Pros and cons of gov't employment?

[CRMH Eagle]

Anyone here have advice/thoughts about employment with the gov't? I'm so tired of working 50 hrs a week and only having 3 weeks off a year, which includes sick time. There are a few pluses where I am now like a casual work environment, casual dress environment, can come and go as I please unless there's a deadline on something, and for the most part I call my own work-schedule and don't have the main guy telling me what to do for 95% of the time. Though it may sound selfish at wanting more time off but that's what I want.

I hear that gov't employees have a nice time-off package plus they get comp time for any overtime.

Feedback anyone?

 

[ponyfool]

Depends on the government, the position, union contracts, etc.

I work for a city government, and we have a good contract. Our pay suffers compared to other locations (significantly in some comparisons), but I do have very good benefits and our wages will get addressed in our next contract.

Some government agencies are terrible to work for. Cubicle farms, high pressure management, etc.

I have the option of taking my overtime as pay or time. I get enough vacation time (17 years on the job) that I take all overtime in pay.

By the way, we're hiring! https://www.portlandonline.com/joinportlandpolice/

 

[angus]

I work for the Dept of Navy I get 5 weeks and a day vacation and 13 sick days plus holidays. Plus decent retirement i also have a saving plan I put 10 % of my base pay in it Gov puts 5% It is not taxed till i remove it plus there is a break at a certin age.

 

[mjac]

.........................must resist saying anything about my employer...................must resist saying anything about my employer....................DHS/TSA.

 

[radman]

University of Minnesota, hence, a State employee. Union guarantees up the ass, you have to pretty much load your truck with all the work computers to get a warning. Health care a priority issue (and pretty much why I'll retire from here). Pay lower than private sector for same classification, by about 10-15%. Paid sick days a real plus, plenty of vaca/holiday as mentioned. Plenty of time to post stupid **** on forums.........

 

[donaldb]

Pros and cons in both the public sector and private sector.

I've been w/state of MS for 15 years now. I have a combined total of 1 year built up in sick leave and personal leave at present, and we do get more holidays than the private sector. After 15 years of service w/state of MS we get.....I'm thinking 18 hours of personal leave and 6 hours of sick leave accumulated each month . If I were to quit, however.....I would only be entitled to 30 days leave/vacation pay, the remainder would stay and be given credit toward earned accumulated retirement total time. If I were to get sick or hurt and not be able to work.......well.....I would have a year to recover while I continued to receive monthly salary...so it's a two edge sword. I have 10 years left before retirement (min of 25 to qualify) but I can retire in 9 or less depending on the amount of accumulated time I have...could be less or could be more depending on my future fate MS is the butt of many jokes...fortunately we are one of the topped ranked states when it comes to retirement. I should be 56 or 57 at retirement age and time for some serious 2 wheel'n adventure........coming on a goldwing near you.

However......as ponyfool stated earlier, pay is usually a bit less than private sector and be vewy vewy careful in your selection of agency and who your superiors are that you'll be working under, they can make life miserable.

I'm a lucky one, great agency and great boss........so far!

 

[Hit the Road Jack]

Con:

Working for the gov't means you can't 'Stick it to the Man', because you are him!

 

[Capt. Bob]

With all due respect.

At this time you are lucky to be working. I'm pounding the streets but being in the construction trade is the pits.

I tried local govt. here but budget cuts created a freeze on hiring.

While I'm enjoying the time off, it's a little unsettling being a nightly news statistic.

Good luck.

 

[Big-D]

I retired from a Federal Government position a while back. It’s the usual story where if I had worked for the private sector my salary would have been greater, but since my job was not offered in the private sector I guess I cannot complain. I was lucky to have had an excellent benefit package that followed me into retirement. My job enabled a lot of travel for meetings and such which was a lot of fun, although my children probably felt like military brats because we were required to relocate to different parts of the country several times during my career.

So I guess which job is better depends on what you do for a living. I enjoyed what I did so I consider myself fortunate.

 

[Bounce]

I hear that gov't employees have a nice time-off package plus they get comp time for any overtime.

wrt the fed: you hear things from the 60's.

with experience in DOT, FHWA, GSA, and FAA, here's the scoop on "benefits"

1. annual leave (vacation time) is tiered. 1-3 years=4 hours per pay period. 4-15 years=6 hours per pay period. 16+ years=8 hours per pay period.

all have a 240 cap on carry over. you lose the rest if you don't use it. denial of requested use-or-lose leave isn't a guarantee of reinstatement of lost leave.

2. sick leave is 4 hours pp no matter time-in-service (but no cap on carry over).

3. overtime is compensated at supervisor's discretion. (overtime pay, comp time (at a 1:1 ratio), or credit hours (at a 1:1 ratio)). over time pay is never more than time and a half even it it's on a holday (when it's double time, straight time for working and the same time that everyone else gets for not working). when you reach a certain pay scale, overtime pay is capped and you can end up earning less per hour than when working regular time.

4. the various health benefits have continually degraded (while going up in price) ever since the end of the viet nam war. you pay for your personal care and extra for your wife and kids. when the kids leave, the self-and-family option doesn't go down even through it's now just your wife in the "extra column". unlike many companies your health care (self-only) isn't compensated by the company. both my daughters' personal health care is covered by their companies (1 is a bank, the other a hospital). they only pay if they decide to pick up a spouse or child.

5. pay scales for any given job are less than their private company counterparts.

so, jump ship and come to work in the pit. we love company!

 

[rawfjr]

"There are a few pluses where I am now like a casual work environment, casual dress environment, can come and go as I please unless there's a deadline on something, and for the most part I call my own work-schedule and don't have the main guy telling me what to do for 95% of the time. Though it may sound selfish at wanting more time off but that's what I want. "

A lot of that would go out the door. I worked for State of Florida for 22 years. Time was not my own. I was working at 50 to 60 hours per week, travel with a meal per diem of 40 dollars a day, can't stay in a hotel over $100. Pay is much lower that others doing the same work. No pay increase for state employees for last three years. Got a one time payment of $1000, not even that this year. Annual leave was considered a privliage not a right.

Moral is it is always greener on the other side.

 

[phobostx]

From my personal experience and that of my friends I can say that "generally".......Gov't benefits & retirement are far superior to what is available in the private sector unless you are upper management.

I get 7 weeks vacation a year, 4 weeks sick time a year and as of right now if I do 30 years I'll retire w/ 99% of my salary.

Not much in the private sector that is comparable to that.

Private sector has the potential to make more "salary" but benefits usually arent as good and most private companies dont have retirement plans anymore, just what you save in your 401K

 

[Big-D]

Generally, anyone that works for the Federal Government can retire at 55 if their time in grade and age equals 85 and they are under CSRS. But that is under the old system. Under the new system (FERS), you must be 59 ½ to retire. The max time in is 41 years 11 months. After that, you are basically working for free. The max amount of retirement you can draw is 80% of your High-3 excluding overtime, night differential, Sunday premium and any Holiday pay. The High-3 is based on salary divided by 2080 hours per year. Government jobs allow 10 paid holidays making an average work year 2000 hours.

Many private sector jobs are reducing benefits of all sorts. Vacation time (Annual Leave) working for the Feds equals out as Bounce stated, except the 240 hour max carry-over only applies to non-supervisory positions. Depending on your pay level, you can get to a point where you can carry over as much annual leave that you want. People in Supervisory positions can carry over 560 hours, so when a new year starts they get an additional 208 hours, giving them 768 hours of vacation time on the books and upper management carries over as much as they earn.

I am not aware of any Federal Job that allows for a 99% retirement. Even under a disability retirement the most you can hope for is 80% under unusually rare circumstances.

It is not uncommon for Federal employees to retire with over 2000 hours of sick leave or more. However, unless you are in upper management, you would have to be retired for 237 years to earn monthly what your actual sick leave is really worth. Upper managers are usually allowed to use up their sick leave prior to retiring, there-by adding that additional time onto their career totals for time in grade.

The best way for a person employed by the federal government to figure what they will earn in retirement is by taking their total years in, double that number, minus 4 will give you your percentage of your highest 3 consecutive years averaged.

 

[vectervp1]

Working for the Gubmet is as varied as the private sector. This is kind of like asking "What's it like to work in the semiconductor business?"

Each level (local, county, state, federal) and each individual government entity is going to be different than any other entity. I've been working for 'The Man' for about 12 years now and can tell you that even within government entities (I was at a city for 10 years) individual departments run things differently. I have many friends who work for the government at different levels, and we have all experienced things that would not fly in other agencies.

Some people say that your job is more stable in a government job, but I've seen layoffs take place. There are constant hiring freezes, and there are times that open positions are taken away, leaving the remaining poor saps to take on greater responsibility. Right now I'm working in a more 'volatile' government entity where our budget is always millions below where we project it should be (and we don't have a billion dollar budget either). Cutbacks in projects are a norm around here, and a freeze on salaries has been discussed.

Having said all of this, I'm still going to work for the gubment for the foreseeable future. Because of the way AZ is setup, as long as I stay with a government entity that is a part of the Arizona State Retirement system, I can jump between govt agencies and keep my time towards retirement moves with me. If I stay with this system, I can retire with a full pension at the ripe old age of 49.5.

 

[EZSteve]

I retired from both local and Federal government. Neither workplace was as liberal as the one you describe. Management, not the job itself, supplied most of the stress in both cases. Local government allowed comp time, but the Fed didn't. Overtime was rare and was always paid, which took a bigger tax bite. The newer Federal retirement system isn't much unless you work 25-30 years. But the Federal major medical plans are very good, and the Thrift Savings Plan is the cheapest and easiest way to save that I ever experienced. I did a short stint for Maryland State Government, which of the three generally had the lowest pay.

 

[donaldb]

MS state gubment bases full retirement (25 years) on the average of your 4 highest paid years. I would have to put a pencil to it, but generally speaking if you continue to work to around 30 years, you can come real dang close to your annual take home salary at retirement. This is based upon 3 major factors. 1st after retirement you are no longer paying into the system......which for me averages more than 500.00 per month taken from my ck.........and 2nd we do not pay state income tax on state retirement...so that also is not taken from your ck. 3rd I am not sure how many other states provide what we refer to here as "your 13th ck" which comes annually. Full state retirees get an extra full month retirement ck each year.......and that 1 extra ck increases 5% compounded annually so the longer you live past retirement....that 1 ck gains 5% over and above what it was the year before.

Unfortunately, given healthcare costs, the state does not continue to provide retirees w/health coverage at no cost...oh you can remain in the system if you choose.........but you pay...and dearly! Given the risks of going without health coverage at such age it's pretty much a no brainer that either you have to be able to afford health coverage costs taken from your retirement ck or you have to continue to work until you qualify for medicare. So, even though I will have my 25 in at age 56 or 57, either I will have to continue to work w/the state or some other private sector job which provides health coverage until 65, then fully retire and secure a more affordable supplement plan.

Back in the day......dad's retirement package included medical coverage for both him and my mother and even after dad died the coverage continues for my mother...most importantly perscription drug coverage a real big plus for the elderly. Dad however retired in the private sector and while I'm getting off into the unknown here..I doubt many companies these days in the private sector offer such in their retirement packages.

You work...............then you die. Doesn't really matter if it's public or private, so long as you like what your doing.

 

[kurt]

The biggest drawback to working for the government at any level is the resentment and abuse by so many people. The automatic assumption is that you couldn't make it in the "real world" and are lazy, overpaid and incompetent.

 

[ponyfool]

The biggest drawback to working for the government at any level is the resentment and abuse by so many people. The automatic assumption is that you couldn't make it in the "real world" and are lazy, overpaid and incompetent.

Or that you're a jack-booted thug wanting to find people to deprive of their civil rights.

 

[FJR_pig]

Or that you're a jack-booted thug wanting to find people to deprive of their civil rights.

I knew I was in the right place. Sweet!