Gov't Wants Techies to Play Musical Chairs

dsoltesz writes "Legislation that's been in the works to put a program in place to allow government techies to trade places with private sector counterparts for six to twelve month stints, just passed in the House. The government seems to be on the winning end of the Digital Tech Corps Act, until perhaps, the government IT workers realize the grass really is greener on the corporate side of the fence... If the bill makes it, it will be interesting to see if the concept actually gets implemented."

Comments

Hm...

[NeoSkandranon]

What happens to the last one standing when the music stops?

I can see it now, a gov't tech switches, and then gets a letter from his boss saying not to come back, they like the other guy better.

UK perspective

[alnapp]

Good grief, if they tried that in the UK, no-one would come back. There was a time when the government posts at least had job security, but now they don't even offer that long term.

Greener Grass?

[cleetus]

I don't think this is always the case. Perhaps government IT workers chose their employer based on their desire to work *only* 40 hours a week, job security, and a salary paid in American Dollars (instead of NASDAQ shares). For some, those things might be worth the tradeoff of a lower salary than the private sector offers.

cleetus

Re:Greener Grass?

[Raleel]

I know those are reasons I work for the gov't. Gov't employees get paid the same amount whereveer you go, so pick a place where your money will go father.

Unlike some IT places in gov't, I actually go on call (aka pager duty)....once every 4 months. Then I have it for a week. How may pager calls have I gotten? 2...in 3 years.

Gov't IT jobs will not put you in the hospital young. They are about reasonable amounts of work, using big hardware, and helping out whoever is spending the tax dollars to make something good happen.

Re:Greener Grass?

[PD]

I'm not in IT, im an engineer in patents

Oh you must LOVE what slashdot has to say about patents then.

by what criteria?

[Xzzy]

> grass really is greener on the corporate side
> of the fence

I happen to hold a government job, and after the four years prior to that holding a private sector job, I find it refreshing.

The atmosphere is laid back, there's no constant fears of being bought up or laid off, there's some truly brilliant people to learn things from, the benefits and pay is quite competitive, and when they say 9-5 on a government job, they MEAN 9-5. 7 months here and I haven't worked overtime once. I carry a pager, and it's never been used.. once.

The workload varies between very light to decently busy to keep me interested, but I'm still left with enough time that I can do pretty much anything I want with any piece of hardware/software we own and teach myself something.

They have tuition reimbursement, *frequently* have guest speakers talking about various unix topics, and so on.

Now obviously there's some bureaucratic headaches, but if you want my opinion, the grass is greener on the *governmen* side. ;)

Re:by what criteria?

[swb]

I work in the private sector and I can't begin to tell you about the bureaucratic headaches, recursive reporting structures, and on and on.

I miss the job I had at the local state University. Totally laid back, a real "campus" setting with trees, grass and places to go outside -- not that poured concrete and crabgrass around a drainage slough that passes for a corporate campus or the brick-and-glass downtown corporate scene.

The advantages of a corporate job though seem to be MUCH better money both in terms of pay and in budgets. I also get to travel to class-A cities on the man's dime, which often means $100 meals, luxury hotels and limo rides.

It gets stressful at times, but a lot of the stress is internal -- the desire to do a great job despite a high workload. You get thrown into the deep end of the pool and management isn't afraid to replace you if you can't swim. If you *can* swim, they don't mind giving you more in your pay packet and more to spend.

I'm getting to the point though where I've travelled enough, ate enough, drank enough and achieved enough "stuff" financially that a government job on less pay with less stress to finish of my next 20 years sounds pretty good. I'd rather have the time to travel on my own.

Re:by what criteria?

[Telastyn]

I currently work for the private sector, and while I concur that this sector is more cutthroat, and likely to fire me, after the bubble burst (and a un-connected disillusionment) I've not worked extra hours.

My bosses require me to be in for 8 hours (+1hr lunch) so I stay for 8 hours. If anyone complains, I say that the company seems to be paying me for being here 8 hours, not doing my work. Bye.

Granted, I've been getting my work done. Still nobody's ever been able to argue, because they know I'm right. People should get paid for doing work, not for wasting their time.

Max $52k/year?

[Brento]

He also noted that under the program, government workers could be paid up to $200 a day while working for private companies.

UP TO?!? Hmm, guess they're just talking about Windows admins, maybe? Setting the ceiling at $52k won't get you the cream of the crop, even in this market.

Re:Max $52k/year?

[Courageous]

I think they mean "above and beyond their current Federal salaries". I'm not sure, but I believe that they mean the Fed is going to _pay_ for these employees when they are in the private sector. The private sector will then _supplement_ their salaries.

C//

State worker

[AppyPappy]

I work for the state and I was a corporate flunky for 18 years. The corporate types won't be able to handle the workload and the state types won't be able to handle the bullshit. Corporate life is one meeting after another followed by terror-coding until the deadline. State life is more work for less money. The corporate types will sit in empty conference rooms wondering where everyone is meeting. The state types will wonder why they are working overtime when they spent the previous month doing nothing.

Greener on the other side of the fence?

[goldspider]

As I've posted before, I'm a government IT employee. My brother just so happens to be on the corporate side of that fence.

I have a stable job, get paid regularly, and have a decent benefits package. My brother, on the other hand, got shafted on a stock option package, is owed several weeks' pay (with little promise of ever getting it), and works for a company that is on the edge of bankruptcy.

When the author of the headline says "until perhaps, the government IT workers realize the grass really is greener on the corporate side of the fence..." he obviously is very ignorant of the current private sector conditions.

Re:Greener on the other side of the fence?

[dsoltesz]

As the poster of the article, I often wonder if the grass is greener on the other side. My friends who left for "real jobs" seem to think I'm nuts for staying in a small town, sticking to my gov't job. Of course, some of them have pretty fantastic government jobs - but the National Labs are an exception (now there's the green grass I really keep gazing towards). I love my job -- flexitime, flexiplace, flexishoes, few meetings, and lots of creative control. I live in a small town -- 10 mintute commute, little pollution, and great lifestyle.

On the other hand, I'm working in an environment where a lot of people are still working on PIII 500's, and using Fortran and vi. I make less than half what my friends do in the Big City (with cost of living taken into account). I don't think the benefits make up for the disparity in pay, but it helps. We can't afford all the corporate perks -- up-to-date workstations, yearly conferences, expensive seminars. Oh, and the 40 hour a week thing? That's a myth. When the server goes down or the deadline's coming up, late nights are seen by all. Many of us take work or studying home in an effort to keep up.

Staffing is an issue, and the government knows it. OPM gave IT folks a raise a while ago -- it doesn't come close private salaries, but at least they tried, and it did make a difference on whether or not I stuck with my job. Many of us are doing the jobs of several people -- spread too thin and suffering the "jack of all trades" syndrome. Keep up with the "times"? It's just not that easy.

Of course, my brother is a cushy corporate type, and is amazed we don't have a dress code, and can't fathom that if I want a day or week off I simply announce I won't be in the office and off I go.

Re:Greener on the other side of the fence?

[goldspider]

While I have little first-hand experience in the corporate IT world, I would expect that many private-sector employees are faced with the same difficulties you described: substandard hardware, long workdays. Let's not forget the seemingly constant corporate downsizing that must present its own staffing issues to those spared by the axe, and the added stress of fearing you may be next.

I believe you and I are on the same side here, but the headline implied that government jobs were far inferior to private sector jobs. In terms of raw salary, you're probably right. But until the private sector can offer the same job security and benefits I'm getting from the government, I have no intention of hopping the fence to the grass that might be greener, but more likely to turn brown and die in the event of another economic drought.

migration of the pointy haired

[ashultz]

I was about to post that this was incredibly stupid. But then I realized that having mid level IT bosses rotate about wouldn't actually change much. They'd just go from being clueless in one place to being clueless in another. In fact, it might improve things because they'd have to admit total ignorance (instead of having it but not admitting it.)

But who am I kidding, the pointy haired never admit ignorance. Engineers on the ground probably won't even notice that their new bungee boss isn't from their company.

ok let's see WHO they will be working for!!!!!

[stopbit]

I have a friend in the Army who is a CIo for a military hospital [he has a basic understanding of technology]. He has been told that he will be working for Microsoft next year!

Kind of makes me sick.....he is going to have PKI crammed down his throat then take it back to the military!

Didn't the government have those folks in court for some reason????? Holy conflict of interest!!!!!

Re:ok let's see WHO they will be working for!!!!!

[sharkey]

Kind of makes me sick.....he is going to have PKI crammed down his throat then take it back to the military!

Don't knock PKI until you've tried it. I still consider The Beast to be the best coaster around this part of the world.

Re:ok let's see WHO they will be working for!!!!!

[sphealey]

I have a friend in the Army who is a CIo for a military hospital [he has a basic understanding of technology]. He has been told that he will be working for Microsoft next year!

Well, we all wondered when Microsoft would break away and create their own state complete with armed forces. Sounds as if they decided to just acquire one ready-made!

sPh

Re:April 1st is long past

[Boone^]

Only bonus I can think of is that government work isn't seasonal like the tech sector has been the past few years. Paid less, but there's a certain value in job security especially if you're starting or already have a family.

Grass is greener on both sides

[Enry]

Having worked for the govt (Dept. of VA) and the private sector, there really are good sides to each.
(my memory of govt work may be fuzzy, since it's been 6 years since I worked there)

+Govt:
Real retirement, usually after 20 yrs of service
Pay raises based on years of service (plus yearly Cost Of Living Adjustments)
VERY hard to get laid off/fired.
Chance to play with new gear (I was burning CD-ROMs in 1992, also got to use optical cards about a year later)
Lots of holidays, good amount of vacation time.
Good training. Since the code I was writing was going into 170+ hospitals, there was a lot of focus on good coding techniques, peer reviews, etc. It's helped a lot since then.
No petty "is so-and-so making more than me?". The pay schedule covers everyone, so (for example) I knew what my boss made versus what I made.

-Govt:
Paperwork, paperwork, paperwork
In order for the budgets to work, our group pretty much couldn't buy anything from Oct->about August, then a mad buying frenzy from Aug->Oct 1 to use up the budget. The feds work on Oct->Oct fiscal year, and all the money is "use it or lose it". This often results in very strange purchasing habits (like 21" PC monitors in 1992).
Low pay, but promotions are pretty automatic up to a point, then it gets competitive.
Lots of management. As a result, there were reorganizations every 6 months or so. Also new ideas of management, so there was often times more time spent in meetings than actually working (sigh).

I would have stayed with the feds, but I wanted more money, and wanted a reason to move to an area with a bit more high-tech, so I went private-sector.

Re:Grass is greener on both sides

[gorilla]

VERY hard to get laid off/fired.

This should probably be in the -Govt column instead/as well. It means you're working with idiots (Speaking from experience here). For example, the guy with a PhD in Spanish working tech support who could not plug in a computer.

Re:Grass is greener on both sides

[Courageous]

Not necessarily _idiots_, but sometimes pretty lazy. Government IT research facilities aren't filled with _idiots_. But after a while, even the "moderately intelligent" can get complacent.

C//

What is the goal?

[jhines0042]

What is the goal of this bill? To send highly specialized government IT "manatees" into the "shark" pit feeding frenzy that is the public companies IT department? To put ties on techies and send them to government jobs so they can help their country?

Has anyone figured out the impact of training these swapped IT folks. Sure, they already have skilz, but they won't know the environment, the human protocols of who to call when the shtuff hits the fan. Not to mention that they will have to be re-trained when they get back to their old job a year later.

How does this improve the situation?

Re:Slow Tech Economy + Government Hiring == New Jo

[Peyna]

If that's the case, I am very glad to be graduating in the next few years. I wonder if all the un/underemployed + new hires will be able to cover that 34 percent? Or will we all just have to do more work?

Another interesting note that I can speak about from personal observation is that many factory workers are approaching retirement now as well. This isn't just an IT problem, all over Baby Boomer people are retiring and there are a whole lot more of them retiring than there are us young folk coming in to take their places.

Re:Ummm.. But who wants to?

[arkanes]

Well, as a Gov't Techie(tm), I stay because, while I don't make as much cash, my benefits are unreal, I've got near-total job security, and very little stress.

Re:Slow Tech Economy + Government Hiring == New Jo

[mosch]

As a recently laid-off bastard, I can say that I'd LOVE a gov't IT hiring spree. My first employer no longer exists at all. My second employer is a shell of it's former self, whose management effectively ignores it's only successful product, considering it a sideline. My last employer is 50% the size that it was when I got hired, and it's still shrinking.

Yeah, I might not make as much money at the gov't, but I could give a flying fuck about that. I'd just like it if i could get into a position where if I lost my job it was due to something I did wrong, at least a little.

Looks good on paper but not in real life.

[jellomizer]

The real poblem with goverment imployes is a difference on the reward/punishment system. In most Comerical companies people get rewarded for what they did right, In goverment it is what you did wrong gets you punnished. In this mantality the goverment will not be able to keep up with Comerical Enterprise becuase of the risk of doing something new. How many goverment agencies have old Mainframes that are from a company that is out of buisness (say Prime) that are still their main server and they dont want to switch off of them because they are fear of being held responcible switching to a system that may have some problems. And by brinning comerical people into the goverment jobs doing the same thing we will just go to the bosses, "Hey get rid of this junk before I can do something", then no doing anything because the bosses are of goverment mantality. Nothing will happen except comerical IT staff loosing their commessions.

Do both

[browser_war_pow]

I'm strongly considering going into ROTC or getting a scholarship from a branch that doesn't have ROTC at my university. What's being missed here is that it doesn't have to be one or the other. You can do military IT service active duty for four years and then go into the reserves if you want to keep your foot in the door. Thus you can go active duty again if your company goes bankrupt IIRC

Re:Do both

[psychosis]

Don't believe everything the glossy pages tell you - going reserves does not guarantee you an exit strategy from the corporate world. Is it somewhat more likely? Sure. NOTHING IS A GUARANTEE. If you read it in a brochure or hear it from a recruitment office, get independent confirmation from someone who's been around for a while (5-10 years is a good window - not the new active duty guy/gal and DEFINITELY not a ROTC or military academy cadet. They don't have a clue how the "real military" works - I sure as heck didn't.)
There's a whole slew of bureaucratic crap that is involved with this. Reserves are cool, but it's not a guaranteed paycheck. Also, you are more likely to have an unexpected deployment schedule as a reservist... Civilian employers are not permitted to fire you because you are activated in the reserves, but it's definitely a hiring hurdle...

As a fedtech

[blankmange]

I beg to differ with the statement that 'the grass is greener' in the private sector. Granted, we don't get the bleeding edge products, we don't play as much with R&D, and we don't have the informal/laid-back image that many private corps do. What we do have is this: as close to employment-for-life in today's economy, adequate budgets that do not rely on the corp's stock performance from yesterday, benefits packages that shame most private corps, and I can transfer pretty much anywhere we have a site (read: all 50 states and most of the US territories). I don't know if I would want to participate other than just the fun of it/change of pace type of thing -- but I definitely know that I would want to come back to my gov't job....

Just a bandaid.

[laetus]

Clocking in at 10+ years with the Feds, I can assure you this is just a bandaid to the problem of information technology management in the government. Why?

1) Many (but not all) government IT staff and IT managers are the last ones left behind. That is, much of the good IT and IT management staff moves on to the private sector, leaving behind the mediocre staff. That mediocre staff is what's left to rise to the top of government management. Why? Pay. Government refuses to compensate public sector IT workers what they're actually worth because (see #2).

2) Personnel management. It is virtually impossible inside the Federal government to get rid of IT staff that underperform. That is why Congress is so reluctant to raise pay rates because there ARE so many underperformers on the government IT payroll. If Congress would reform the civil service system so that a) under and non-performers could be fired, and b) managers could pay their good IT staff comparable private sector salaries, nearly 50% of the government's IT problems would evaporate. Don't believe me? We have one woman who didn't show up for work for 4-5 weeks!, rarely called in, and is still working for us. The government union is holding up her firing.

3) Procurement. If you've ever worked for the government and tried to get something major procured quickly for a fast turnaround project, you know the true meaning of irresistable force meets unmovable object. Procurement for IT managers needs to be streamlined so that they can get the hardware, software, and contract resources they need WHEN they need them.

My two cents. The problem is much deeper than staff rotation.

Re:Just a bandaid.

[Pfhreakaz0id]

hmmm. at the FAA, the pay is pretty good (I contract there). Many of the contractors are trying to get on as Fed employees. I agree that allowing underperforming staff to be fired is the #1 thing. There are some employees who are worthless and, in my case, I depend on these people for server administration. Favorite quote from one NT server admin: "Me (Looking over his shoulder, restraining the urge to pick up the mouse, bludgeon him to death with it, and drive the damn thing myself). Let's look at the event log... (seeing the look of confusion on his face)... with the event viewer" him: "the event what?"...

Is he honestly saying he has been a "server administrator" for years (this guy is older) and he's NEVER used the NT event viewer? or heard of it?!?!?! I had to walk out of the cube.

Re:Just a bandaid.

[JThaddeus]

Amen to that! But this is a problem faced by all government workers, not just those in the technology sector. My wife teaches high school and is daily faced with teachers that aren't worth a tinker's damn but who, because of seniority, draw higher salaries. In fact, in our county (Fauquier, Virginia) these teachers lobbied to have the pay differential for those with masters and PhDs cut and, instead, put the money into paying for logevity. That's not at all the smartest way to get young, qualified people into the teaching profession.

Government workers are gonna have to face the fact that, if they want better pay and more respect, they have to get rid of the dead weight in their ranks. Untill they do, the tax payers (their bosses) will continue to cut government budgets.

Re:Just a bandaid.

[maxpublic]

Don't forget:

4) management that sucks even worse than that encountered in the private industry. Incompetence in management is par for the course, and since poor performance won't get a manager fired in government service this tends to result in the promotion of other poor performers so that the current management isn't threatened or embarrassed by new additions to the administrative team.

Max

Re:April 1st is long past

[lynx_user_abroad]

This is not for you and me. This is not about exposing some of us to FORTRAN and the others to C++. The program is aimed at giving IT executives a chance to switch places.

The idea is to take someone with a large government budget to spend and indoctrinate them for 6 month or a year in some IT corporation, while at the same time giving a senior IT executive from the same company a chance to spend a half year or so meeting the players inside the government, learning what problems they face and recommending the best possible solution ("...which our company just happens to sell...") for those problems.

This is nothing more than legalized influence peddling. If I ran an IT company, I'd pay good money to get this program running, too.

Re:Ummm.. But who wants to?

[Lumpy]

Govt jobs are great for the lazy or no talent. the unions and bizzare setup propagates it. I worked for 7 years in a government run water filtration plant (Fresh water not sweage) and I'll tell you that they follow a simple hiring practice.. either hire the mentally handicapped or promote the most ineffective employee to management positions. If you are innovative that is a fireable offense (I'm serious! i saw the most innovative employee there get ridden like a horse and then fired because he was working smart and not the asenine way the supevisor wanted him to.)

Choose a govt job as your last resort. it is not worth it if you are a thinker or like to work and live logically. Logic is frowned upon in govt jobs.

I fled my career as a microbiologist to IS/IT because of it.

Managers Too Please

[Sixty4Bit]

Great!! Just what we need, more frustration. The difference between govt techies and commercial techies is pay, paper work and management. I know about so many govt projects that get canned 2 years and $30 million into it that I could write a small novel. I know about projects where the process isnt fully thought out: "We can automate this, put it on the web! Yeah, and then we have someone take that information, print it out and then re enter it into the mainframe!" They are effectively doubling the workload. If this happened in the corporate world all of the companies would go out of business...

Oh wait, that is what happened to all of the dot bombs. They didn't deliver what was promised or they didn't think through what they really wanted to do. What needs to be traded are the managers. Govt leadership needs to start looking at the bottom line the way corporate America does or America is going to be in bad bad bad shape in the future.

Social Security isn't in trouble because the govt continues to steal from their pot, SSA is in trouble because they blow millions upon millions of dollars on throw away projects. The bad part about this, is that not a single statesman will TOUCH SSA because it means death to future advancement.

Trade the managers out, you will get a bigger bang for your buck.

duh gubment vs private industry

[Anonymous Coward]

i used to contract as a network engineer for a government chartered finacial institution. i ultimately came to the conclusion that their business plan was to provide jobs for the feeble minded, as they exclusively employed brain dead half wits. some of their mouth breathing primate workers verged on requiring retard helmets and drool bibs. so, if you're in your late 30's and want to check out of the world of thinking beings to spend the next 35 years coasting downhill to retirement while you go bald, your ass gets fat, and your intellect atrophies : have i got the place for YOU!

on the other hand, most of the private companies i have worked at were run by borderline sociopaths who wouldn't think twice about slitting your throat and drinking your blood if they thought it would improve profitability.

in short, i think we're all fucked.

rduke

Re:duh gubment vs private industry

[Nonesuch]

on the other hand, most of the private companies i have worked at were run by borderline sociopaths who wouldn't think twice about slitting your throat and drinking your blood if they thought it would improve profitability.

You say that like it's a bad thing. This is exactly the attitude I want in the corporate executives of any company in which I have invested.

I'm not quite sure how "drink employee blood" can maximize shareholder value, but I wouldn't be too suprised to see it in certain people's DayPlanner.

I still cant figure out if its Compulsory ?

[CDWert]

Is this (on the private sector end) compulsory ?

If the feds say we want you to take our IT guy for a Year ? Do you have to ?

If it is, it is quite simply unconstitutional, a federal employee could be rejected under the soldier quartering provisions, if its no mandatory, what I just said is all moot :)

But fcol, who would WANT a Federal employee, most are worse than union workers, could this person be "fired" from their position if they slack ?

Working in a private sector company with and significant amount of responsiblity is NOTHING like working govt jobs. Lunch ? Yeah right twice a week if Im luck, my choice, but I have a life after work.

Is it just me or does this sound wrong all the way around, good for only one entity the Govt., Private sector is years ahead in most IT, hell you know how many RBASE programmers the Govt still has on staff..........

Bit of an identity crisis

[Daniel Dvorkin]

Early in the article, it says:

"... would create an exchange of mid-level information technology executives between the public and private sectors ..."

But then in the next paragraph, it says:

"... would allow private-sector IT experts to work for the federal government and federal employees to work for private companies ..."

So which is it -- are they going to be trading "executives", or "experts"? Because you can't have it both ways ...

Re:So what you're really saying is...

[Enry]

It was more than that. I couldn't take the management structure that was overhead. I've been in small companies since, so it's hard to compare to a large company.

Lack of accountability is a double-edged sword. I've been laid off twice in 12 months. For some people, the stability of knowing you've got a job for as long as you want it is a comforting thought. The people I worked with were all pretty competent, so I didn't have a problem with people stuck in the wrong job.

GS grades with salary

[ProfBooty]

http://www.opm.gov/oca/02tables/indexGS.htm

Most jobs get some sort of adjustment (i.e. extra pay on top as well), some jobs get signing bonus's as well.

is this for a new HGTV reality show?

[cheesyfru]

Welcome to Trading Cubes, the show where two techies trade jobs for one year to see who can make a bigger mess out of their respective employers! Today we have Rashib Akalam of InterCorp and John Williams of the Department of Defense. Rashib has been struggling lately with his new widget inventory project, and is hoping that John can come in and make sense of the tangled lines of Ada code. John has been having a lot of troubles lately with his missile guidance system, and is hoping that Rashib can prevent another "oopsy".

Will John get his widgets straight? Will Rashib blow up China? Let's trade cubes!

Who this applies to ...

[zangdesign]

This is mainly going to benefit (if you can call it that) the Oracle's and Microsoft's of the world, ie., those companies that already have an inside line on government contracts. I fail to see how this would help anyone's situation who is in a company that doesn't list in the Fortune 1000.

Besides, this is a middle-management switchover, not a pit crew kind of thing. The bright people in government (there are a few) won't go because their departments need them and they already get the outside involvment that they need, and the turtles of the Government IT sector won't go because they like it where they are.

This isn't a jobs program - very few of those that are out of work now will enter the program, since they don't have a current corporate job. All this is is a wage slave swap (your plantation workers for my plantation workers).

Huh?! IT Workers or Executives?

[Chibi]

Maybe this is just sloppy writing, but in the first paragraph, the author says this bill "would create an exchange of mid-level information technology executives between the public and private sectors." Everywhere else in the article, he says IT workers, tech workers, etc.

I'm curious now if this bill is meant to swap workers or just managers?

The net result of "musical chairs"

[dcavanaugh]

If the government salary scales were competitive, they wouldn't be seeking to borrow workers from private industry. This problem of non-competitiveness will only get worse. At the end of the day, the private companies will pick and choose which government employees to keep and which of their own workers to take back from government service. In the end, smart people will get real money working for private industry and the government will get the rest.

Having worked in government, I will take this opportunity to challenge the theory that government employment == job security. During my years in state government, there were several proposed departmental mergers and outsourcing proposals that were systematically shot down like incoming missiles. While the odds of a layoff may have been low, the odds of having my career derailed were high enough to get my attention.

Myth number two is that government service means a "normal" work week and a country club atmosphere. Far from it. Nowhere else on earth is the staffing level quite so out of line with management's idea of the proper level of service. The easy hours are for the people who cheerfully accept the miniscule salaries. To me, the best government career path is to latch onto some mission-critical function, work crazy hours, and allow the early retirements and turnover to create promotion opportunities. I did this for 13 years (5 promotions) -- it was fun and eventually profitable.

By the way, does the government intend to include HB-1's in the mix? Now that would make it interesting.

Its the law dude

[terrymr]

Everybody gets a break every four hours - it's a matter of federal law. The reson the day ends at 5.30 is because they don't pay you for your lunch break.

My experience with the US Govt

[mtnbkr]

I'm not a govt employee, but an IT Contractor working on a govt account. I've been here two years. In those two years, I've gotten the opportunity to work with technologies that I may or may not have seen in the private sector. Am I going to get rich? No. Do I get paid fairly? Yes, very much so. I'm also reasonably layoff-proof because my position is mandated by the contract we work on. I rarely work more than 40hrs a week. My work is rewarding because I know it's being used and taken seriously (it's not work done at the whim of a idiot client or clueless PHB).

There are negatives. The govt has a serious case of "hurry up and wait" (they want your part done "now" so they can shelve it for 2 months while they decide on the next move). They also fail to realize that companies must make a profit (they will ask for discounts until something is free).

Overall, my skills and career have benefited from working with the govt. I also have more time for a life.

Chris

Want the best of both worlds?

[jandrese]

Work for a Government contractor. There are several, Raytheon, TRW, MITRE, MITRETEK, or in just about any aerospace firm for starters. The contractors act as independant entities (they are) that are funded by the government (although indrectly sometimes). There is where you will find the smart people (contractors don't have as many weird pay-ceiling rules that the government employees have) working on problems that nobody else is doing. (If someone else IS doing it, the government tends to prefer to buy it off the shelf instead of hiring those expensive contractors to reinvent the wheel).

Bonuses:

• Stable income
• Good working hours (they're still on government time)
• Upward mobility
• Chance to work on problem (extending the Inernet to Mars for instance) that nobody else is even thinking about yet.
• Smart people
• Friendly towards post-graduate education. Most of the people I work with are Masters or PHDs
• Can get you a security clearance, which makes you worth your weight in gold in the government sector, especially if you have a PHD

Negatives:

• Government sponsers can be easily destracted. You must constantly reaffirm your importance to them.
• Easier to get fired than a pure government job (especially for incompetence).
• Lots of ex-military types, especially in the managerial positions. Many programers (and Slashdot types) would probably have at least some personality conflict. This is pretty minor as most of the people are good guys
• Older more professional workforce, most of the people have familys and are settled down. It's not a .com where you don't trust anyone over 30. This is considered a bonus by many people.
• You'll never get into Fortune magazine or on the news (unless you REALLY screw up).

Re:age bias

[Courageous]

I am surprised that there has not be a huge class-action age-bias lawsuit about this.

Suing the government isn't as easy as it sounds. In many cases, a judge must give prior approval to sue a government entity.

C//