I spent 24 years active duty and working around civil service folks and another 15 in the civil service - it's nuts to take 9 months or better to get rid of the dead weight/undesirables that makes the rest look bad. We had one guy that was talking animal sex to students and it took his inept "supervisor" 16 months to complete the process of removing him - despite him having a handful of other "issues".
Yes I have been but not the whole off my career. My auntie was.
Getting rid of all civil service employees at a change of government means you lose good workers for no good reason. Is it hard to get rid of bad employee Said? Yup. That is true through out the work force these days