Gov't Employees
 

I was talking with the wife last night about what the big differences are between her private sector job and her government job. It boiled down to enforcement. An example is 5 years ago a form was replaced and is now obsolete. there are still people in her agency who are using the old form, because that is the way they have always done it. They have been talked to repeatedly about the need to use the proper forms, however they do not change what they are doing. The reason is the supervisor refuses to enforce the new policy. It makes it very difficult when you ask four people what the policy is and all four give different answers. What makes it even more interesting is their policies are written in regulation and published. In private industry they had review and audits by government entities and if anything was out of standard they would either be fined or placed on probation. If the company is placed on probation they have more audits (federal oversight) and more restrictions placed on their business. Neither are good for profitability.

Her current job pays roughly 10k less than a comparable private sector job, but has better vacation benefits. The retirement and health care are about equivalent. After a year and a half she is saying good by to the government and going back to private industry. When you consider the increase in fuel expenditure she is taking a slight pay cut. If the government is so good, why does this happen?

Probably because the government screws up everything it touches

I've been an auto mechanic for 20 years. I've worked for Ford (was a Ford ASSET student at the community college I attended AND earned a second associates degree a year later in mechanical engineering), Toyota (Master tech) and Infiniti (master tech). The buisness I was in is going to the vultures. I was tired of working longer hours, spending more money for tool to stay current and watching my pay go down a slide every year. The utility company pays $28.95 an hour plus 4% for second shift. I know what I'm going to make every year, no pay cuts, a pension, $200 a month for health insurance (instead of the $600 a month plan at the dealership), vacation/personal/sick days, my tools are supplied, and there isn't ANY drama. The hardest thing I have to do is go to work and fix broke equipment.

I still work my butt off, but I don't have to attend "meetings" every month headed by a boss who cuts my labor rate to make his salary. I've been here for a year and a half.. I've gone home tired, but I've NEVER gone home mad OR dreaded going to work.

IMHO, if getting out of there is going to ease her stress level.. Go for it. It's one thing to be miserable at home.. You can get therapy and work out your situation, but miserable at work?? He!! no!

That.... and you have to work around or look over the zombies that have been there for 30 years and have always shuffled paper from the left to the right.

Mike--I think one thing the government is sorely lacking is leadership. Good leadership will require people to do what they are supposed to do and not be afraid to enforce standards on the employees. Because of the lack of leadership, many people who get a job there are gone within 3 years. If the pay and benefits are so great then there wouldn't be such a high turnover. My wife was in her government job less than 6 months when she started looking for another job. Once you figure in commute time/gas she will have to work 8 hours overtime per week to break even. If we lived near her new job she would be taking a good pay raise. She will lose a week of vacation time but her health insurance would be about the same. Her retirement is slightly better with the government, but not that good.

I find it funny when you see OPM post rankings of the best and worst places to work in the g. Management will down play when they are low on the list and advertise when they are high on the list. My agency is always in the bottom three places to work for the feds, yet our management will say we are a great place to work. These rankings are developed from surveys of the actual employees. They are set up in a way for you to rank you satisfaction with your job/agency. So it isn't a matter of the grass is always greener. This is how the employees feel, yet as usual we are ignored as having sour grapes. Kind of says exactly why we rank so low. Compared to many of the other jobs I have done it isn't too bad, but I've done some lousy jobs in my life.

One government job is not another government job ...

Let me start by saying I've worked for Ca state government for a little over 20 yrs. and I'm politically very conservative.

The agency I work for is huge. Like most of Ca state government, they're very good at taking a lot of hard-working taxpayer money and spending much of it on things of questionable value.

Within this huge agency, I've spent my career working in small field offices (3-10 people depending on work load) administering construction contracts. Pretty much without exception, the people I've worked with work very hard to insure the taxpayer gets what their paying for, of course within the constraints of the hand we're dealt (for example, while I may not agree w/ a certain water pollution specification, I make sure my contractor meets the spec prior to paying him for the work).

My observation on leadership is that in general the higher you go, the weaker the leadership gets. At my level the leadership is strong, maybe because we deal w/ the private sector (contractors) as much or more than w/ fellow government employees ... my experience is that the private sector doesn't tolerate weakness well.

I could do a similiar job in the private sector. I would make more money, but I would also work more hours and have a lot more stress. I made a decision a long time ago I would rather drive older cars, live in a more modest house, and have more time off to follow other interests. A lot of different ways to live life ...

I know what you're talking about listening to my dad (he's deputy director of the fire dept here) and my buddy Rick (runs the body shop for the city transportation dept. MLGW runs a bit different because while we're owned by the city, were not RAN like the city. We've got a COMPLETELY different benifits package. We're IBEW union workers, but it's not your stereotypical "union/govt" gig. If it were, all the lights would go out after 9 pm here.:roflol:

They do employee surveys here every 6 months. A month later they talk to us first, then management, then both together to dissolve any grievances. The only REAL issues we have are with outdated shop equipment. The shop foremen (like my boss) have to be in the shop 10 yrs before they can be considered for the job. The 10 shop foremen we have are ALL super folks. There isn't any mid level back biting, no drama. The 2 shops that I've worked at (I transferred after my probation was up to be closer to my girlfriends house and my ex wife's place so I could get my son when I get off work on Friday) run smooth. We come in and do our jobs. The guys I've worked with care about what they're doing. The only real drama that we get into is whats for lunch.

Lack of leadership and weak management isn't just a govt situation. I know when I started out at Dobbs Ford here in Memphis my service manager (he's still there, SUPER guy) was a master tech, then worked his way around the dealership. People don't do that anymore. They hire and promote disposable people that have the minimum skills and can make the "numbers" look right. They started that around 2001 here. I worked with 5 different service managers at the toyota dealership in 2001-2002. Worked with 2 at Infiniti. The first guy had been a Nissan master tech, moved to a service writers position and the GM at the Infiniti store hired him when they opened the dealership. They guy I quit worked at 10 dealerships in 8 years...:ll: They don't fool around with that stuff where I work. They rotate you in a position for 3-6 months. If you don't perform, you won't be considered for the promotion. They'll rotate them around to a point, then they can go back into the shop or bid out for another job.

Crappy management flat out sucks. You have to go to work, do YOUR job and worry about what the "boss" forgot, didn't care about that particular day, whatever.. and it breeds an environment for contempt. It's a sad situation when you're driving to work wondering "what kinda shiznit am I going to walk into today". :scared:

Our bosses like to micromanage everything. Heck we have the authority to kill someone on the spot if it is required, but we can't decide when to wipe our butts. It is ironic, because we still hold the same authority and responsibility and OPM pays us for those authority and responsibilities. Then management writes a policy e-mail saying we can only exercise those authorities and responsibilities if they approve of it. To me it's fine. I just save the e-mails and do what I am told. When management is overwhelmed because they want to control everything and take a bad decision, I fall back on the e-mails and hold them up in my defense against the write up I will inevitably receive. They do everything they can to limit their liability, but transfer as much of the liability from the workers onto themselves. Heck they have made huge error, by not allowing us to eat lunches. Their position is that since we are not allowed to have a lunch we cannot drive a GOV to get a lunch. They label it misuse of a GOV. It kind of makes sense, except we are an emergency response agency. If I am at a restaurant in my POV and have to get to an incident then can't. If I get into an accident in my POV I can sue the government for workman's comp and repairs to my vehicle because I am still on duty. Management is starting to see the ramifications of their poor leadership. We have an extra duty that is required in my area. They can not find anybody to do the duty, and they are not allowed to draft people (if they do it becomes part of the job description and can lead to more pay). What management doesn't seem to get is if they treated us properly, they would have received more than enough volunteers to do the job without any problem.

Heck when my wife turned in her resignation HR asked what they could do to keep her. She told them. A few days later they got back with her and told her she didn't deserve a promotion. She didn't care enough to tell them they can't just promote someone because they deserve it. The hiring process has to be followed (it is the law) and hiring must be done in compliance with merit service procedures, meaning you don't "deserve" a promotion. You "qualify" for a promotion. The one basic qualification my wife was missing is she is not black. The only people under her director who have been moved to a higher level job are black people. Yes, a complaint has been filed.

At the Government firm that I work at the more you screw up and cost the company money, the higher on the ladder you are placed! A guy ruined a $2 million dollar boiler and got moved to managment because he was incapable of his job in operations...

Classic "Peter Principle"!

I laugh every day at how the Air Force will trip over a dollar to save a dime.

Adrianspeeder

It funny you should say that. At one point my in laws made almost as much making cost saving recommendations as they did in their pay checks.