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Public vs. Private Sector?
yusing asks: "Public sector or private sector? Which would you rather work in? What are Slashdot reader experiences like? What are the differences in work environments? What are the frustrations of each? This person chose private sector after working in public. This article argues that the public sector should be expanded. There are definitely political considerations in this choice (bigger/smaller government for example) but I'd like help deciding which would be more appropriate for me. Where can I find quality reading to help me decide?"
Many have chosen public/governmental because you are very unlikely get get laid off. After all, there's no end to taxpayer money.
And then once you're in and want to switch jobs governmental agencies will give you preference over someone who's not working in the public sector. This is why a friend of mine is looking to land an airport screener job. He doesn't really want to do that for the rest of his life. He just wants to get in and later on move to some computer position elsewhere.
eTrade SUCKS
Personally I chose working in the public sector. Basically for the stability. With a family to feed in an slow economy like this, working for the government doesn't seem such a bad idea.
Besides, my health has already went all the way down hill after pulling the countless overtime in the private sector. I need to take time and recover quiet a bit, and the resonable working hour is just great for that.
I worked in government contracting for the department of defense. It was not a pleasant experience. As a consultant, you had to allow your books to be audited by the DOD and you were limited to a 7% profit margin. I imagine the same applys for government employees - here's your salary and the best raise you can expect is a cost of living adjustment.
Truth: If it's not one thing, it's another
Much better pay, equipment and training in the private sector in my experience. Will be interesting seeing some other reactions.
errr....umm...*whooosh* *whoosh* Is this thing on ?
I enjoyed working in Academia more than any other sector, though I'm not certain whether a BIG 10 university is considered Public or Private. (Since it draws a large amount of funds from the Government) Whatever it may be considered, it was terrific for me. The flexibility you have in when you do your reasearch and how you choose to conduct it is unparalleled.
.02
Just my
Jedimom.com, ph balanced, for women.
StrategyTalk.com, PC Game Forums
Dr. Raymond Stantz: Personally, I liked the university. They gave us money and facilities, we didn't have to produce anything. You've never been in the private sector. They expect *results*.
...take whatever the hell job you can find, cause there isn't squat out there right now. Not many people have the luxury of pondering such questions these days.
Slashdot = alt.religion.windows.mpaa.riaa.sucks
Those who can't DO, TEACH.
Those who can't TEACH, MANAGE.
Those who can't MANAGE, GOVERN.
-Alanism-
"A microprocessor... is a terrible thing to waste." --
GeneralEmergency
You should work in at least one small, on the edge company for some period of time when you are young and can take more risks. These are the types of places you really learn and grow without having your fate defined by a strictly defined job definition.
This type of question is likely to be answered by all sorts of people crapping on the private sector because of the job situation out there. Come on folks, markets recover. Taking a risk on a smaller company when you have no dependents and no long term debt (like when you are first out of college) is a must.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
If you don't want to judged on your work performance and get away with all sorts of employment misconduct, by all means, take a civil service job. Its almost impossible to fire a Government employee compared to an employee in the private sector. That's why Government is completely inefficient (idiots survive easily) and why President G.W. Bush does not want typical civil servants running the Homeland Security Department.
Strange women lying in ponds distributing swords is no basis for a system of government.
These days, the choice seems to come down to whoever's hiring.
If you're the kind of person who really shines, who likes working hard and wants to impress your boss, stick with the private sector. If you just want to get by until you retire, and you'd rather do your more challenging work in your spare time, then work in the public sector.
What's your damage, Heather?
Added to which, to be frank, from my experience you will end up working with the most mediocore people the market can bear. Sorry, but many government offices are staffed by the otherwise unemployable. Do you really want to work with these people??
It really depends on what kind of job you are looking for. I, as a researcher, am pretty much tied to public/non-profit, since I like the flexibility I get. If I went to a for-profit company I would not be able to direct my own research, and would pretty much be a monkey boy for my boss ( at least until I get my Ph.D. ). My roomate is thinking of switching out of a BIG computer company and going to a non-profit, so that his job is more interesting.
In your own head. What rewards you? Is it money? Is it scientific fame? Is it making products used by millions? Is it doing something ethically good? Is it long lasting research work? Is it the ability to change work-description quickly?
I have no idea where to find good reading on this, but I have my own anecdotal experience. In the private sector, everything is based upon relative merit. Those who have wealth and power control things, those who do not are inconsequential. My job was clear: service those with wealth and power. When the CEO screamed, we jumped. We were paid well for what we did. The job security sucked, but there was always another job. This is turned on its head in the public sector, where each minor functionary has their own storehouse of power and can stymie your attempts at doing your job through the use of simple intrangisence or procedural issues. We liked to say when I was working for the military that you don't care what you look like to the General. You care what you look like to the lifelong government employees, because the General is long gone and reassigned, while the lifers are going to be there forever. I find the public sector to be immensely annoying to work for, and there is the very great risk of being 'captured' by the system and becoming another functionary obsessed with procedure. Left to choose: private sector, every time.
HBI's Law: Frequency of calling others Nazis is directly correlated with the likelihood of the accuser being Communist.
Public sector people may disagree, but I believe if you desire to work in a truly competitive market, where you earn yoru pay, and if you wish to work with the most motivated and motivating (good and bad) people you need to work in the private sector. However if your looking for security then the public sector is best. I have a friend who is a sys admin for a gov facility and his job is so easy, no stress, they are all unionized. And there is never ending breuracracy.
If you wish to make any sort of change it has to be approved by ten different commitiees. ten commitees who know nothing about the technology. Where in private sector is driven by demand and performance.
I work for the feds in a small regional office. However, I'm the kind of person who likes to have input on all the big IT decisions, so for me, this sucks!
All the decisions are made at a National level with very little chance for the regions to comment or even make suggestions. If your IT folk at the national level are not great, your job gets harder. We have a lot of inhouse developed solutions. However, they rarely work properly when a new version comes out, and there is very little documentation (read: none, except install instructions).
Also, a lot of the time the public sector doesn't have a lot of control over the products it uses. For example, we're preparing to rollout Windows 2000 for our server environment (with Exchange, MSSQL, etc.) without ever making a choice on looking at other OSs. Why? Because, they decided to contract the job out. So, basically lowest bid that meets the requirements wins. They don't bother to look at other options, like taking the money to pay the contractors and instead training up people to implement the solution.
Yes, I'm bitter, and slowly starting to find contract work to get myself out of this job. But what I have to say is still valid. If you like being in control, or at least working close with those who are, make sure you work in the top of the pryamid office. Of course this doesn't just apply to public offices, I'm sure large private sector corps aren't much different.
Big public companies are chock full of nasty politics and can be frustrating at times. They are secure, and promotions are easier, but being someone the company cherishes is harder.
Small private companies keeps you free of politics and its easier to be recognized, although, it is usually more difficult to move up the chain (promotions) when in a smaller company.
Personally, I enjoy the small companies, because I hate company politics. I do plan on changing in a few years (after my MBA and some project management experience) to get more responsibility and more cash.
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Academia. Working IT at a public university lets you do pretty much what you want, decent pay, and you don't have to sell anything.
MORTAR COMBAT!
Is that it is actually in most cases harder to get a job in the public sector. The government has very strict hiring practices and if they say you need a degree, they tend to not accept equivalent work experience. Sure you may not get laid off working for the government, but in most cases, if you were working in the private sector you could save enough money to handle being laid off. Sure you get nice hours, vacation working for the government, but again working in the private sector (especially as a consultant) you can save more money to take vacation, or even take a couple months off. Sure working for the government you might not have to work as hard and be as skilled, but you won't be learning skills and using your skills, so you won't be advancing your career either. Weighing it out, it's any easy choice for me, if I'm going to work for the government, I'm going to be a marine so I can kill people, because that's about the only real benfit it has, (aside from stability which can be countered by money, because money = time)
I work with a major company who's prime source of contracts is with governments (US, UK,some china)and its the best/worst of all worlds.
THE BAD: Since all government contracts start as bids, your company will invariably underbid. That means a death march. Tight schedules, reduced resources. Some marches are more livable than others. However, becuase the SW development field is so young, I think you are going to find death marches everywhere.
Additionally, you are a servant to many masters. Those paying, those managing, and those who will eventually get your product. However I find politics to be quite fun, especially when you outperform (See above comment) and your adversaries "fall on their ass" (its an industry term...)
THE GOOD: Everything you heard about public sector jobs, but with better salary. Whoo hooo!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
I'm sure i'll get flamed to a crisp, but what the hey......
In my first job outside of school i was working for a consulting firm where we did a lot of work for the government (setting up networks, computer security, etc etc etc)
After that experience I would say that I will never EVER work for the government myself, nor will I ever have much respect for those that work in government.
Some reasons:
-well, it was the government. Slow moving people mired in burocracy.
-minimal accountability. The amount of $$$$ that was being spent on stupid stuff, plus the amount of $$$ being wasted by incompetance was just sickening.
-institutational paralysis. Try to get anybody to make a freaking decision? Forget it - we're gonna need three comittees and a dozen meetings to make the most trivial decision. I think this is part of the government mentality - it's part of the job security.
That being said, there are good people working in the government. But i'll never go anywhere near that sector again. My self respect couldn't take it.
I'd a lot depends on the general "public vs. private" sector arguements in the country you're in, and how politicians, decision makers and the public generally respect these sectors.Depends what you're trying to get out of it as well - security? money?
I'd make a guess you'd be better off working in the public sector in a northern European country (scandinavian social democracy model) and the private sector in the USA (laissez faire free market policies). I guess the surrounding working condition issues offered by those countries affect both private and public sector workers. Not sure what I'd choose in former soviet countries, probably working for the mafia... :-(
Working in the public sector (I assume federal, rather than state) gives you very good job security, reasonable pay, strong benefits, and the potential to retire young with a nice pension - allowing you to either live frugally and well or take another job afterwards with extra gravy courtesy of the feds. State governments are generally similar, but the workers are more prone to layoff if the budget crashes.
Public sector employees, though, often have fewer opportunities for advancement, no ability to get things like bonuses, and less flexibility in some of the "little things" you might encounter (like flex time , for instance). Also, if your boss is a moron in the private sector there's a chance they might get canned. If your incompetent boss is a civil servant, it's likelier that they'll stick around and make you miserable.
In the private sector, there's more opportunity for talented people to advance rapidly, more competitive and flexible pay scales, and in many cases, a workplace that's open to change.
But the downside is little to no job security, a less generous retirement plan (at most companies), and less time off.
So you need to decide what's more important to you. If you like stability, and/or aren't supremely confident in your abilities, then you can perhaps get on a career path with the feds and have a nice, solid, middle-class life. You'll probably get to keep working there through thick and thin so long as you're not a total screwup.
But if you think you really have the ability to go be a star, stick to the private sector. If you're really good, there's at least a chance of getting the appropriate reward. Just keep your resume up-to-date.
-- Josh Turiel
"2. Do not eat iPod Shuffle."
I like the fact that you started by criticizing the 'Ask Slashdot'.
/., good question or not.)
:)
Then you discussed it.
Then you said "But really, who cares, decide yourself." (A glib comment that could be lofted at any Ask
Then you criticized the piece again. (!)
To think, people wonder why some folks won't take the initiative to end abusive relationships. Funny stuff.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I've been working as computer support for a large state university for over a year and a half. Tomorrow is my last day. I'm leaving to go back to school full time. Why am I quitting?
My pay is 25-35% lower than people with my same job in the private sector. And there really isn't any less stress at this job, unless you are a brain-dead slacker who could care less about enabling people to be productive. If you're interested in sitting on your ass all day and not helping people, and are reasonably sure your supervisor won't be willing to file the stress headache of termination papers for you, then the public sector is right for you.
Yes, public sector is stable. But the lack of money takes away from that. I can't afford a house, a new car, and I can barely keep up with my student loan payments. How stable is having to eat a dinner of rice and beans several times a week just to make payments on things you can't afford?
And public sector jobs depend heartily on funding from government. I've had plenty of experience lobbying the legislature of my state for funding for the past few years. If budgets need to be cut, the "bloated infrastructure" of a university looks is a mighty easy target for legislators.
Yes, it's a student's life and graduate school for me. Stick to the private sector if you can. Just don't get caught up in the lifestyle of extravagance, and you'll be fine.
A great band once said:
Yes there are two paths you can go by
But in the long run
There's still time to change the road you're on
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
The private sector is typically faster and more efficient than the public sector. Private companies need to be nimble in order to remain competitive in a changing marketplace, and of course they have to keep a close eye on the bottom line. Conversely, the public sector has a responsibility to make thoughtful, conscientious decisions through due process.
As for pay, "everybody knows" that salaries are better in the private sector, but the difference is smaller towards the bottom of the org chart. Laborers, techs, and line managers don't make that much less in the public sector than their corporate counterparts. There is a huge disparity in executive salaries. It is fairly common for people to gain initial experience as civil servants, then make the jump to private organizations for the better pay later on.
Some people simply feel better about working for a public organization. Many civil servants have a sense of duty to their community. This drive is probably responsible for the high rate of burnout among civil servants. The average turnover among public managers, for example, is 18 months.
I enjoy the stability and rewarding nature of my position in a municipal government, and I don't plan on going back to the private sector any time soon.
--
irb(main):001:0>
I'm comfy in my stable IT based state job. I have seen the typical stereotypical government worker in BOTH sectors.
...but there are a bunch of those jobs in the PRIVATE sector too. The grass ain't greener on the other side, it's pretty much painted dead grass there too.
While there are some backwards, misdirected, IT shops in the state, OURS isn't one of 'em. I'm proud of the work and accomplishments my fellow cow-orkers and I have pulled off on a small budget and not enough people.
I appreciate the stability, and the pay has actually jumped up to equal the lower pre-dotcom network admin salaries. I appreciate the 40 hour work weeks, and the flex-time/place work environment. But I also know that my position is a unique one and there are a WHOLE LOT of state jobs I wouldn't want to have.
Will I be the next Bill Gates or Steve Jobs this way? Nope. But I'll have plenty of time to watch my kids grow up and _assist_in_that_process_.
I've learned reciently that being rich ain't all that. I'm pretty happy with slightly more money than I need to live on comfortably.
"Draco dormiens nunquam titillandus."
Unfortuntately, we have a sizeable budget for hardware, software, and support contracts. What does that mean? The prevailing philosophy is to buy something off the shelf rather than developing it in house. Even for simple stuff like messaging systems, content management systems, etc. As a result, I have to look elsewhere during my spare time in order to learn new things (e.g. XML and Java to name a few). Like any other programmer, if I'm not learning new things, I'm not worth much.
This is great if your on the management side of the equation. CYA can't get any easier. Something doesn't work? Fall back on a fat support contract or buy software and hardware.
This sucks if you're a hack with a curious itch looking to take your game to the next level. Your proposals are going to be trumped by your department's need to "spend the budget or risk losing it come the fiscal new year."
My suggestion: If you're young and excited about learning new things and doing more with less, run don't walk from a gig with the government. If you've lost a step as a hack or are management material, get on board, ride it for twenty years, retire to Guadalajara, and sip tequila sunrises until your liver explodes.
Having worked in both public (DoD, DoI) and private sectors, I must say that I greatly prefer private.
The public sector is not as stable as one might think. New administrations tend to undo what previous ones did (even if they are the same party - the transition from Reagan to Bush caused a number of shakeups). RIFs and reassignments are dictated by the political climate and public opinion. And if the majority in Congress happens to be of a different party than the Prez, and Federal budget gets delayed, you don't get paid (and retroactive pay is not guaranteed).
Private sector is far more volatile, but the opportunities are also greater. I'll accept the higher-but-manageable risks of the private sector.
IF you are an innovative person. If you are constantly trying to fin new and better ways of doing something or are interested in efficiency at all then you will be utterly miserable in public work.
I spent 7 years in it... The supervisors are idiots, their managers are morons, and the people that run the city are scumbags. (city managers) Add to that the usual UNION workforce that is interested in making sure that you DO NOT make your job more efficient. I shaved 10 minutes off of a proceedure while increasing it's reliability.. the union filed a grievance against me for trying to change my job profile.
If you are innovative or highly skilled... you will hate public work.
Do not look at laser with remaining good eye.
It's been a simple opinion for me.
But, there's something else even more important that being what type of job you have. For a typical slashdotter, the most important thing is finding a job where Internet Access isn't monitored or restricted.
The other thing is, the only one truly looking after you is yourself. With that said, I've basically advanced my career/skills through my spare time on the job. Find a job with plenty of spare time and be sure to take advantage of it. I had a three month non-busy spell a few years ago and studied my ass off in Java, got certified, within one year, was making $25k more and still making it.
Govt. is under too much political scrutiny. Some locals find out we're paying public employees to browse the net, and it gets shut down for the workers. Shit man, browsing the Internet on the job should be a civil right!
Some of my friends in govt. actually have to walk to a different floor of the building to send an email to the outside world. I aint kidding, this is a fairly high up job.
Local munie? Well that's another one. I would never, never work for a local municipality. This is the absolute bottom of the food chain. I know this is an ugly steatement, but I've never seen a fatter bunch of duffers than when visiting my local county office to pay some tax, or fill out a form or whatnot. Not even the DMV is as bad.
Teaching? All the teachers I have adult converations with seem to have no sense of what the real world is all about. Part of them regresses back into childhood (or to whomever they teach their subjects to).
Private Sector is fractic by nature. It'll keep you from becoming obsolete. You may switch jobs, but you'll be a smarter/stronger/richer person of you can roll with punches.
Work Hard Play Hard
It goes without saying that for job security, the public sector is the best. The variety of positions available within the public sector is also much better.
:-)
However, the stereotype is that a job in the public sector is mundane.
After many years of working in the private sector, I am now working at Health Canada in the development of a public health surveillance system. I went in with apprehension because I had heard so many stories of public servants sitting around their desks doing nothing - not my cup of tea. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find that the group I'm in was very sharp and very professional. No two hour lunches and half hour coffee breaks here.
I started wondering why and began to realize the reason behind it all. Given that there have been many layoffs in the private sector, the public one has benefitted greatly from the pool of talent that has been made available. These people have brought with them skills and a level of professionalism that has changed many government departments for the better.
Note, however, that this hasn't applied to all departments. I guess I'm just one of the lucky ones.
I've worked in both and I'll take private.
I spent 10 years in the public sector doing municipal engineering, and 6 years in the private sector doing various IT work.
The public sector definitely has the appeal of stability, after all, the city/county/state/federal government isn't likely to pull up stakes and move to Mexico where the labor is cheaper, but with the stability comes stasis. There just isn't that much to be gained by taking risks in government.
The private sector has greater risks, but as every economist knows, with risk comes reward. Of the three companies that I've worked for in the past 6 years, one has been acquired by a European conglomerate occassioning a major cultural shift, and subsequent loss of morale in the general employee population, one just folded without warning (a month after I left, luckily enough) and my current employer has been slashing the head count steadily since 6 months after I started.
That has all been balanced by the fact that I've learned twice or three times as much in the past 6 years than I did in the previous 10. In addition, my first private employer picked up the tab for my Bachelor of Science, relieving me of the need to take out $15,000 in student loans, not to speak of the interest.
There is a place for public employment, my father spent his entire adult life working for Uncle Sam, first in the Air Force, then in the FAA, and then in Customs, and is sitting on a pretty nice retirement packageme. I'm not sure I could do that though. I haven't worked anywhere that I wasn't ready to leave within five years simply because there was nothing left there to maintain my interest.
My girlfriend works in the private sector (magazine publisher), I'm public sector (research scientist). Her joke is that her job is to make money, my job is to spend it.
:-(
She likes private, because it's fast moving and you have to actually do stuff. I like public, because I have lots of money to spend on toyz, not many deadlines, and a lot of freedom.
She's paid 3x more than me though
heh. I work in academia, and that's what our work environment is like. friday kegs, even. gotta keep the grad students and postdocs happy.
What too many Americans don't realize is exactly what is being pursued under the "small government" rubric. Are the number of civil servants going down or remaining flat? Yes. Is total government spending going down? No. Where's the difference?
What's called "private sector" is all too often government contractors. We, your government contractors, aren't bound by all the government's rules, restrictions, or protections. We can be laid off or fired relatively easily. We can use private databases to watch you. You can't see us, because we're private. But we can contribute to PACs, to keep the money flowing to political campaigns. We call it "access" and as a result your elected officials pay more attention to our lobbyists than they do to you.
As one of my previous bosses put it, "Our company has no problems that cannot be solved by more growth."
Want back stabbing, gossip, alliances and enemies? Join the ranks of academia! If you are a prof you get amaazing leeway to abuse your grad students and use them for free labor. Thats if you can survive the constant oversight of the head of the dept. If you are a grad student, bend over and lube up. You are free labor and you have no rights as a worker. After a while you will notice that it is no coincidence that your advisor won't let you leave. Why would they? You are a well conditioned mule. Letting you graduate would mean your advisor would have to break in another.
OTOH, I have two entrepeneur friends whove wasted countless millions in private sector funding. They are motivated, ambitious and competant at spending money and building solutions to problems that do not exist.
Somebody, 'slowness' will come back in favour. The fast and loose world of the private sector can be personally fulfilling, but its all about risking (usually other people's) money. By-the-seat-of-your-pants 'innovation' found in the private sector can be a very self-serving career. Definately fun, like a roller coaster. You might make the mad cash, but what you actually produce is probably going to affect less people than the work public sector employees do.
Its called "The Parents Factor". Sure, parents are slow, uncool, not hip, too cautious, but what alotta folks don't realize is that the types of things the government, parents, and any governing body that must ensure and maintain the quality of life of people *requires* slowness and caution in order to avoid the crash-and-burn approach of the private sector. Failed private sector enterprises do not get punished by voters, and usually the 'motivated, ambitious' entrepeneurs escape with their wealth intact while investors scratch their heads. Slow and steady, thats the government, and considering the things that they are charged to do, I'm thankful for it. Folks that outright dismiss the public sector in favour of the private sector are simply suffering from a bad case of the optics - your perspective on the private sector hinges mostly on the wins, while the massive amounts of wasted money that comes from frivilous ambition to create shit usually flies under the radar of most people's perspectives.
"Old man yells at systemd"
I worked in a government position for two years, then switched to a private industry job. I can't recommend any books on the subject, but I can relate my experience.
Government Job: Pros- Deadlines were meaningless
- Very low stress level
- Projects were unique and interesting
- If you really need something, money is no object.
Government Job: Cons- Lots of paperwork
- Limited salary
- Unmotivated peers
- Politics
Private Industry Job: Pros- Good Pay
- Good Equipment
- Competent Peers
- Good Benefits (insurance, perks, bonuses)
Private Industry Job: ConsEvery work environment will be different, so don't take these items as a hard and fast rule. I'm sure others in this thread will have widely different experiences from my own. Private companies that do work for the government (Raytheon, Boeing, Northrup) will act more like government jobs, and conversely, government labs (Sandia National Labs, MIT Lincoln Labs, John's Hopkins Physics Lab) will act more like private companies. Finding the right fit is a trial and error process that everyone must go through. I've found that I prefer to work for a small, private firm where I have more influence on my job, but at the same time take on quite a bit more stress and responsibility.
Whatever job you decide to take, a good idea is to first define what your goals are. Do you want a job that requires you to spend long hours, but rewards handsomely? Are you looking for a job where your tasks are well defined? What is your tolerance for stress? Do you prefer to work on a team, or alone? Do you want to perform research into new areas? Ask yourself these types of questions, and when you are sure of what you are looking for, ask your prospective employer about them. If you have a chance, ask the existing employees. Compare what the job has to offer against what you want from the job, and you will have a better chance of finding a position that is right for, regardless of whether it is public or private.
Having worked in the public sector, I'd choose private. Public sector puts you at the mercy of the taxpayers, and ANY attempt to secure money for ANYTHING is met with derision and scorn from the people paying your salary, the taxpaying public. Given a choice, I'd remove myself from that sort of scrutiny and go private. Example: If a company wants to send you to a convention in Vegas, no one cares. The public enterprise, in order to avoid the appearance of impropriety, has to send you to a similar conference in Fresno. Ugh.
At my public sector (state) job, the head of IT was a typical PHB. He
- knew little;
- believed vendors, their salespeople, and consultants over his employees;
- Had no vision and worse, no plan;
- and he would not speak to his employees about any of the above.
I actually had asked my boss once what my purpose was in being there and she didn't know. A group of us asked her if this "CIO" would sit down with us and help us figure out what our roles were, what his vision was, and what the 5-year plan was. Her answer: "No. He doesn't like confrontation."Then I asked if I could speak to him one-on-one so he'd be less intimidated. Her answer: "No. You can schedule a meeting with him, but it will be cancelled."
Now, I was going through a difficult time (divorce) so I was looking for my job to have some meaning. It didn't. I was intent on using all those sick days they gave me (state jobs do have good benefits but it was actually a problem that I used the sick days) and my boss sits me down in her office and says: I know you have nothing to do (no active projects) and are struggling with having no purpose here, but it would be better for you to come in and sit at your desk playing SOLITAIRE ALL DAY than to take another sick day.
Basically, in my experience, in the public sector you are treated like furniture. They may not use you at all, and they want to shuffle you around (...constant reorganizations make you look busy, you know...), but by God you'd better be where they put you day in and day out 'cause when they're ready to sit on you, if you're not there they get pissed.
Working in the private sector, I've been laid off four times, three companies I worked for went out of business, and I've never been with any single company more than three years. AND I LOVE IT.
But sometimes, now that I'm older and have a family and kids and all, I think: Those sit on your ass all day, do nothing, government jobs would really help my blood pressure right about now.
YMMV.
Very true. While both have red tape, the corps are less likely to get bogged down in it. Corps are driven to make a profit and red tape costs money. Governments however do not consider the bottom line as much as they should. A nice happy medium between between the fanitic corps' persuit of profits and some governments total lack of business sense would be ideal.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
IT resumes are worth more as shit squares than they are for distinguishing talented individuals. Buzzwords have rendered them absolutely useless, because anybody and everybody splatters everything inside the margins with them. An IT staffer might as well sort IT resumes by weight or coloration than by reading them. If you reduce yourself to your resume, you're one of hundreds if not thousands of applicants for most jobs. Disco will be wildly popular again before you get an interview. If you get an interview, pangea will occur again before you get a callback. If you get a callback, species will evolve before someone will make a serious offer to you.
Another decent alternative I've come across to resumes, are well-written letters to companies stating what you believe they can accomplish and how you can help them achieve to that end if they give you gainful employment. You show initiative and interest in the company all in one shot.
I worked in government for many years, now I work in private industry.
There is "big" government, where you work in a centralized bureaucracy, and "little" government, where you work in a tiny little outpost that nobody cares about. A large city might have some agencies that are "big", and the Feds have some agencies that are "small". Private industry has the same concept. For the IT worker, you want "big".
In most (but not all) cases, private industry salaries are better than government. This can be used advantageously by young people who want to build experience. For any given skill level, you can get a "better" job in government because the salary structure locks out most of the highly-skilled competitors. So you work in the public sector and establish yourself in a job you wouldn't have otherwise, then switch to private industry to make real money.
Government work can be enjoyable, but supervisory positions are to be avoided at all costs. It's hard to motivate anyone when you can't do anything good for the good people or do anything bad to the bad people. Since the good and bad get treated pretty much the same, mediocrity is par for the course.
All the other things (training, advancement, benefits, stability of employment, toys to play with), are really functions of big/little more than private/public.
I manage the Info Systems Department for a local government. I ended up here purely by chance. I wanted to leave a very large, Plano, TX based outsourcing firm (didn't want to move to Plano) and my current employer was hiring.
Here are the lousy parts of government:
1. If you are fairly bright and motivated, you will likely be working with a lot of folks who aren't.
2. Government is about accountability, not profitability. Things happen very slowly in government primarily because you have to document exactly how every penny is spent and why it is spent that way. Government will gladly spend thousands to select a product that costs $10 less than the competitor, just so any citizen or the press won't fry your ass if you made the wrong decision.
3. Remember your spending taxpayers money! Forget about bonuses, nice office furniture, big training budgets, or any other perk found in the private sector.
4. Because of 3 above, you will find that there is little reward for doing a job well. You'll likely get the same raise as the guy who hasn't put a line of code in production in years! Your average citizen would rather have you doing nothing than make more money than he does!
5. Forget about getting rid of poor performing employees. The documentation required isn't worth a managers time. Want to be guaranteed a job for life? Blow the whistle on anything you even think might have been done incorrectly and call the local newspaper!
6. Budgets are pretty much fixed yearly. If your priorities change during the year, you're screwed til next year. Just keep doing nothing.
I intended to jump back into the private sector last year, but the employment market sucks.
If you really don't want to work and don't mind hanging out in a drab government facility 8 hours a day, it may just be the right career move for you.
>While both have red tape, the corps are less likely
>to get bogged down in it.
No offence, but what's the biggest company you've ever worked for?
True story from my days at Very Big Oil Company: At my office, someone bent over to pick up a pen, and when they stood up, they bumped their head on a thermometer mounted on the wall. This was officially written up as a "safety incident", meetings were held, and the thermometer was remounted to a higher position on the wall.
Dilbert isn't a comedy, it's a documentary of the Fortune 500.
Of course, there's also those of us who work in the public sector and take pride in doing real work, and do our cutting edge hobby work during our 6 weeks of paid vacation ;) I like my job. I'd make more money in the private sector, but my benefits (especially the retirement ones) outweigh the lack of cash. I do good work. It's (generally) low stress. Job security is great, and it's not just because it's so hard to fire government workers - it's about having a stable environment, where my job isn't going to go away because some CEO needs to bump the stock price another couple cents to make his bonus. It's true that you can run into alot of lowest common denominator people, but you can also get that anywhere, and there's nothing that says I can't leave whenever I feel like it. I'm not sure what sort of motivation and ambition I need to quit a stable, well paying job with good benefits, but maybe you have some other criteria.
All union growth has been in the public sector for the last ten years. Therefore, for unions to avoid further shrinkage, they must necessarily encourage growth in the public sector.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
I did a temporary stint at a local government IT shop. Some of the practices were utterly silly. For example, every single database change had to go up through the hierarchy and back down to the DBA even in a project that was not in production yet. I like databases, but that kind of red tape makes flat files look appealing. Worse yet, the DBA did little to correct others' bad schema designs (I least I think it was them, because I rarely dealt directly with them). They seemed obsessed with their goofy naming conventions rather than the structure and logic itself.
Second, I couldn't just go and ask a specific expert a question. I had to go through the "chain of command" even for a one-time quick question. It is true that people there a long time build up buddy-buddy ties such that they go directly to each other. However, the rest have to go through the proper channels.
If you have to depend on other people to finish their part before you finish, then you might as well find another project to work on while you wait and wait and wait for the other party to deliver their part or approval. Everybody is highly protective of their "turf" and not making political waves is given a much higher priority over getting anything real done. If you are late to finish, the penalty is usually a minor chewing out (unless a critical system), but if you make your uppers look bad, watch out!
Before you start work with a gov entity, rip out the part of your brain that likes to see real progress on real projects, for you will never use it, or get into trouble when you do. You have to be happy to go with the flow and navigate the maze of politics and rot-heads it contains.
Perhaps they can't fire you for complaining about stupidity, but they can make your life miserable if you piss them off. Also, there were hints of people being framed so as to get rid of them. Thus, officially you cannot be fired for complaining about bad practices, but in practice you probably can if framed or they find some small infraction on your part that they can use against you (sexual joke, surfing slashdot, changing official desktop settings, etc.). Remember, they know how to "use" the system, and that includes aiming the system's barrel at you. If not canned, then at least moved to a closet or a Siberia-like working environment.
The stress is not relentless technical deadlines, but dealing with relentless politics and silly obstacles. Maybe other places are different, but from the grapevine it appears that my experience is not unique.
One other thing: it can be difficult to get hired on in the government. The hiring system favors interns and graduates because newbies are less of a career threat to union members. Thus, it is rigged against age and experience. I am surprised that there has not been huge lawsuits over this.
You have been warned. You may get a paycheck and benefits, but leave your soul at the door.
Table-ized A.I.
Private-sector, duh! Anything with the word "government" in it means incompetence, mismanagement and waste. $300 toilet seats and $200 keyboards, maybe they should spend more on procurement management and analysis instead of throwing money at problems.
As for working conditions in government jobs: lower pay, lower morale, less flexibility and more paperwork and bureaucracy than typical equivalent private enterprise jobs. Then again, some big businesses are run as horribly as governments.
The biggest trick the devil pulled was letting lawyers become politicians so they can write the laws.
There are assholes and idiots pretty much everywhere you go, so the more important question is: "Of the places I've seen and interviewed, at which one would I be the most comfortable, happiest, and productive?" Remember, interviews go both ways, so be sure to ask enough questions to ensure you are making the right choices. And the hardest thing: only you are qualified to make those choices, we can't make them for you.
Healthcare article at Kuro5hin
While unlimited job security in government may have been a thing of the past, it is not anymore. Recently, my ex-government employer decided to outsource almost *everyone* that was not an engineer. And by everyone, I mean *everyone*; security, maintaince, computer support, librarians, etc.; only a few VIPs would remain to supervise the winning contractor(s).
Low and behold, there actually are companies that specialize in taking over a variety of tasks in this sort of manner. A single firm bid to do all of the things I listed above, and then some. The winning bidder (Johnson Controls World Services, Inc.) tentatively has a $60 Million, 5-year contract. Approximately 250 jobs will be downsized and/or replaced at this single, government location.
Mind you, the facility I worked at already had outsourced HVAC, groundskeeping, and several other tasks, so the lost of jobs is somewhat minimal. But if 1,000 government facilities all decided to do what mine did, the lost of jobs and/or salaries could skyrocket.
Please pardon my skeptism with outsourcing; the two other cases I've seen of outsourcing have involved people fired from $30K salaries to be replaced with minimum-wage workers. Somehow, the prices still manage to go up, and quality goes down. In one case (a school cafeteria), prices more than doubled. So either the school was selling things too cheaply, or the contractor has seriously marked things up.
Finally I realized memetic systems defining reinsurance networks in terms of kin-selection were the most natural way to make stable technological civilizations because other memetic systems (those that deny the importance of kin-selection) merely evolve hypocrisy at an unconsciuos genetic level rendering rational thought, communication and action nonviable.
Seastead this.
The worker safety laws are badly abused by some. Documenting as much as possible can help prevent this kind of fraud.
UNIX/Linux Consulting
2) Public sector jobs are subject to the whims of the voter. A few years back, EVERY California state employee got an across the board pay cut. (I think it was 10%).
3) There are little or no metrics to measure performance of public sector. Combined with employee unions, this means everybody gets the same raises, regardless of competence.
Bottom line: If you are competent, you'll do better in the private sector. If you are incompetent, you'll do better in the public sector.
A few years ago at a job fair, the recruiter for the state of Oregon came out of her booth and tried to drag me back to apply for a job. "Wouldn't you like to work for the state?" she asked. "I'd love to, but I'd have to take a 50% pay cut to do so!" I replied. This was literally true, since at the time I was making twice as much as a contractor as the state was willing to pay me.
"Freedom means freedom for everybody" -- Dick Cheney
I'm a young person. I took the first good job i could get when I re-entered the workforce after college. When you are a recent grad, apply to all industries, not just one. YOu can always move on later when you have a lot of experience.
I could move on now (3 years total experience now) but I love my job, it pays well, and it's very secure (as far as private industry goes).
Robots are everywhere, and they eat old people's medicine for fuel.
As compared to the public sector?
Tell me, whose money does the Government risk?
I have worked in both the public and the private sector in the UK and Europe, and I have to say that both have their advantages and disadvantages.
However, one thing I do believe is that, at least in Europe, the competition for public sector jobs is much higher than the private sector, and the standards are much higher.
You wouldn't believe what you have to go through to get a graduate level job in Brussels at the European headquarters. Microsoft like to boast about how difficult their selection process is, but I bet it's not half as difficult as the EUs process. I didn't get past the first hurdle.
The first step is an exam which is incredibly difficult. I consider myself quite intelligent, and got a good degree from a good university, but it was the hardest exam I have ever taken. I don't know what my score was but I doubt it was above 40%.
Then you have to do written and oral exams in two different european languages, and you are expected to be fluent in both of them.
Only after that do you come to the interviews, and then I think there were a couple more stages after that.
I eventually got a job in uk government, but for that I was competing against 200 others for a single position.
I have to say that getting a job with a fortune 500 IT company was very much easier.
(* At this point in the economy, I think you should take whatever you can get. *)
I am still getting rejection notices from local and fed jobs I applied for *14 months* ago. (I later realized that I did my application "wrong" back then. There is a certain reviewer thinking pattern you have to cater your application to, and I am still learning the tricks.)
By the time a gov job pans out, the economy will probably be back on its heals (unless the 1930's are repeating).
I am not saying, "don't try", but never expect/plan-on "soon" from the gov.
Table-ized A.I.
``Hard money'' is the career goal of most young scientists, regardless of field. Those two words mean that your salary is paid regardless of what you do. A traditional way to get hard money is to work through the university system and become a tenured professor somewhere. The other main way is to become a civil servant at a government research lab. Once you're in, you're in. As a scientist, you're essentially bulletproof: it's very hard to fire a civil servant, especially one with as nebulous a set of responsibilities as a scientist carries.
But there are drawbacks too. With the security of a government job come responsibilities ranging from the trivial (such as not being allowed to eat the free doughnuts at a meeting) to the ludicrous (I went to a meeting held at the 1998 eclipse site on the island of Guadaloupe. My civil service friends were required to book hotels 25 miles away to save a few bucks a night -- but then they discovered that their hotel was on another island!) to the onerous (e.g. it's difficult to travel, get equipment, or hire help).
I ended up taking a ``soft money'' position at a nonprofit research institute. The downside is that I have to find sources of income (grants) to support myself. The upside is that when I want a book, I buy it; when there's a meeting I should attend, I go to it; and if I have an idea for a new instrument or analysis technique, I can just implement it. Management is very supportive.
Civil service is great -- but on the other hand, the people who are most attracted to it are the people who value security above opportunity. That fosters a CYA culture and makes it difficult to get things done (such as science). Although tenure and absolute job security in principal make it possible to explore unpopular-but-important ideas (and many civil servants are very productive!), they also make it possible to relax into a not-very-productive rut.
The entrepreneurial spirit of soft-money research labs, ironically, makes it easier to have (some kinds of) bold ideas, simply because you have to do something to keep yourself going. That small-but-significant frisson of worry about the future keeps people on their toes and thinking creatively. Ordinary entrepreneurs must get it in spades.
On the private sector side, if you want less stress, choose your industry wisely. A friend switched from investment banking to insurance here in NYC, and, guess what, insurance is still the same old lazy industry it's been for centuries, quite resembling the ideal government backwater, for those attracted to such locales.
"with their freedom lost all virtue lose" - Milton
Thats semantics - the public sector _is_ the public sector by virtue of spending your and my taxes. My whole point was that the government has an obligation to minimize the risk ... thus its only natural, even proper, that they 'waste' money via operating costs through what is perceived as 'inefficiency' (aka red tape, caution, more rigerous research and analysis phases than the private sector when dealing with risk/reward decisions.)
;), but it doesn't really help when dealing with the sorts of problems and issues that the government has the uneviable position of addressing.
The government risks your money, but it also risks *everyone's* money; private companies are capable of victimizing a small amount of people who generally can't raise a stink the way of a foresightless voting public does when the money is misspent. The private sector could waste *way* more money than the government, but they still wouldn't be on the recieiving end of complaints because the problems are localized to small groups of people. Its pretty obvious that if everybody is pooling their money together, any displeasure they have with respect to how its being spent is going to be a whole lot more visible in the public conciousness and media than the localized victims of the private sector. Once in awhile, you get a big flash in the pan (see Enron, WorldCom) that raises the public profile of the kind of waste the private sector is capable of.
Thats why its optics, my friend. At least with the public sector, if you get screwed, everybody gets screwed - so everybody must work together in order to address the problem. Private sector, everybody's on their own. Sure, some people like it this way (usually the monitory that increases their wealth over time, for some odd reason
"Old man yells at systemd"
The RIGHT question is:
How the Hell am I ever going to get a job?
This
I work in the public sector.
The reason I love it is the exact same reason I hate it.
Love: because working the public sector frees you from the vagaries of the business cycle and crude metrics, such as
Hate: Just because your organization is free from the tyranny of the bottom line doesn't mean you're free from politics and various fronts of appearances your management wants to put up.
Pick your poison. If you go into the public or private sector, stay with smaller organizations, screening for psychotic management, of course. They usually can't hide too well there anyway, compared to a large organization.
"Provided by the management for your protection."
In the public sector, most positions are governmental beaurocratic functionary and enabling positions, which only contribute to the ability of the government to kill people. Moreoever, they offer little hope of meaningful personal advancement, and consist largely of endless office politics -- much like a large corporate job, at an IBM or a Sun Microsystems. Anyone who has a conscience is likely to run into strong demands to violate their conscience in a very immediate and visceral manner, but on the plus side, it's a sinecure, and doesn't eat your life. 8 hours, and *ding*, you're outta here.
I always keep coming back to small-enterprise. In the entrepreneurial environment, the upside in employee ownership is much greater, there's little of the political backside-covering toady gerrymandering of large organizations, and a great deal of opportunity for your personal contribution to shine, if you have initiative and intelligence. Also, the pay is much better, if you have desirable skills and a resume to back it up. On the downside, you can and will get terminated due to changes in management, business failures, and the occasional period of non-performance that everyone experiences from time to time.
Best of all, if you can hack it, is out-and-out entrepreneurship. Be your own boss. Earn the benefits of your labors. The risks are big, but the upside potential is enormous. If you can deal with your own bizdev or find a suitable partner who can, I think this is the way to go. You can do much more to benefit society if you gain wealth and power than you can if you wimp out and do your 9-5 tasks in a powerless and ineffective NGO. If you are prone to self-aggrandizement and disinclined to charity, please ignore my advice, or better yet, invert it, because then I want you to fail.
-I like my women like I like my tea: green-
As the property is for retirement, having the value plummet is a good thing. You don't want to sell anyway, and it lowers the taxes. You may even be able to use it as a captical lose to offset the initial cost of startup. Setting up a small company is not hard, and can have significant tax advantages even if little revenue is generated. An accountant and a little book reading is all that is needed. Obviously the onous is on the land owner to determine if the revenue from stumpage will cover the expenses in both time and money.
The idiotic advice is to leave the property sitting idle when it could be making money.
I've worked in both public and private sectors and prefer working in the private sector. I want to work on interesting projects involving cutting edge technologies. Working the the public sector in general they are on tight budgets so you don't see much current technology. Sometimes large corporatations give public sector sizable discounts, but it's not that common. I also like getting paid well and public sector doesn't pay well, the benefits are usually better, but the pay isn't. Another difference that some like about public is there is less stress. Public sector projects usually have longer timelines, and your job usually isn't on the line if miss deadlines.
That's how I see it.
I work for my church. I came here from a brokerage to help another guy with some programming for a few months. That was 6 years ago. I may still go back to the private sector, but here's some of what I like about it here (and most would apply to most non-profits):
1 - Everyone works here because they want to and believe in The Cause, not to make money.
2 - We're all friends
3 - My direct supervisor and friend worked in the Private Sector at a position I where I would never have interacted with her (big fish in a big pond). Yes, she's Real Smart (tm).
4 - Satisfaction that what I do actually makes a difference in someone's life.
Mark
In my experience, there isn't enough difference
to justify saying "private only" or "public
only". In the public sector, you've got a lesser
chance of losing your job, and you won't get rich.
Everything else is up to the people and the
politics.
Yes, I've worked with people who should never have
been promoted in the public sector, and were
essentially unfireable. I've also worked with
people who were unfireable due to office politics,
or because they got the company started with
massive code-and-test efforts to get mostly
usable (although undocumented) software.
I've seen both private and public shops where
the bosses were power-hungry idiots in it for their
own ego, and where they were good guys and worked
hard at letting people do their best. Ditto with
shops where you couldn't get anything new and
shops where you could get new stuff and experiment.
So, I'd suggest that you keep your mind open, and
learn about each individual workplace, assuming
you can get a choice in this job market. Avoid
workplaces where there are large numbers of Dilbert
cartoons on the walls, since they are probably
there for a reason. Avoid workplaces where there
are none, since then management probably had to
ban them.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
I've been looking since January, as have a number of my friends with similar experience, and I'd be happy with a Help Desk position right now...
Mainframe/UNIX Bit Twiddler and long time Windows/Linux Hobbyist.
The Theorem Theorem: If If, Then Then.
I'll have to remember that after I get that grad degree.
... period.
/. to throw out there:
I cannot stand these story post about "Ideal work environments" and "If you have a choice..." bullshit.
Here is a good
"If you could get a job, would you be the best damn ___________er that company has ever seen, public or private?"
Sonova!
ChozSun
ChozSun.com
Thinking jobs that require creativity and new ideas to problem solving don't seem to work well in a military setting.
How incredibly wrong you are! Creative people with new ideas excel in today's military. Entire units, and even entire bases, exist to try new things in a "laboratory" setting (in quotes because sometimes the lab is a muddy forest!) If you were in the military, and I mean no disrespect when I say it sounds like you weren't, then you obviously had the misfortune to have a short and dull career. Such an experience, and the resulting attitude, is like working at JPL for a year and complaining that all you got to do was install hard drives. And if you're talking about developing new equipment, then yes, of course, not much of that is done in the military. They are the end users for the most part. Duh?
Evil is the money of root.
You sir, are a moron.
Both sets of my grandparents, and my parents do use this method to raise money to set aside for their retirements and to keep money coming in for my grandparents. It's INCREDIBLY common for people around the southeast to do this as a retirement plan as many of them have 20-40 acres of land that they no longer farm normally. So really all they do is plant pine trees, and watch them grow. No fuss, no muss, no effort. We're not talking hundreds of thousands of dollars, but for a 1000$ investment my grandparents pulled in about 35000 from land they didn't use for anything anyways. It's not a fortune, but it's a heck of a decent ROI.
Kintanon
Check out JoshJitsu.info for Brazilian Ji
The article does not say the public sector should be expanded. The article says government should not move safety related agencies into the private sector.
Its also an odd choice for an article, because it does not make a case for going into a public sector career. Its a union resolution attacking privatization of government agencies.
Why do I smell editorial engineering, or the desire to propagate a point of view?
There is no America. There is no democracy. There is only IBM and AT&T and DuPont, Dow, General Electric, and Exxon
I believe that "less government" should be less direct government on a federal level. Easier-to-influence smaller governments is the exact point, because humanity is too dynamic for a static or archaic government. I think that federal government, rather than policing the citizens, should exist only to police the smaller governments, and to see that Big Corporate America, the Mother Church, or other alternative forms of government don't take the "Power of the People" away from the people. Each state and municipal government should be basically soverign, to be controlled as the citizens see fit, while under the jurisdiction of the U.S. Constitution, and the Feds enforce compliance of the local gov'ts.
Your second paragraph points to the current state of affairs, which is highly reflected in an overly executive federal government - it provides a single point of failure, for the corrupting influence of powerful entities who would take power away from the citizenry. Big Corporations, the "Moral Majority" and other corruptions of the U.S. Government would have a much harder time usurping power if its efforts had to be distributed over a large and diverse distributed government, in which the the federal government's only role was to monitor checks and balances without direct action against the population. This would prevent any $multi-billion corporate buyouts like the airline rescue packages or federal abuse of citizen's rights like federal persecution of individuals who maintain their right to consume cannabis according to the laws in California. Each state should be free to police corporations how they see fit, then the insulated federal government should be the watchdog to monitor for any abuses. The problem of corruption and general idiocy is not inherent in capitalism or socialism, but in large clumsy monolithic structures in general. Distribution of governmental power would address the problem, and allow for socialism and capitalism to co-exist under the Umbrella of the Republic of the United States of America.
I am not for full-blown laissez-faire capitalist government, but I believe that we need the federal government to take a step back from the brouhaha and perform a more supervisory role for smaller direct governments - to ensure the proper seperation of church, state, corporation, sovereignity and individual. Then each smaller sub-government would be free to play a greater or lesser role in the local economy or service industry as each local population sees fit. The national economy, much like the global economy, is too poorly understood for any universal legislation to guarantee sanity. Let the people be heard, in their respective domains. In a crowd of millions, nobody can be heard.
I think your last paragraph is the strongest indirect rebuttal to your post in general. A small-business setting (corporate or public) can specialize itself to your type of work (or private lifestyle) better than a large, structured, hierarchical environment. (Remember, you are unique--just like everybody else!) That large hierarchy would be a powerfully effective set of guidelines extending from the Federal Constitution to provide a means of sanity-checking for smaller governmental organizations of any kind, be it pseudo-Marxism, anarcho-capitalism, tribal-democracy or benevolent-dictatorship.
-
--- Off-topic and Off-beat ramblings follow ---
-
Perhaps a Theocracy might even be possible under this system, as long as a democratic means of representation were preserved. Or perhaps I am dreaming a dangerous dream here.
Dissolution (not radical-revolution, but perhaps through gradual campaign- and tax- reform attrition) of the Federal government would also be an effective way of preserving the civil liberties of Americans, and repealing archaic imperialist behaivor that has tarnished the U.S. reputation on the world stage.
Again, still dreaming, here's another idea for discussion. If the Federal Government is every properly reformed as I describe, eventually membership of the United States might eventually be opened up, so that our territories might be granted the option of proper statehood through some mutual electoral process. If this relatively small scale experiment panned out, then the option could be offered to Sovereign States that are currently considered Foreign Nations. If the benefits of falling under the jurisdiction of the U.S. constitution prove to be a compelling trade off, maybe the U.S could become what the United Nations never was.
Of course, that last paragraphs should be disregarded as pure poppycock or feverish half-baked ejaculations. It seems doubtful that federal corruption could ever be dissolved to any significant degree in my lifetime. The federal government would have to be both declawed against violation of individual freedoms and bolstered to protect minority social elements from oppression, both homebrewed and alien.
The National Libertarian Party's efforts in their "Incumbent Killer" program are a source of hope, even if I find their general platforms to be too extreme for my taste - their hearts seem to be in the right place. I would have been interested to see what happened if Pat Buchanan didn't hijack the Reform Party. While John Hagelin may have been a slightly offbeat pseudo-religious yogi, I somehow find that preferable to the blatant Moral Majority partyline spewed by Buchanan cronies - it seems that the has transplanted the worst part of the modern Repblican party into my once future hope.
I would be much more likely to have voted for Hagelin under the Reform Party ticket than under the Natural Law Party ticket, for the very same reason - less pseudo-religious influence would have been likely permissible. I voted for Ralph Nader despite not identifying with the Green Party, purely as a protest vote. Alas, it seems the only visible legacy of Perot was to bring the pomp and farce of Professional wrestling into the disturbingly similar political arena. Frankly "the snake" is too generic a term for Ventura's current peers, including Hillary, and hopefully not Ed Rendell.
Pennsylvania, vote Mike Fisher!
Ahem... sory about that last bit.
I'm non-partisan, honest!