, I've had tons of govies tell me they prefer to have contractors on staff rather than government employees. Why? Because you can say "I don't like him/her, get him/her out." to the contract lead and that person is gone. Getting rid of a government worker is not that easy.
...

Absolutely. Easy to get in the building, easy to kick out of the building. We've got two government employees that we'd love to get rid of, but as long as they have a pulse it's nearly impossible to do so. I can sneeze and blow a contractor out of the building and never think twice about it. Getting rid of government employed deadweight takes an act of Congress (not really, but much more involved).

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by cpayne5

Absolutely. Easy to get in the building, easy to kick out of the building. We've got two government employees that we'd love to get rid of, but as long as they have a pulse it's nearly impossible to do so. I can sneeze and blow a contractor out of the building and never think twice about it. Getting rid of government employed deadweight takes an act of Congress (not really, but much more involved).

Any insight on why that is? I ask just out of curiosity.

Last year I had to force someone out of my organization, which took a lot of documentation and forethought into how to properly build the case for putting them on a performance improvement plan, etc. But I found it workable. I'm in a private sector not-for-profit.

I'm just curious why it's so much harder in the government ranks.

[cpayne5]

Here's an article that touches the subject...
PolitiFact | Firing federal workers is difficult

[MTK]

Well, their hiring process is ridiculous and drawn out so it's not crazy to assume their firing process is as well. The union makes things sticky too.

[Schneed10]

Originally Posted by cpayne5

Here's an article that touches the subject...
PolitiFact | Firing federal workers is difficult

Thanks that was helpful.

[mlmpetert]

My brother used to work for a larger engineering firm in the DC area. It wasnt a huge fortune 500 company but it wasnt a small company by any means. Firing someone there was also extremely difficult because they basically determined they would rather pay for a bad employee then take their chances in court or have a civil suit affect their name. He told me a story of this extremely obese lady who was a horrible employee. After years of people wanting to get rid of her she was about to be fired when she was tipped off by another lady in the company. She went home sick that day and immediately filed for disability due to her obesity. The company was too scared to fire her while she was on disability, so they couldn’t do anything until she came back like a year later. I guess my thoughts are its hard for govt to fire people but its can also be hard for large companies to fire people even if for different reasons.

[mlmpetert]

Originally Posted by Mattyk

There are incompetent, overpaid and lazy folks in just about every line of work. Why do gov't employees specifically get people so fired up??

Because we are forced to pay for them no matter how much hate their services or products. If you hate the customer service you get when you call Dell you can buy an Apple. If you think the nuggets at McDonalds suck you can go to Wendys. If you hate dealing with the DMV, IRS, VDOT or other government agencies you cant do anything but keep paying…..

[firstdown]

The girl who left my office and the reason I started this thread died Friday and I was pretty shocked as she was only 48. From what I heard she had not been feeling well and finally on Thursday she got so bad they took her to the hospital where she went directly on to life support. Some kind of a virus got her and was shutting down her organs.