1. This blog is not written by one person, but by a handful of Feds from different FederalEntities who are sick of watching the Government machine piss your tax dollars down the drain. The same nonsense happens anywhere you go in the Federal Government…
2. All of the names, ages, genders, positions, and specific details are significantly changed. This is for anonymity of both the writers and the subjects. Most posts also have red herrings thrown in just to spice things up. One commenter hinted that we were being libelous and could be sued. Our subjects likely wouldn’t even recognize their own stories…
3. Nothing posted here is top-secret or confidential. There has been no revealing of hidden Government secrets or anything like that. Sorry. Our coworkers probably find this blog boring – they already know everything we’re writing about! The juiciest this blog has ever gotten is simple hallway gossip. We’re just yelling this gossip through a megaphone (this blog = a very weak megaphone).
4. It’s all done on personal time. It’s really no different than keeping a personal diary at home. Can the Government fire someone for vaguely talking about how bad the Government is in their diary? Pretty sure that kind of speech is protected under the First Amendment.
5. It’s the Federal Government! Have you read any of the other posts?? It’s almost impossible to fire someone! The private sector is completely different – they can fire you for not wearing a necktie if they want. In the public sector it’s the opposite. I previously linked to an AP article about Federal purchase card fraud. If you recall, there was a Fed who charged thousands of dollars in personal dating services to the Government, downloaded porn on his work computer while at work – and he DID NOT GET FIRED! For serious! All we do is write a blog. From our homes.
6. The Government Unions. They love to fight for the employees. Federal Employees fired for informing the public about how messed up their taxpayer-funded workplace is? Sounds like a whistleblower case to me. Oh man, they would love to sue the Government for that! In fact, I’m sure any lawyer reading this just creamed their pants!
There are about 15 more reasons that come to mind, but who cares about that. What do you, gentle reader, think? Feel free to comment here. Please note the new comment policy – if you are a jerk in your comment, it will be removed. FederalWasteland is all about open discourse. Just don’t be a d-bag. Thanks in advance!
7 comments:
Right on brother. I am a contractor working at a federal building. I have been watching this nonsense for twenty years. My wife has told me I should write down everything I see here & I would have a good book. I never write it down but am glad someone does.
Keep up the good work. You'll never be fired. Cause enough trouble and you might be promoted just to get you out of the way! I've seen it happen.
You know, thanks to people like you, who think they know everything, the government is already making sweeping changes to the way it conducts business as we speak. And speaking from experience as a federal employee for nine years, when it comes to the government, change is never good. I'm not sure if you've ever heard of the NSPS pay system recently implemented by DoD, but it's a pay-for-performance based system (at least in theory) designed to get more out of federal employees. The idea is to structure federal pay to mimic the private sector, meaning raises and everything else are supposed to be based solely on your performance evaluations. Managers have a limited, lump sum pot of money every year that they can use to provide raises. The problem with this system, is that the managers always choose to give themselves the maximum raise just because they can, which leaves nothing for junior employees, so they never get raises, not even to match inflation. Also, since managers hold the keys to every aspect of your career now, asskissing and cronyism are rampant in DoD. It's a good time to be a manager at DoD. And your buddy G.W. Bush wants to carry this system over into the whole federal government. The inexorable fact is that the government is not the same as the private sector, and cannot be modeled to operate the same way. The government is not here to turn a profit, it's here to prevent the uglier side of capitalism from rearing it's ugly head. It's here to check profit making business and keep them from destroying our planet, because that is what they would do if it would make them a buck. If you think the government is inept now, wait until the whole system consists of sad sack employees solely concerned with keeping their jobs and REALLY not getting anything done except kissing ass. And we'll have people like you who think they can come in a save the world to thank.
Sounds good to me...I guess the broader question would be if you got fired for writing a blog, would you care? The retelling of "how you got fired from the Government," would be well worth the financial burden you would have while looking for another job, but then again, I'm all about the story.
Isn't that convenient for you. Hiding behind the same labor protections that you're fighting to have removed. What would be great is if you win your fight, are declared surplus and are laid off or fired:) Also, what ever happened to your goal of free discourse here? You cherry pick the arguments you're willing to participate in.
May I respectfully ask, if you hate being a fed so much, why do you still work there?
Perhaps the best part of this blog is the fact that we here in the House and in the other body are getting a nice view on the inefficiencies that occur.
This blog will be very helpful when we address comprehensive federal workforce reform. That should be coming out of OGR in the next two years.
Also, and guest stories on how NSPS is helping/hurting at DOD would be helpful too. We can never trust OSD to give us the straight scoop.
to respond to various criticisms of the authors of this blog (meaning why does he/she hide behind the same labor protections that he/she criticizes and why does he/she still work there if he/she dislikes it so much), if you go back and read carefully the previous posts you will find the answers to these questions. in short, the labor protections that protect the federal employees exist and cannot be undone by one person. unless you were an incredibly principled (meaning not like most of us) person you would probably not sacrifice your job voluntarily for the greater glory of this blog. also, in terms of why do you continue to work in the government, go back and read the quicksand post a while back. that clearly states how it is very hard to leave the government once you get in. as an ex federal employee, i can say that the author's assessment is exactly right. for all you who criticize this blog, i believe the saying goes "don't kill the messenger...". its the system that sucks so get mad at that and not at the person who is telling you about it.
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