> I've considered federal work before but every time I think hard about it, I keep coming back to the scene in Snow Crash where the fed works at a place where e

> I've considered federal work before but every time I think hard about it, I keep coming back to the scene in Snow Crash where the fed works at a place where every little action - the time you arrive, the time you leave, whether you take the stairs or use electricity by taking the elevator - is scrutinized and judged. Yuck. I work for a defense contractor, and while we do have some annoying DCAA-mandated timekeeping policies, it's really not half as bad as the Snow Crash FBI. We just have to write down time in, time out, and the amount of time worked on each contract each day (in tenths of an hour). The first two are only because the DCAA mandated it, and the third is for accounting purposes (IIRC, the company gets paid based on how many hours are billed to each contract). It's because of this, by the way, that overtime is virtually nonexistent here; we can't bill the government more hours than have already been agreed to, and it would be illegal to lie. Thus, if we end up staying late or working on a weekend to meet a deadline, we take time off later in the month so our billed hours for the month match up with how many the company is allowed to bill. Oh, and I'm an openly transgender person with a pink stripe in my hair, and I've never had any trouble with either. There's also no dress code, everyone knows that I'm a heavy drinker outside of work (and doesn't care as long as I don't drink at work or come to work drunk), and the environment is relaxed enough that we can talk about any subject during breaks.