Federal Wasteland: Trapped

Two weeks ago, I was at lunch with 4 of my coworkers/peers at FederalEntity. We’re all bright, hard-working 20-somethings who have been stuck at FederalEntity for the past 2.5 years or so. As we ate, we went around the table taking turns describing how we felt trapped. Each one of us has been looking for a new job for at least the last 8 months, in some cases (me) much longer than that. We’ve all been presented with amazing opportunities within FederalEntity (rotations, new jobs, grad school classes, increased responsibilities, etc.) and we’ve all then had these opportunities ripped away from us at the last minute. In essence, we’ve all been screwed by the system.

The main theme of lunch that day was clear: we all want out, but…

It’s like there’s some weird unknown force that’s keeping us stuck here. Judging by my older co-workers who have been here for 20-30+ years, this place is like being caught in quicksand. Every “lifetime” Fed says the same thing – they came in thinking they’d try Government work for a few years, and next thing they knew 30 years had flown by and they were still here!

The Government is tricky like that. You come in when you’re young and you don’t get paid that much. But the work/life balance is great and every year you get an automatic 8-12k raise. After 5 years you realize that you’re grossly overpaid but have no relevant skills that would help you to make the same salary in the private sector. Then it’s decision time: you’re in your late 20’s getting paid lots to do very little – do you give it up to go to the private sector (doing more work for less $), or do you keep coasting on the Federal wave for the next 25 years and then retire?

I keep telling myself there’s NO WAY I’ll stick around here forever, but (cliché) that’s literally what they all say…

Who from the lunchtime group will escape and who will get trapped? At this point, it's unclear. Now its crunch time for all of us - in a year, it’ll be too late. We’ll be stuck like mice on a glue trap.