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> I think it’d be great if it became a new tradition that people from the tech world do a tour of duty I really can't stand this language. "Tour of duty" mean

> I think it’d be great if it became a new tradition that people from the tech world do a tour of duty I really can't stand this language. "Tour of duty" means fighting in combat, for years, at low pay. Getting $130k/yr [1] to pad your resume isn't a "tour of duty." [1] http://fcw.com/articles/2014/10/27/red-tape-holding-back-hiring.aspx http://fcw.com/articles/2014/10/27/red-tape-holding-back-hir...

vippy 11y ago
One of my team members is a former Army Captain and Iraq veteran. He doesn't seem to mind. And the only way anyone would be making $130K is if they landed at the top step of the GS-15 scale. I know most offers are made around the GS-13 level.
- toomuchtodo 11y ago
  Your pay is determined by your paystub from your previous/current employer by the Office of Management and Budget (edit: they do not take into account equity grants nor intangibles). You're also required to pass a drug test, as well as a background check and security clearance. I'm somewhat turned off by the idea that people shouldn't be paid ~$130K/year for their service. You're asking them to pick up and move to DC, covering none of their moving, travel, or new living expenses.
  - vippy 11y ago
    Right, my friend said he needed to provide two years of salary information, and even then he was offered GS-13 step one. My point is that the USDS, 18F, etc, don't just offer $130k+ to anyone who walks in the door.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - walshemj 11y ago
    Exactly you could argue that civil servants should get more pay to make up for the lack of share options (adjusted for pension of course) I bet at Cheltenham the BT staff on secondment are told don't mention sharesave to the Civil Servants :-)
  - djcapelis 11y ago
    And this is why the government has trouble attracting good people. It's not the pay that bothers me, personally. It's the bullshit policies, lack of workplace flexibility and the idea that intrusions into my own private life is at all acceptable. Oh and I have to move to the central government swamp while we're at it? So then they pitch this as the only way people can help make things better offering below market pay along with all these trade offs? Good luck with that.
    - vippy 11y ago
      Except the USDS, 18F, PIFs, and OCSIT are all attracting really great people. Now, HTTPS everywhere is a dubious project, sorry Konklone, but its difficult to deny that the problem of talent in government has always been one of the hiring process being controlled by contractors and the perverse economic incentives of the traditional bodies-in-chairs contracting model.
      - konklone 11y ago
        > Now, HTTPS everywhere is a dubious project, sorry Konklone Well, I like it. =)
        vippy 11y ago
        OH NOES! Hey Eric! :P The problem we have with our project is that we're dealing with a ton of subdomains and not a lot of data I would consider "sensitive" enough to really necessitate encryption. While I appreciate the sentiment of the project, and value your commitment to privacy, for our use case it's definitely a bit of a pain in the butt. That, and I know getting IT departments to move to install certs on their old infrastructure for things that might not require encryption is definitely painful. And the errors generated by expired certificates and "insecure content warnings" are confusing, and don't add value to projects that don't benefit from encrypted connections. We've been hearing all about it.
        djcapelis 11y ago
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- nacin 11y ago
  It depends on a few different factors, but your salary can be matched up to $158K. That includes DC's locality adjustment.[1] [1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/15Tables/html/DCB.aspx https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...
untog 11y ago
"Tour of duty" means fighting in combat, for years, at low pay. No it doesn't. If the army started paying better would it mean soldiers aren't taking tours of duty any more? Historically it has been a term associated with the army because it was one of very few ways a person could serve their country. I actually think it's a great repurposing of the term - despite the fact that it is a relative well-paid desk job I'd wager that a lot of people could get more money going to Google/Facebook/whatever. It's still a form of public service.
- brandonmenc 11y ago
  > It's still a form of public service. Great, then just say, "I did two years of service. For pay." Like, is a Senator doing a "tour of duty?"
  - philsnow 11y ago
    It used to be. A long time ago, senators had to take significant time away from their estates / jobs to 1) travel and 2) sit and talk about crap. It was a real burden. These days none of them are more than a ~12 hour flight away, they can fly in and vote on something and fly out, if they choose. It's less of a burden these days. Congress has also over the years found innumerable ways of enriching themselves during their terms.
  - calbear81 11y ago
    Isn't everyone who works for the government somehow serving the public? I'll make sure I thank my local DMV clerk for doing their "tour of duty" next time I'm there.
    - gboone42 11y ago
      The tour of duty metaphor isn't perfect, but I've always interpreted the "tour" part to refer to the term limit. Everyone in the DS and at 18F has a hard term limit. Can't speak for every municipal government, so don't know about your DMV, but most federal employees can keep their jobs beyond four years if they choose to. I would bet that a DMV employee would appreciate a thank you, though.
pnut 11y ago
Diplomats and Foreign Service Officers also do tours of duty. It's a limited period of service at an outpost.
- JoeAltmaier 11y ago
  Isn't that to mitigate the issue of 'going native', where the officer starts to identify with locals instead of the people they represent?
  - GabrielF00 11y ago
    I don't think so, or at least I don't think that's the primary reason. I think the idea is to have people develop a breadth of experience working on different types of problems and in different countries. If you're a specialist in, say, the Middle East, it's good for your career and for State if you have experience in a variety of different countries in the region. I think they also try to have foreign service officers do different types of jobs (aside from technical jobs like communications specialists, who always do the same thing) for instance, I think most of the foreign service officers have to do a consular rotation where they're working with people on passport or immigration or travel issues rather than on political or economic issues.
  - walshemj 11y ago
    It's also to provide career progression and to prevent burnout some postings are hardship ones and quite gruelling.
dragonwriter 11y ago
> "Tour of duty" means fighting in combat, for years, at low pay. No, it doesn't. The term throughout its entire existence has been applied to government (particularly foreign) service assignments of limited duration, not exclusively low-paid combat assignments in the military. > Getting $130k/yr [1] to pad your resume isn't a "tour of duty." Actually, resume-padding, sometimes well-compensated, foreign-service assignments for upper-crust elites for whom such assignments were a key route to high office are one of the oldest uses of the term.

vippy 11y ago

One of my team members is a former Army Captain and Iraq veteran. He doesn't seem to mind. And the only way anyone would be making $130K is if they landed at the top step of the GS-15 scale. I know most offers are made around the GS-13 level.

toomuchtodo 11y ago
Your pay is determined by your paystub from your previous/current employer by the Office of Management and Budget (edit: they do not take into account equity grants nor intangibles). You're also required to pass a drug test, as well as a background check and security clearance. I'm somewhat turned off by the idea that people shouldn't be paid ~$130K/year for their service. You're asking them to pick up and move to DC, covering none of their moving, travel, or new living expenses.
- vippy 11y ago
  Right, my friend said he needed to provide two years of salary information, and even then he was offered GS-13 step one. My point is that the USDS, 18F, etc, don't just offer $130k+ to anyone who walks in the door.
- deleted 11y ago
  [deleted]
- walshemj 11y ago
  Exactly you could argue that civil servants should get more pay to make up for the lack of share options (adjusted for pension of course) I bet at Cheltenham the BT staff on secondment are told don't mention sharesave to the Civil Servants :-)
- djcapelis 11y ago
  And this is why the government has trouble attracting good people. It's not the pay that bothers me, personally. It's the bullshit policies, lack of workplace flexibility and the idea that intrusions into my own private life is at all acceptable. Oh and I have to move to the central government swamp while we're at it? So then they pitch this as the only way people can help make things better offering below market pay along with all these trade offs? Good luck with that.
  - vippy 11y ago
    Except the USDS, 18F, PIFs, and OCSIT are all attracting really great people. Now, HTTPS everywhere is a dubious project, sorry Konklone, but its difficult to deny that the problem of talent in government has always been one of the hiring process being controlled by contractors and the perverse economic incentives of the traditional bodies-in-chairs contracting model.
    - konklone 11y ago
      > Now, HTTPS everywhere is a dubious project, sorry Konklone Well, I like it. =)
      - vippy 11y ago
        OH NOES! Hey Eric! :P The problem we have with our project is that we're dealing with a ton of subdomains and not a lot of data I would consider "sensitive" enough to really necessitate encryption. While I appreciate the sentiment of the project, and value your commitment to privacy, for our use case it's definitely a bit of a pain in the butt. That, and I know getting IT departments to move to install certs on their old infrastructure for things that might not require encryption is definitely painful. And the errors generated by expired certificates and "insecure content warnings" are confusing, and don't add value to projects that don't benefit from encrypted connections. We've been hearing all about it.
        djcapelis 11y ago
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
nacin 11y ago
It depends on a few different factors, but your salary can be matched up to $158K. That includes DC's locality adjustment.[1] [1] https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/15Tables/html/DCB.aspx https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries...

untog 11y ago

"Tour of duty" means fighting in combat, for years, at low pay. No it doesn't. If the army started paying better would it mean soldiers aren't taking tours of duty any more? Historically it has been a term associated with the army because it was one of very few ways a person could serve their country. I actually think it's a great repurposing of the term - despite the fact that it is a relative well-paid desk job I'd wager that a lot of people could get more money going to Google/Facebook/whatever. It's still a form of public service.

brandonmenc 11y ago
> It's still a form of public service. Great, then just say, "I did two years of service. For pay." Like, is a Senator doing a "tour of duty?"
- philsnow 11y ago
  It used to be. A long time ago, senators had to take significant time away from their estates / jobs to 1) travel and 2) sit and talk about crap. It was a real burden. These days none of them are more than a ~12 hour flight away, they can fly in and vote on something and fly out, if they choose. It's less of a burden these days. Congress has also over the years found innumerable ways of enriching themselves during their terms.
- calbear81 11y ago
  Isn't everyone who works for the government somehow serving the public? I'll make sure I thank my local DMV clerk for doing their "tour of duty" next time I'm there.
  - gboone42 11y ago
    The tour of duty metaphor isn't perfect, but I've always interpreted the "tour" part to refer to the term limit. Everyone in the DS and at 18F has a hard term limit. Can't speak for every municipal government, so don't know about your DMV, but most federal employees can keep their jobs beyond four years if they choose to. I would bet that a DMV employee would appreciate a thank you, though.

pnut 11y ago

Diplomats and Foreign Service Officers also do tours of duty. It's a limited period of service at an outpost.

JoeAltmaier 11y ago
Isn't that to mitigate the issue of 'going native', where the officer starts to identify with locals instead of the people they represent?
- GabrielF00 11y ago
  I don't think so, or at least I don't think that's the primary reason. I think the idea is to have people develop a breadth of experience working on different types of problems and in different countries. If you're a specialist in, say, the Middle East, it's good for your career and for State if you have experience in a variety of different countries in the region. I think they also try to have foreign service officers do different types of jobs (aside from technical jobs like communications specialists, who always do the same thing) for instance, I think most of the foreign service officers have to do a consular rotation where they're working with people on passport or immigration or travel issues rather than on political or economic issues.
- walshemj 11y ago
  It's also to provide career progression and to prevent burnout some postings are hardship ones and quite gruelling.

dragonwriter 11y ago

> "Tour of duty" means fighting in combat, for years, at low pay. No, it doesn't. The term throughout its entire existence has been applied to government (particularly foreign) service assignments of limited duration, not exclusively low-paid combat assignments in the military. > Getting $130k/yr [1] to pad your resume isn't a "tour of duty." Actually, resume-padding, sometimes well-compensated, foreign-service assignments for upper-crust elites for whom such assignments were a key route to high office are one of the oldest uses of the term.