this post was submitted on 16 Oct 2023
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In my experience, civil sector jobs suffer greatly from the Peter Principle. Aside from bennies and pension, perks are shit (coffee? water? buy your own). And departments are heavily balkanized and have SERIOUSLY obsessive control freak issues. That's before you get into the arcane paperwork. Oh, and in many cases, the general public is so anal about spending money that you should consider yourself lucky if you have a work party of any kind.
You are correct. It is definitely not a flashy career option. However, if someone is unable to get ahead financially, but then turns down that government IT job because "I have to buy my own coffee", then they are their own worst enemy. They're the reason they're drowning.
Yup. I am an engineer and have worked government and private sector. Private sector pays way more and is more exciting because of the hugely reduced bureaucracy. If you have a fun career you love government can really kill the passion.
But if your goal is stable employment with good work/life balance and guaranteed raises? Government is fantastic.
I haven’t found a WFH government position, so even the work-life balance is terrible.
When I was in government my work life balance coming into the office two days a week was better than now when I am working full time WFH in private industry, so I guess that’s very subjective.
At NASA they regularly told us, “the rocket won’t crash if you clock out at 40 hours. Go home to your families.” A lot of government positions you could literally just check out and sleep all day for weeks at a time and nobody will even notice.
As long as it's not in meetings, I guess 😂
@RandomPancake Okay, but the flip side is how long said person can survive in that environment. I lasted two months. 😂
And it wasn't things like no coffee or the "water clubs," it was things like an inept manager, the nonsensical tasks, the sheer inability to get any resources, the butting heads with hoardy other teams, and the best part, the manager's brain-numbingly boring meetings where she simply read from her own badly made powerpoints that put me to sleep.
So it ain't for everyone :)
That sounds like it could be just about any job, but it's the opposite of what I've experienced in civil service. I'm glad you found someplace you like better!
Just like any other job, entirely dependent on your particular unit/department and manager. In the US Fed gov't there's a huge difference between working for CBP, civil Marines, and NASA, just to name 3 random agencies.
The difference with the feds is that you get a basically predictable paycheck (as long as Congress does its damn job), health benefits that make life habitable, the best possible version of a 401k around (TSP), and you're extraordinarily unlikely to get downsized.
Last I checked, the plurality of civilian federal employees make GS-13, which in 2023 was between $98k and $153k depending on where you were located, and how long you've been at that pay-grade. It's not an overwhelming plurality, butnit's not unusual to promote into a GS-13, and then hang out there for most of your career.
Retirement is a three-legged stool: your TSP (aka 401k), Social Security, and a small pension. People hired before 1985 were the ones who got the sweet fat pensions, but it doesn't work that way anymore.