[araine901]

Government employees are a mixed bag. There are many who are fantastic and work hard for their employer. Again there are those that just like the private sector suck. The big difference is the protection of their jobs. There is no good reason that my high school history teacher I had to wake of for class regularly should make as much as my mother who with a masters PhD and voted teacher of the year every year. There is no incentive for merit.

My oldest brother (GS 17) was called in to “clean up” JPATS “Con Air”. The things that were going on were mind blowing. Laws were broken all the time and it was mostly by the management level of the organization. He busted his but and got it turned into a well oiled machine. It was very hard to get some of the employees terminated even the ones who made death threats and broke serious laws. In most for profit companies if an employee made a death threat they would be terminated in quick fashion. He also ran all of the detention and transportation in the post 9/11 round up and helped keep the “undisclosed” location safe with 800 people looking to blow us up. He saw his family less than 45 min a week as he was rarely in San Diego (home) and spent 3 weeks a month in AZ and 1 week a month in DC. He gave more than he was expected to and so did many other government employees. There are many heroes working for the government. There are also many turds.

My next oldest brother was a social worker in so cal and was very poorly treated by managers due to race and gender. His union was too busy with too many grievances they would not accept any more grievances. Oddly enough they represented both labor and management. Conflict???

Both have excellent co-workers and both have crapy co-workers. The difference between me and them is in the real world crapy ones get fired for lack of productivity.