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I couldn't help but laugh out loud at the crayon eater comment. Hilarious and I'm sure in many cases it's not inaccurate. That said, I personally question whet

by bedobi 5y ago

I couldn't help but laugh out loud at the crayon eater comment. Hilarious and I'm sure in many cases it's not inaccurate. That said, I personally question whether all gigs have to be prestigious and cutting edge and super interesting. I think there should be plenty of room in government and elsewhere for qualified people who do do a good job, but might not be the 20 something work 80 hour per week and rise fast type. I wish more organizations openly admitted to and positioned themselves that way - like, hey, are you good at your job but don't really want to work super super hard all the time and rise to the top of your organization, or feel like you always have to work on the most prestigious, most cutting edge projects? Then we're the place for you!

tristor 5y ago
I’ve been in a similar boat to the grandparent. The issue with the government (and more broadly government workers) isn’t that the work isn’t “exciting” or some such. It’s a cultural and institutional resistance to change or improvement and the rewarding of toadyism and punishment of innovation. I firmly believe the government would be “better” in some ways if it was forced into transparency by managers being allowed to fire for abusive reasons, rather than the psychological torture they regularly inflict on high-quality employees that don’t tow the line. Instead you either leave of your own volition or you are cowed into silence, becoming complicit in a general miasma of less-than mediocrity. Brain drain is a natural conclusion, but only helps people who are both smart and motivated. Folks who are motivated and not smart get crushed and folks who are smart and not motivated get pushed intentionally into irrelevance. The federal government is the most toxic employer there is, and they gaslight you about their toxicity by being so willing to assign you to BFE and let you languish rather than firing you, as if firing is the worst thing that can happen. Amazon is a well known toxic environment for tech workers and is a massively better work environment for an engineer than the federal government.

by bedobi 5y ago

tristor 5y ago

I’ve been in a similar boat to the grandparent. The issue with the government (and more broadly government workers) isn’t that the work isn’t “exciting” or some such. It’s a cultural and institutional resistance to change or improvement and the rewarding of toadyism and punishment of innovation. I firmly believe the government would be “better” in some ways if it was forced into transparency by managers being allowed to fire for abusive reasons, rather than the psychological torture they regularly inflict on high-quality employees that don’t tow the line. Instead you either leave of your own volition or you are cowed into silence, becoming complicit in a general miasma of less-than mediocrity. Brain drain is a natural conclusion, but only helps people who are both smart and motivated. Folks who are motivated and not smart get crushed and folks who are smart and not motivated get pushed intentionally into irrelevance. The federal government is the most toxic employer there is, and they gaslight you about their toxicity by being so willing to assign you to BFE and let you languish rather than firing you, as if firing is the worst thing that can happen. Amazon is a well known toxic environment for tech workers and is a massively better work environment for an engineer than the federal government.