Who gives a ### what anything else thinks but you?
Hit back hard if you feel you need to.
I’m always doing it as a blue stater in NY when I see comments i dont like.
If you’re useful, then you’re in the minority of fed workers that are and would be kept on board.
A little bit whiny for an ex military guy, imho.
But thanks for your service.
Military personnel are government workers, of sorts... I like them, even the old timers.
Nothing wrong with government workers, some of them are good, some of them are not so good.
They’re people.
You are a GS five and you’re scraping by at $24,000?
Bull cheese. I looked at the pay scale. Even a step one is at 28,495. Hell is that even minimum-wage?
Some are necessary, military, law enforcement, treasury. But almost everything else could be done on a more local level.
And, while many are dedicated, there are too many who couldn’t possibly hold any job in the public sector who are GS-12 step something. That’s a really nice living, and I can completely see how there’s resentment to that.
So, like everything else, vast, sweeping statements condemning or praising entire groups of people will most assuredly always be wrong.
Government needs workers also. It is up to congress to determine the depth and breadth of government workers task (according to the constitution).
I’m a 24-year Navy vet and now have almost 30 years in the private sector. Have worked with many fine Federal civilian employees, and I suspect you’re one of them. My heartburn is that there are way too many civilians (huge govt.), they are illegally unionized, and it’s difficult to get rid of bad apples in such a seniority-based system. If it were a non-union, merit-based system, I’d bet you’d be running the show at your base. Stay with FR, despite the few jerks.
Know how you feel, my husband is a retired GM employee. As long as a person is of high integrity of does not matter the employment.
I have family and friends that work for state government. Not the federal government, but still a branch on the same topic tree.
They, like you, are good people. They also, unlike me, enjoy benefits (days off for holidays, sick days, stubbed toe days, obscure holiday holidays, yadda yadda), paid-for health-care and the promise of a decent pension that I can but dream about.
I’ve been told I “should go work for the state”, but I try (and often fail) to explain that I, the self-employed guy, should be able to make it on my own and not have the taxpayers (me again) funding a plush lifestyle and retirement. State and federal workers, while necessary in many cases, are an expense. I, the self-employed guy, produce the income and they are a draw on that income.
I don’t hate them and I don’t hate you. I hate a government that has created a class of elites that enjoy privileges and security that the private sector, the folks who are the backbone of the economy, will never see. We need government, but a government that is limited to necessaries, not a congressman’s dopey cousin who needs a job and gets a make-work position in some cavernous federal bureaucracy.
It has just gotten out of hand. That abomination of a budget is the latest example. We cannot pay for all of this. Don’t even get me started on social unsecurity. I am forced to pay nicely into that fund and likely will never see a penny back, and that really pisses me off. I could do better with that money on my own.
I’m a civilian federal government worker. Most but not all of the people I work with are leftists, and I don’t work for the EPA or CFPB. It’s not that too many people are outspoken about it but just picking up cues.
My attitude is leaving my job won’t shrink the size of government. It’ll just get filled by someone else, perhaps another leftist.
If I knew that voting for any particular Republican would mean the end of my job, I’d still vote for him or her. The county is more important than policies that would personally benefit me to the detriment of most other Americans. That said, I probably won’t have much to worry about since we control both formally political branches and can’t even defund Planned Auschwitzhood.
I don’t hate government workers. They are necessary.
I simply think there are far, far too many of them.
And government unions are an abomination.
I don’t think gov workers should be unionized.
I think bad gov employees should be easily fired.
I think the number of gov employees should be downsized, by attrition mostly.
I have no problem with hard-working gov employees filling a useful position.
Freep on gov worker!
I have government workers in my family and as a contractor had thousands of interchanges with local code officials to Corp of Engineers staff and management people.
There is good and bad in every field and I found few in these fields outside of California that were overpaid.
The pension options are and always have been somewhat too fulsome. It is perhaps a trade off for the working conditions and regulations.
I have served on public boards, appeals boards, and Master Plan Commissions, so as an unpaid “government worker” I guess I qualify.
The big difference is in the private sector, an asshole is usually an asshole in his own company, rather self-limiting. In a government organization, an asshole can exist that way almost forever with no corrective action and thereby they become legendary.
Get a real job.
I do not have a bad opinion about government workers - it’s just that about 2/3 of them are not needed. With the exception of the military.
I am a govy too, and I wouldn’t look for validation here or anywhere else. Focus on the real problems we have. Dont react to those with a screw loose.
I think you have to look at core functions. It sounds like you are direct support for the Military, which is a function specifically covered by the Constitution. Unless you are part of a legacy program that is no longer needed or a boondoggle program set up by an earmark for some limp d!ck legislator, then you are part of what makes this the greatest country on Earth.
If you were working in a blatantly unnecessary branch, like education or health and human services, that would probably be a whole nuther issue.
If you can look at your job and say that you are contributing to a vital, Constitutional function of the Federal Government, then God Bless you and thanks for serving your Country. My two cents anyway...
Why do I doubt you’ll post back?
Plenty of government workers are lazy drones.
Do well in your job and what do you care what anyone thinks?
If the attack is direct, that’s an issue. If the attack specifically states that ALL government employees are bad, that’s ignorance. If the attack is a generalization, take it as such. Quantifying a general observation about injustices does not need a qualifier of ‘not all government workers are inept, not all FBI is crooked, not all mexicans are rapists’ etc. Most understand this without the qualifiers.
I hope you decide to continue to partake on FR and benefit from the insightful feedback and knowledge shared.
“I am a GS-05 and I barely scrape in $24,000 a year. “
Is that salary amount an error?
( I have never knocked government workers so that question has no hidden meaning.)
.