Posted on 02/09/2018 7:43:30 PM PST by ducttape45
I am writing this partially because I really want to know where the Freeper community stands on a whole on the issue of government workers and partially because of my disgust for certain members of the Freeper community.
There is a member on a another post who I won't mention (but who I'm sure will make his/her presence known here) who thinks that just because I work for the federal government that I should be forced from my job and unto the streets begging for money. This person apparently has a very low opinion of anyone who works for the US government. Over the past several years I've encountered many more like this person.
Yes, I work for Uncle Sam, but I am also a military veteran of 10 years (United States Air Force), and I've been in the employ of the US Government at a local military base supporting first a civil engineering squadron and now an air refueling squadron.
I do not make a whole of lot money. I am a GS-05 and I barely scrape in $24,000 a year. I'm paying on bills that I racked up helping to put my kids through college. I do not regret ever doing that because they are all very successful now in their adult lives, yet, as a single father I barely have two nickels to rub together most of the time. So to hear Freepers wish me "out on the streets or working at McDonalds and Walmart" just because they hate the government so much, I feel like I'm being lumped in with the crooks on Capital Hill. The vitriol that has been spewed at me by members of the Free Republic community has been nothing less than totally disgusting, yet at the same time I give credit to the many who have been very supportive.
Now don't get me wrong, yes, I know there ARE crooks on Capital Hill. I will be the first person to agree with you. I've seen folks here locally take advantage of the system. They have two retirements going and are still working part time racking in the dough. Yes, it's wrong, and I'll be the first person to stand up and say so. That's also part of the reason why I'm still a GS-05 because many years ago I dared to stand up to the system and have been kept from promoting ever since. I see the cronyism and nepotism that takes places on a government installation and it sickens me to the core of my being. Yet, I'm being lumped in with them. I see the wasteful spending going on, yet I'm being lumped in with them. I see people working in positions they have no business working in, while people (like myself) are being kept from being in positions they are more than qualified for because we don't suck up to higher management, yet I'm being lumped in with them. I see the evil in people like Chuck Schumer, Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, Obama and his boyfriend Michael, yet I'm being lumped in with them when I'm nothing like them nor will I never be!
So it's reckoning time, members of Free Republic. Do you honestly feel that every single person who works for the federal government is evil? Is this "guilt by association?" Are folks like myself to be branded as "less than human" because we work in an office or in a capacity that many of you find reprehensible? If so, and if people like me are not welcome here, then I'll leave Free Republic. There are many great people here, to be sure, and if I am forced to leave because of the bad apples then I will be the less for it, but I will not tolerate the hateful attitudes and insults of those bad applies any longer if those feelings are representative of Free Republic on a whole.
It's time to make your positions known. Are you anti-government to the point where you could care less for the good people who work within government, or do you have the capacity to realize not everyone who works for the US Government is out to scam and steal from the tax payer and is just trying to make an honest living?
Taxpayers are weary of government programs, agencies, or departments that do unnecessary tasks employing too many people or hiring too many contract workers.
This is what happens when Congress and the President over many decades refuse to make the decisions to eliminate, reorganize, or downsize programs, agencies, or departments.
Trump may want to ‘Drain the Swamp’, but he is opposed by both parties in Congress and the government and contractor employees who fight to make no changes.
You won't hear me say that. Anybody who gets up and puts on a DoC uniform every day and goes into that snake pit deserves the highest level of respect. I do (sort of) agree with the sentiment that I don't care what happens inside the walls, as long as the prisoners are kept inside, but I certainly don't want the officers getting hurt (not that I get a vote).
Ducttape - two thoughts. I reveal literally almost nothing about myself on this forum, because while we are all of a similar mindset, there are still morons who think that the relative anonymity of the internet gives them license to say whatever thoughtless, mean spirited things they feel like. And if they do insult something you believe in or that you do or hold dear, let it go. They may be clearly raging morons who are completely wrong, but the "keyboard commando" making that comment would almost certainly never have the courage to say it to your face. Just MHO.
I still regard public service as exactly that- a duty that one undertakes for your country and community. My thought is that it is better to have conservative people working in government, because realistically, someone will be, despite the pot-addled fulminations of a libertarian dung heap behind a keyboard. As Winston Churchill noted, “Where there is free speech, there is also a good deal of foolish speech”. My profession is one that gets regularly trashed here on FR but I keep coming here, as it is a pretty good source for news.
Gorenment workers. A misnomer if I’ve ever seen one.
There are plenty of good people working for the government. It's a job. In my book you're welcome here or anywhere. Now if you're taking bribes, or working with Russians to take down President Trump, or rigging elections like some democrats do - then I'd have a problem.. But I suspect you're NOT doing any of those things.. so relax and stay...
Over 50 years in the workforce I’ve been in local government a few of those years, in different cities. There are good workers and there are bad. My observation is that the good ones move on, and the bad ones are glued to the chairs they believe they “own”. The bad ones are protected by the administration because they toe the line, don’t make waves, and don’t question things that are wasteful or make no sense. The good ones try to change things for the better, and that rocks the boat; they will be punished.
My friend worked in the Mayor’s office and assembled packets for City Council. She’d receive documents submitted for review, printed double-sided. She had to take the docs, and RE-print single sided. She had the nerve to ask why, and was told that the Council members might not think to look at the other side of the paper. She asked, “Do they read books?” Not a wise career move. It was “insubordination” and, and she was decreed to have a bad attitude. (A couple months later she quit and found a “real” job in private enterprise.)
Disturbing, but not surprising, unfortunately.
20 years Air Force Meteorologist, retired
12 years Air Force contract employee
almost 10 years in National weather Service
So, I have been a government employee since getting out of Community College. I probably have 2 more years in NWS because they are shutting down my station to save money.
I’ll be going on Social Security when that happens.
Screw what other people think of you, me and every other government employee.
I’ve worked military, DoD, intel, federal, State, city, and county governments.
My take: Lowest Common Denominator (LCD).
Things progress only as the slowest and dumbest among them do. Politics means far more than productivity.
American corporations are doing the same thing: LCD.
No longer are we seeing the best and brightest, only “Get along to move along”.
GS-5 Pay Scale
$28,945 1 year
$29,910 3 years
$30,875 5 years
$31,840 7 years
$32,805 9 years
$33,770 11 years
$34,735 13 years
$35,700 15 years
$36,665 17 years
$37,630 19 years
And trust me, I do. I just came back from working a Saturday shift I normally do not have to do, but with the problems the IT infrastructure has been giving us I felt it prudent to go in and oversee things in case there were any issues.
I will always do my very best for whoever I work for, whether they deserve it or not. It's what the Lord commands of us, and I would feel remiss in my duties to do otherwise.
I hear ya there. I can point my finger at many folks on the installation I work at that fit that mold. There was a position that I applied for three times, got referred to three times, but was never chosen. I have the qualifications for the position but others got chosen who never had the quals for it.
That same job came open again, but because I was now being kept from promoting because I exposed the incompetent management running the civil engineering unit, and they knowing I wanted that job, they changed the hiring criteria so that I couldn't apply for it. They hired someone else instead who was a favorite of the top engineer who was about to be fired elsewhere on the base because of her incompetence (coincidentally in the squadron I now work). Their rational for hiring her; "she's good with details."
The thing is, no one knew they changed the hiring criteria until after the job announcement was listed and we were puzzled as to why because there was no reason (or so we thought) for doing that.
After the selection was made, and several of us found out "who" was hired, we were all absolutely irate. I was so livid I gathered up my stuff and I was getting ready to walk off the job and quit. I was that mad. The only thing that kept me from walking off the job was my immediate supervisor who physically restrained me. It took him and another co-worker. I was that furious.
So yeah, I totally get where you're coming from. Those kind of hiring shenanigans shouldn't be allowed to happen and that's part of what gives federal employees a bad name to the American public. But most of us should not be lumped in with those kind of people. We are not the bad apples.
I work at a military base for an air refueling squadron supporting aircrews, pilots and boom operators.
Not sure I’ll even dignify your response with an answer other than what you just got unless you can ask an intelligent question and not the gibberish you shared.
Thank you for your kind words.
Thanks for your kind words.
I hear ya, and I totally agree! Other than providing for a national defense and currency, the gubermint shouldn't have their hands in anything else!
Thank you for your kind words as well!
Hear, hear!
Aging workforce shaped like a mushroom top, and will not, nor can be forced to leave so that fresh out (new/young) talent can get in. Older workforce is reluctant to train the new workforce. See my comment about Knowledge is Power.
That pretty much sums up the old digs at the civil engineering complex at the installation where I work. The top guy won't retire even though he's clearly over the hill, hasn't been in his right mind in many years (he was caught standing on top of a GSA vehicle trimming tree branches thereby violating several regulations yet only given a 3-day unpaid vacation), is the guy who is singularly responsible for the crony hirings in the building, and has driven off every engineer under him who wanted to advance but couldn't because he won't retire (he's 78) and has purposely denied every opportunity for them to get a job elsewhere because he won't give them a good reference.
It's folks like that who clearly give federal employees a bad name.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.