What I Saw in 20+ Years Working as a Federal Contractor

[iamwhatiseem]

You're basing this on general perceptions, when a lot of contractors are people who work as required and are on call 24/7. Take system admins for example, if they have a crisis on the network they might have to work 48+hours straight through. They might not have a need to do much more than ten hours a week most of the time though. That is not an easy schedule though it might seem to be. It plays hell with family life and you need to prove you have adequate backup to take a lengthy vacation.

I have been offered jobs with that kind of schedule for much better money, and I have turned it down every time. I am not going to be a slave to the random problems with a computer system.

Those folks have a cotar that knows exactly what they do and that cotar can shine by blowing the whistle on any abuses and get raises and promotions and cash awards, depending on the shop. He has no reason to bypass said incentives to do his job and risk his career by NOT doing his job.

I was a sys admin from 1998 - 2001. Bar none the easiest job I ever had. We employed Linux servers to do everything...thus little troubles. We had around 30 servers and supported about 240 desktops in 4 locations. Yes there were some pretty tough times when a virus/hardware problem arose - but for the most part - leisure. There were many weeks when I doubt I did 5 hours of actual work. This was when Napster was alive and well...man did I ever have a music collection.

Linux network admins do tend to have a cush job, as it is very stable, open source and you don't have to wait for some retailer patch to address issues. Nice job.

BTW, I don't mean to sound insulting when I talk about anyone's pay scale, etc. Just being honest, as I see it any way. I worked almost exactly 20 years before my disk herniated and I would gladly take a $40k a year job if I could do it any more, but pain and meds get in the way now.

I envy you still working.

Well I have circulation problems in both legs, and will get my knee replaced in a few months. I may be joining you.

 

[SteadyMercury]

Anyone claiming to work as a software developer for the government and never had themselves or anyone with them working more than 42 hours a week is a liar.

Nope, and I'd point out anyone making this claim is as naive as your initial post in this thread. We couldn't even be in the room we worked in unless the USAF guys were there too, they'd roll in at 7:30 am and usually be gone by around 4:30pm to 5:00pm.

Sorry you can't imagine an existence beyond your sporadic bottom feeder employment history.

 

[JimBowie1958]

I have worked for many years in industry and commerce, yet I see incompetence within large corporations and wondered how in the hell they made it this far and why were they still in business.

Because the bigger the corporation the more they can get officials and law makers to give them exemptions, favors and criminalize their smaller competition.

International corporations and banks LOVE strong central governments that they can bribe and corrupt to give them clearance for their rip offs and abuse.

It is called 'corporate cronyism' and it is a blight upon the land.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Anyone claiming to work as a software developer for the government and never had themselves or anyone with them working more than 42 hours a week is a liar.

Nope, and I'd point out anyone making this claim is as naive as your initial post in this thread. We couldn't even be in the room we worked in unless the USAF guys were there too, they'd roll in at 7:30 am and usually be gone by around 4:30pm to 5:00pm.

Sorry you can't imagine an existence beyond your sporadic bottom feeder employment history.

Horse shit.

There are contractors with TS clearances who can be trusted to work unsupervised, and there are government folks who can monitor it without actually being there.

And you don't have to use live data anyway; dummy data works fine. A parallel unclassified system can be used for off base/post work and then migrate the changes when shop opens.

You simply do not know what the hell you are lying about.

Now there maybe government shops whose management is so fucking paranoid that they wont let people do anything unless it is in the office and only during office hours, but it is not inevitable by any means, and it is far more likely you are simply telling asinine lies.

 

[JimBowie1958]

I was a sys admin from 1998 - 2001. Bar none the easiest job I ever had. We employed Linux servers to do everything...thus little troubles. We had around 30 servers and supported about 240 desktops in 4 locations. Yes there were some pretty tough times when a virus/hardware problem arose - but for the most part - leisure. There were many weeks when I doubt I did 5 hours of actual work. This was when Napster was alive and well...man did I ever have a music collection.

Linux network admins do tend to have a cush job, as it is very stable, open source and you don't have to wait for some retailer patch to address issues. Nice job.

BTW, I don't mean to sound insulting when I talk about anyone's pay scale, etc. Just being honest, as I see it any way. I worked almost exactly 20 years before my disk herniated and I would gladly take a $40k a year job if I could do it any more, but pain and meds get in the way now.

I envy you still working.

Well I have circulation problems in both legs, and will get my knee replaced in a few months. I may be joining you.

I am sorry to hear that.

Sitting at a desk is very bad for your health it turns out, worse than a pack a day smoking habit.

 

[longknife]

Why would anyone believe anything that you say?

Did anyone ever tell you that you are an idiot?

 

[Harry Dresden]

I have worked off and on for the US government as a contractor, usually in short 6 month contracts, though some were shorter and some went for years. I worked with many other software engineers who had worked in other agencies, and so this is my review of the people I met their culture and their attitude about the American people or heard about through friends. I have never been fired or given a negative review except twice and both were at a places I liked and worked at for many years and the bad reviews eventually were removed from my files. The worst places I left of my own volition, eager to work among competent people that did not make my skin crawl.

I am using a scale of -10 to +10, with -10 being outrageously incompetent, hateful of the American people and filled with jerks who would run down their own mothers for a COLA increase, and +10 being secular saints who got everything right, missed nothing and loved the USA and their fellow countrymen.

-10. At the bottom of the pile is the SEC. The Security and Exchange commission is the epitome of stupidity, incompetence, arrogance and disdain for anything about the people of the USA. When I read that there was a scandal regarding a good number of SEC employees who spent the entirety of their days downloading and trading porn on the job and doing things that should not be done on the clock I was totally not surprised at all. The SEC epitomizes the object of the phrase 'Who watches the watch dogs?'

-9.9 The Department of education has been described to me as a nest of communists and people who often sleep at their desks. Everyone I knew who worked there told me that they view the American people as an enemy, and themselves as martyrs suffering for the good of a thankless people. But I am also told these people are generally very erudite and well read. I think I would prefer them stupid as the SEC.

-8. The Department of Justus is competent, but maybe that is not a good thing. They have some of the most arrogant attorneys I have ever met in my life and humorless when around those not in their little club. It is full of sycophantic minions who engage in daily back-stabbing office politics for crumbs sometimes so measly as who has their desk a little closer to an attorneys office. I never heard one good thing said about the American people the whole time I was there and often heard insulting condescending things said about them, almost daily. The admiration I heard expressed there for any European Socialist state was almost seditious. The American people do not have any friends working at the DOJ, at least not in DC.

+5. The Department of Energy is a group of competent people, who said little about politics or the American people but the general impression I had was a positive one. Most of them were veterans of the energy industry and they had a hands on attitude toward problem solving and first understanding a situation well prior to tackling it. The only thing bad I have to say is that they were buying out older government people when I left and every one of the people that replaced them were minorities of various types. Not one new hire was a white heterosexual American-born male. I have seen this happen in many other government agencies as well. It would seem to explain quite abit of the prevailing government culture.

+7. US Postal Service; sharp people, every one. Never heard much positive said about the American people, but these people do know their jobs very well and they are eager to get things done. The same can be said for the US Treasury Department. Good people every one of them.

+7.5 NIH is very competent and they never missed a turn. Again, not much there I saw positive in their view of the American people, but like the US Postal Service they put mission first and stayed on top of things daily. No visible office politics or bad vibes at all.

+8 The IRS are, believe it or not, full of people who want to best serve the American people. When there was a series of scandals about IRS management policies in some offices out West, I knew of and one person personally who resigned their jobs for SHAME and none of the scandal involved any of them or people that they worked with. It was shame about the agency's reputation (they later went back). I had some very positive expressions about the USA and its culture and people. They are simply not the evil bastards that so many seem to think they are, and when I hear of some people wanting to defund the IRS and go to a flat tax, though I want a flat tax also, I do hurt in my heart for the kind of people I met at the IRS.

+9.8 The Defense Department has its incompetents, but they are very few and far between. That department is mindful of its service to the American people and full of unlimited commitment to us and the Republic. It was always clear that they were completely committed to their mission defending the American people, and I admired and was in awe of so many of the people I knew there. I wish I could have continued to work for them, but my slipped disk ended my career working as a contractor for them. I want to say that my last two people I worked for ( young black woman and an older white man) were the two best people I worked for in my twenty years. I still feel ashamed that I left them in such abrupt circumstances. I still feel I let them down, but I must give priority to my own health at this time. I wish to God I could still work for them.

+11 The US Marshall's service is above and beyond the most competent and devoted service to the American people I ever met. I felt like I was working for John Wayne sometimes. These were some of the toughest, bravest and most devoted people I have ever known, everyone of them a hero or a hero as yet not known.. Ruby Ridge just confuses the hell out of me because that was so contrary to the kind of men and women I met working for the Marshall's service. If we are fated to be ruled by an agency that took over the federal government and ran it from the top, while it would not be the Republic I am loyal to, were the rulers to be composed of the Marshall's Service, it would be a paradise, I have no doubt.

+7. Overall, the US federal government has some of the best people in the world working for it, but also some of the worst, as it should be, I suppose. But the variance I saw between agencies emphasized in my mind the importance of the leadership establishing a solid, people oriented culture from the very tip top and how it permeated on down to the desk jockey's themselves.

Obamacare is not typical of our government. The problem is that this government simply has bad leadership, and who is surprised by that, as it comes from the Daley political machine from Chicago?

US Postal Service; sharp people, every one. Never heard much positive said about the American people, but these people do know their jobs very well and they are eager to get things done.

worked in the PO for 33 years Jim..... i cant agree with you on this....from the Middle Management up.....they are not very sharp....most of the plans they come up with to Deliver the mail better and faster are usually ways that just cause more problems for the clerks and Carriers...especially the Carriers....many of them make a good buck too......most of the time they seem to come up with things just to justify their jobs not being eliminated.....the Carriers,Clerks and floor Supervisors have to deliver what comes in everyday....and for the most part they do,despite,the bullshit thrown at them from Middle Management...the PMG should have been fired 2 years ago...the guy is incompetent...

 

[Ringel05]

Anyone who worked this long as a Fed. contractor and not mention the ease of frauding the system by said contractor - I find suspicious.
It is like an open bar to an alcoholic. The incredibly open checkbooks to pay virtually anything you give them is not something to go unmentioned.

Try working as a federal contractor, you'll end up with a much different perspective. In most cases contractors are treated like shit, lead by incompetent staffers who can have a contractor fired just because they don't like the color of the contractors eyes and the contractor has no legal recourse. All it takes is one staff manager to destroy a contractor's future ability to get hired on any other contracts, again just because he/she doesn't like the color of the eyes.
Not to mention many contract positions come without benefits so the cost of purchasing benefits is included in the salary hence the higher numbers.

 

[Harry Dresden]

I have worked for many years in industry and commerce, yet I see incompetence within large corporations and wondered how in the hell they made it this far and why were they still in business.

because of the Employees who are not incompetent and actually got the work done....every company has a few of those....true story....

 

[JimBowie1958]

Anyone who worked this long as a Fed. contractor and not mention the ease of frauding the system by said contractor - I find suspicious.
It is like an open bar to an alcoholic. The incredibly open checkbooks to pay virtually anything you give them is not something to go unmentioned.

Try working as a federal contractor, you'll end up with a much different perspective. In most cases contractors are treated like shit, lead by incompetent staffers who can have a contractor fired just because they don't like the color of the contractors eyes and the contractor has no legal recourse. All it takes is one staff manager to destroy a contractor's future ability to get hired on any other contracts, again just because he/she doesn't like the color of the eyes.
Not to mention many contract positions come without benefits so the cost of purchasing benefits is included in the salary hence the higher numbers.

I only saw that kind of abusiveness a couple of times, and I hope you have better luck in the future. If you are in such a situation, it isnt unethical to not take an extension and just move to a new job that would likely be much better.

And I never had benefits as a single contractor supplied by a head hunting business, only as a permanent employee of a contract holding company.

 

[JimBowie1958]

I have worked off and on for the US government as a contractor, usually in short 6 month contracts, though some were shorter and some went for years. I worked with many other software engineers who had worked in other agencies, and so this is my review of the people I met their culture and their attitude about the American people or heard about through friends. I have never been fired or given a negative review except twice and both were at a places I liked and worked at for many years and the bad reviews eventually were removed from my files. The worst places I left of my own volition, eager to work among competent people that did not make my skin crawl.

I am using a scale of -10 to +10, with -10 being outrageously incompetent, hateful of the American people and filled with jerks who would run down their own mothers for a COLA increase, and +10 being secular saints who got everything right, missed nothing and loved the USA and their fellow countrymen.

-10. At the bottom of the pile is the SEC. The Security and Exchange commission is the epitome of stupidity, incompetence, arrogance and disdain for anything about the people of the USA. When I read that there was a scandal regarding a good number of SEC employees who spent the entirety of their days downloading and trading porn on the job and doing things that should not be done on the clock I was totally not surprised at all. The SEC epitomizes the object of the phrase 'Who watches the watch dogs?'

-9.9 The Department of education has been described to me as a nest of communists and people who often sleep at their desks. Everyone I knew who worked there told me that they view the American people as an enemy, and themselves as martyrs suffering for the good of a thankless people. But I am also told these people are generally very erudite and well read. I think I would prefer them stupid as the SEC.

-8. The Department of Justus is competent, but maybe that is not a good thing. They have some of the most arrogant attorneys I have ever met in my life and humorless when around those not in their little club. It is full of sycophantic minions who engage in daily back-stabbing office politics for crumbs sometimes so measly as who has their desk a little closer to an attorneys office. I never heard one good thing said about the American people the whole time I was there and often heard insulting condescending things said about them, almost daily. The admiration I heard expressed there for any European Socialist state was almost seditious. The American people do not have any friends working at the DOJ, at least not in DC.

+5. The Department of Energy is a group of competent people, who said little about politics or the American people but the general impression I had was a positive one. Most of them were veterans of the energy industry and they had a hands on attitude toward problem solving and first understanding a situation well prior to tackling it. The only thing bad I have to say is that they were buying out older government people when I left and every one of the people that replaced them were minorities of various types. Not one new hire was a white heterosexual American-born male. I have seen this happen in many other government agencies as well. It would seem to explain quite abit of the prevailing government culture.

+7. US Postal Service; sharp people, every one. Never heard much positive said about the American people, but these people do know their jobs very well and they are eager to get things done. The same can be said for the US Treasury Department. Good people every one of them.

+7.5 NIH is very competent and they never missed a turn. Again, not much there I saw positive in their view of the American people, but like the US Postal Service they put mission first and stayed on top of things daily. No visible office politics or bad vibes at all.

+8 The IRS are, believe it or not, full of people who want to best serve the American people. When there was a series of scandals about IRS management policies in some offices out West, I knew of and one person personally who resigned their jobs for SHAME and none of the scandal involved any of them or people that they worked with. It was shame about the agency's reputation (they later went back). I had some very positive expressions about the USA and its culture and people. They are simply not the evil bastards that so many seem to think they are, and when I hear of some people wanting to defund the IRS and go to a flat tax, though I want a flat tax also, I do hurt in my heart for the kind of people I met at the IRS.

+9.8 The Defense Department has its incompetents, but they are very few and far between. That department is mindful of its service to the American people and full of unlimited commitment to us and the Republic. It was always clear that they were completely committed to their mission defending the American people, and I admired and was in awe of so many of the people I knew there. I wish I could have continued to work for them, but my slipped disk ended my career working as a contractor for them. I want to say that my last two people I worked for ( young black woman and an older white man) were the two best people I worked for in my twenty years. I still feel ashamed that I left them in such abrupt circumstances. I still feel I let them down, but I must give priority to my own health at this time. I wish to God I could still work for them.

+11 The US Marshall's service is above and beyond the most competent and devoted service to the American people I ever met. I felt like I was working for John Wayne sometimes. These were some of the toughest, bravest and most devoted people I have ever known, everyone of them a hero or a hero as yet not known.. Ruby Ridge just confuses the hell out of me because that was so contrary to the kind of men and women I met working for the Marshall's service. If we are fated to be ruled by an agency that took over the federal government and ran it from the top, while it would not be the Republic I am loyal to, were the rulers to be composed of the Marshall's Service, it would be a paradise, I have no doubt.

+7. Overall, the US federal government has some of the best people in the world working for it, but also some of the worst, as it should be, I suppose. But the variance I saw between agencies emphasized in my mind the importance of the leadership establishing a solid, people oriented culture from the very tip top and how it permeated on down to the desk jockey's themselves.

Obamacare is not typical of our government. The problem is that this government simply has bad leadership, and who is surprised by that, as it comes from the Daley political machine from Chicago?

US Postal Service; sharp people, every one. Never heard much positive said about the American people, but these people do know their jobs very well and they are eager to get things done.

worked in the PO for 33 years Jim..... i cant agree with you on this....from the Middle Management up.....they are not very sharp....most of the plans they come up with to Deliver the mail better and faster are usually ways that just cause more problems for the clerks and Carriers...especially the Carriers....many of them make a good buck too......most of the time they seem to come up with things just to justify their jobs not being eliminated.....the Carriers,Clerks and floor Supervisors have to deliver what comes in everyday....and for the most part they do,despite,the bullshit thrown at them from Middle Management...the PMG should have been fired 2 years ago...the guy is incompetent...

For obvious reasons I don't want to go into great detail, but I can only speak for the tow contracts I had with USPS, and both were very good, but that was the 1990s.

How recent are your bad experiences? Maybe they have changed a lot? Maybe our data samples are not truly representative?

My main point was that the overall government was good and solid. While at my last job I saw no evidence to believe much had changed across the board but I was at the same position for a number of years.

 

[SteadyMercury]

Horse shit.

There are contractors with TS clearances who can be trusted to work unsupervised, and there are government folks who can monitor it without actually being there.

And you don't have to use live data anyway; dummy data works fine. A parallel unclassified system can be used for off base/post work and then migrate the changes when shop opens.

You simply do not know what the hell you are lying about.

Now there maybe government shops whose management is so fucking paranoid that they wont let people do anything unless it is in the office and only during office hours, but it is not inevitable by any means, and it is far more likely you are simply telling asinine lies.

It is pretty amusing watching you naively call BS on anything you were too bottom feeder to experience.

I had a TS clearance, but we could not be in that facility without military staff (mostly AF but some Navy) present. It is what it is, doesn't matter whether you believe it or not.

The software was developed only on their system, there was no off base/post and I can't believe you are stupid enough to think classified source code can always have an unclassified parallel version to work on somewhere else in an unclassified environment, it doesn't work that way. The source code/algorithms are as classified as the data.

 

[JimBowie1958]

Horse shit.

There are contractors with TS clearances who can be trusted to work unsupervised, and there are government folks who can monitor it without actually being there.

And you don't have to use live data anyway; dummy data works fine. A parallel unclassified system can be used for off base/post work and then migrate the changes when shop opens.

You simply do not know what the hell you are lying about.

Now there maybe government shops whose management is so fucking paranoid that they wont let people do anything unless it is in the office and only during office hours, but it is not inevitable by any means, and it is far more likely you are simply telling asinine lies.

It is pretty amusing watching you naively call BS on anything you were too bottom feeder to experience.

I had a TS clearance, but we could not be in that facility without military staff (mostly AF but some Navy) present. It is what it is, doesn't matter whether you believe it or not.

The software was developed only on their system, there was no off base/post and I can't believe you are stupid enough to think classified source code can always have an unclassified parallel version to work on somewhere else in an unclassified environment, it doesn't work that way. The source code/algorithms are as classified as the data.

Keep telling your obvious lies all you want, no one is fooled, you ignoramus.

All you are doing is bumping the thread, lol.

 

[Ringel05]

Anyone who worked this long as a Fed. contractor and not mention the ease of frauding the system by said contractor - I find suspicious.
It is like an open bar to an alcoholic. The incredibly open checkbooks to pay virtually anything you give them is not something to go unmentioned.

Try working as a federal contractor, you'll end up with a much different perspective. In most cases contractors are treated like shit, lead by incompetent staffers who can have a contractor fired just because they don't like the color of the contractors eyes and the contractor has no legal recourse. All it takes is one staff manager to destroy a contractor's future ability to get hired on any other contracts, again just because he/she doesn't like the color of the eyes.
Not to mention many contract positions come without benefits so the cost of purchasing benefits is included in the salary hence the higher numbers.

I only saw that kind of abusiveness a couple of times, and I hope you have better luck in the future. If you are in such a situation, it isnt unethical to not take an extension and just move to a new job that would likely be much better.

And I never had benefits as a single contractor supplied by a head hunting business, only as a permanent employee of a contract holding company.

My experience is DOD and Justice, my wife"s is DOD and Agency.
Didn't have those issues with Justice (Law enforcement side). We no longer work government contracts, the headaches and constant job insecurity was no longer worth the money.

 

[SteadyMercury]

[
Keep telling your obvious lies all you want, no one is fooled, you ignoramus.

All you are doing is bumping the thread, lol.

Sorry I haven't shared your life of spotty employment, negative performance, and playing the disability card to collect a check while pretending anyone with a real career is some anomaly who should be congratulated for being lucky.

Trying to explain work to you is like trying to teach a donkey calculus.

 

[JimBowie1958]

[
Keep telling your obvious lies all you want, no one is fooled, you ignoramus.

All you are doing is bumping the thread, lol.

Sorry I haven't shared your life of spotty employment, negative performance, and playing the disability card to collect a check while pretending anyone with a real career is some anomaly who should be congratulated for being lucky.

Trying to explain work to you is like trying to teach a donkey calculus.

You are hilarious, making things up and pretending I actually said that crap.

Don't you have something productive to do?

No, lol.

 

[Harry Dresden]

I have worked off and on for the US government as a contractor, usually in short 6 month contracts, though some were shorter and some went for years. I worked with many other software engineers who had worked in other agencies, and so this is my review of the people I met their culture and their attitude about the American people or heard about through friends. I have never been fired or given a negative review except twice and both were at a places I liked and worked at for many years and the bad reviews eventually were removed from my files. The worst places I left of my own volition, eager to work among competent people that did not make my skin crawl.

I am using a scale of -10 to +10, with -10 being outrageously incompetent, hateful of the American people and filled with jerks who would run down their own mothers for a COLA increase, and +10 being secular saints who got everything right, missed nothing and loved the USA and their fellow countrymen.

-10. At the bottom of the pile is the SEC. The Security and Exchange commission is the epitome of stupidity, incompetence, arrogance and disdain for anything about the people of the USA. When I read that there was a scandal regarding a good number of SEC employees who spent the entirety of their days downloading and trading porn on the job and doing things that should not be done on the clock I was totally not surprised at all. The SEC epitomizes the object of the phrase 'Who watches the watch dogs?'

-9.9 The Department of education has been described to me as a nest of communists and people who often sleep at their desks. Everyone I knew who worked there told me that they view the American people as an enemy, and themselves as martyrs suffering for the good of a thankless people. But I am also told these people are generally very erudite and well read. I think I would prefer them stupid as the SEC.

-8. The Department of Justus is competent, but maybe that is not a good thing. They have some of the most arrogant attorneys I have ever met in my life and humorless when around those not in their little club. It is full of sycophantic minions who engage in daily back-stabbing office politics for crumbs sometimes so measly as who has their desk a little closer to an attorneys office. I never heard one good thing said about the American people the whole time I was there and often heard insulting condescending things said about them, almost daily. The admiration I heard expressed there for any European Socialist state was almost seditious. The American people do not have any friends working at the DOJ, at least not in DC.

+5. The Department of Energy is a group of competent people, who said little about politics or the American people but the general impression I had was a positive one. Most of them were veterans of the energy industry and they had a hands on attitude toward problem solving and first understanding a situation well prior to tackling it. The only thing bad I have to say is that they were buying out older government people when I left and every one of the people that replaced them were minorities of various types. Not one new hire was a white heterosexual American-born male. I have seen this happen in many other government agencies as well. It would seem to explain quite abit of the prevailing government culture.

+7. US Postal Service; sharp people, every one. Never heard much positive said about the American people, but these people do know their jobs very well and they are eager to get things done. The same can be said for the US Treasury Department. Good people every one of them.

+7.5 NIH is very competent and they never missed a turn. Again, not much there I saw positive in their view of the American people, but like the US Postal Service they put mission first and stayed on top of things daily. No visible office politics or bad vibes at all.

+8 The IRS are, believe it or not, full of people who want to best serve the American people. When there was a series of scandals about IRS management policies in some offices out West, I knew of and one person personally who resigned their jobs for SHAME and none of the scandal involved any of them or people that they worked with. It was shame about the agency's reputation (they later went back). I had some very positive expressions about the USA and its culture and people. They are simply not the evil bastards that so many seem to think they are, and when I hear of some people wanting to defund the IRS and go to a flat tax, though I want a flat tax also, I do hurt in my heart for the kind of people I met at the IRS.

+9.8 The Defense Department has its incompetents, but they are very few and far between. That department is mindful of its service to the American people and full of unlimited commitment to us and the Republic. It was always clear that they were completely committed to their mission defending the American people, and I admired and was in awe of so many of the people I knew there. I wish I could have continued to work for them, but my slipped disk ended my career working as a contractor for them. I want to say that my last two people I worked for ( young black woman and an older white man) were the two best people I worked for in my twenty years. I still feel ashamed that I left them in such abrupt circumstances. I still feel I let them down, but I must give priority to my own health at this time. I wish to God I could still work for them.

+11 The US Marshall's service is above and beyond the most competent and devoted service to the American people I ever met. I felt like I was working for John Wayne sometimes. These were some of the toughest, bravest and most devoted people I have ever known, everyone of them a hero or a hero as yet not known.. Ruby Ridge just confuses the hell out of me because that was so contrary to the kind of men and women I met working for the Marshall's service. If we are fated to be ruled by an agency that took over the federal government and ran it from the top, while it would not be the Republic I am loyal to, were the rulers to be composed of the Marshall's Service, it would be a paradise, I have no doubt.

+7. Overall, the US federal government has some of the best people in the world working for it, but also some of the worst, as it should be, I suppose. But the variance I saw between agencies emphasized in my mind the importance of the leadership establishing a solid, people oriented culture from the very tip top and how it permeated on down to the desk jockey's themselves.

Obamacare is not typical of our government. The problem is that this government simply has bad leadership, and who is surprised by that, as it comes from the Daley political machine from Chicago?

US Postal Service; sharp people, every one. Never heard much positive said about the American people, but these people do know their jobs very well and they are eager to get things done.

worked in the PO for 33 years Jim..... i cant agree with you on this....from the Middle Management up.....they are not very sharp....most of the plans they come up with to Deliver the mail better and faster are usually ways that just cause more problems for the clerks and Carriers...especially the Carriers....many of them make a good buck too......most of the time they seem to come up with things just to justify their jobs not being eliminated.....the Carriers,Clerks and floor Supervisors have to deliver what comes in everyday....and for the most part they do,despite,the bullshit thrown at them from Middle Management...the PMG should have been fired 2 years ago...the guy is incompetent...

For obvious reasons I don't want to go into great detail, but I can only speak for the tow contracts I had with USPS, and both were very good, but that was the 1990s.

How recent are your bad experiences? Maybe they have changed a lot? Maybe our data samples are not truly representative?

My main point was that the overall government was good and solid. While at my last job I saw no evidence to believe much had changed across the board but I was at the same position for a number of years.

i retired last Jan.....and i have breakfast once a month with a bunch of the guys still working....they tell me it is getting worse....and wish they had the time in to get out....

 

[JimBowie1958]

US Postal Service; sharp people, every one. Never heard much positive said about the American people, but these people do know their jobs very well and they are eager to get things done.

worked in the PO for 33 years Jim..... i cant agree with you on this....from the Middle Management up.....they are not very sharp....most of the plans they come up with to Deliver the mail better and faster are usually ways that just cause more problems for the clerks and Carriers...especially the Carriers....many of them make a good buck too......most of the time they seem to come up with things just to justify their jobs not being eliminated.....the Carriers,Clerks and floor Supervisors have to deliver what comes in everyday....and for the most part they do,despite,the bullshit thrown at them from Middle Management...the PMG should have been fired 2 years ago...the guy is incompetent...

For obvious reasons I don't want to go into great detail, but I can only speak for the tow contracts I had with USPS, and both were very good, but that was the 1990s.

How recent are your bad experiences? Maybe they have changed a lot? Maybe our data samples are not truly representative?

My main point was that the overall government was good and solid. While at my last job I saw no evidence to believe much had changed across the board but I was at the same position for a number of years.

i retired last Jan.....and i have breakfast once a month with a bunch of the guys still working....they tell me it is getting worse....and wish they had the time in to get out....

That is sad to hear. USPS was once a great institution, if what you say is true of the whole of them.

 

[LoneLaugher]

I have worked for many years in industry and commerce, yet I see incompetence within large corporations and wondered how in the hell they made it this far and why were they still in business.

Absolutely.

 

[Harry Dresden]

For obvious reasons I don't want to go into great detail, but I can only speak for the tow contracts I had with USPS, and both were very good, but that was the 1990s.

How recent are your bad experiences? Maybe they have changed a lot? Maybe our data samples are not truly representative?

My main point was that the overall government was good and solid. While at my last job I saw no evidence to believe much had changed across the board but I was at the same position for a number of years.

i retired last Jan.....and i have breakfast once a month with a bunch of the guys still working....they tell me it is getting worse....and wish they had the time in to get out....

That is sad to hear. USPS was once a great institution, if what you say is true of the whole of them.

their managers are not that great.....and the ones who are,are usually never promoted to a position were they can make a difference....