Bullcrap. It is obvious that you have not spent one day in management in Government. There is tremendous pressure to reduce expenses. Every year I was in management my budget was cut and my service demains increased. That was a big incentive to be more efficent. Some of the problems (challenges!) in goverment is that many times you are required to provide the same level of services to everyone. You can't cherry pick your customers or scale services to payment like private business. Another challenge is that your mistakes tend to be very public.
I'm working for a Fortune 500 firm now and see many of the same problems that I saw while working for the goverment. The one thing that I have not seen is the dedicate people, not all but most, who were just trying to do the best thing for the public at large.
One interesting thing to note is from the time of the Roman Legionnaires to today the combat load of a soldier has been around 45 pounds. Compared to the WW II infantryman, the uniform, weapon, ammunition and load bearing gear of today's infantry is lighter, but now they carry night vision goggles, radios and other electronics and body armor. Making it lighter is offset by carrying more stuff.
Nothing like a change in perspective to reduce your stress level. I was called up after 9/11 and spent a year on Active Duty including a deployment in Afghanistan. Getting mortered, rocketed, shot at and seeing people who are happy with much much less that I, changed my attitude about what is important. Makes my bosses unhappy some times, but if a problem is not going to kill someone, it is not that big of a problem.
I saw a job listing for a Network engineer for SAIC or one of the other big government contractors. Wanted X year experence in networking, yada, yada, yada... arabic and weapons certified. Three guesses where the job opening was located at.
Not true. That is another version of the "shoot at their belt buckles with the 50 cal." myth. Don't have it handy, but what I remember from my Law of Land Warfare class at my Officers course in the Army is that the Geneva Convention prohibits weapons that are intended to maim, not wound or kill cleanly. Prohibits things such as saw tooth bayonets, dum-dum (hollow point) bullets etc. Heavy Machine Guns, RPG rounds and nukes etc are OK. Go figure. What I do remember is when the JAG Major said that all weapons in the U.S. inventory meet the Geneva Convention requirements and I asked him "What about the M-14(?) toe-popper mine?" he got huffy and locked me up at attention.
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I'm working for a Fortune 500 firm now and see many of the same problems that I saw while working for the goverment. The one thing that I have not seen is the dedicate people, not all but most, who were just trying to do the best thing for the public at large.
One interesting thing to note is from the time of the Roman Legionnaires to today the combat load of a soldier has been around 45 pounds. Compared to the WW II infantryman, the uniform, weapon, ammunition and load bearing gear of today's infantry is lighter, but now they carry night vision goggles, radios and other electronics and body armor. Making it lighter is offset by carrying more stuff.
Nothing like a change in perspective to reduce your stress level. I was called up after 9/11 and spent a year on Active Duty including a deployment in Afghanistan. Getting mortered, rocketed, shot at and seeing people who are happy with much much less that I, changed my attitude about what is important. Makes my bosses unhappy some times, but if a problem is not going to kill someone, it is not that big of a problem.
I saw a job listing for a Network engineer for SAIC or one of the other big government contractors. Wanted X year experence in networking, yada, yada, yada... arabic and weapons certified. Three guesses where the job opening was located at.
Yeh, Then I could buy a new iPod to replace the one I have now with a broken screen that Apple wants $250!!! to repair. What a rip-off
Not true. That is another version of the "shoot at their belt buckles with the 50 cal." myth. Don't have it handy, but what I remember from my Law of Land Warfare class at my Officers course in the Army is that the Geneva Convention prohibits weapons that are intended to maim, not wound or kill cleanly. Prohibits things such as saw tooth bayonets, dum-dum (hollow point) bullets etc. Heavy Machine Guns, RPG rounds and nukes etc are OK. Go figure. What I do remember is when the JAG Major said that all weapons in the U.S. inventory meet the Geneva Convention requirements and I asked him "What about the M-14(?) toe-popper mine?" he got huffy and locked me up at attention.