About Last Week…

Fed Workers Complain, Nation Offers This Condolence Cake:

At one point, there was a deal, an understanding.

Government workers got paid a bit less than their compatriots in the private sector – in exchange, they got pensions and benefits and, essentially, jobs for life.

Firing an (un)civil servant has always been difficult, but that was part of the plan. In theory, this protection made them far less susceptible to outside influence when it came to making decisions. If you can’t get fired for doing the “right” thing then you will always do the right thing.

It was a classic safe bet.

Obviously, over the past few decades, that deal changed. Three of the five richest countries in the country are near DC and they are not entirely filled with skeevy lobbyists and private sector influencers.

These two vids from Yes, Prime Minister, as usual, sum up the issue. First, salaries compared to what? and second, easy tricks to minimize the issue:

That’s how DC has worked, putting your tax dollars to work…for themselves

Additionally, when you have a fed job you get discounts on things like loans and insurance and such because the company knows – absolutely knows – that the chance of you getting fired are infinitesimal.

Like using a trust fund as collateral, the risk is minimized because, no matter what, the money will always be there…eventually.

That is why various and sundry fed workers are so confused and angry and upset and apoplectic and terrified right now.

Even though they broke the deal decades ago, Donald Trump and his buy-out offers are being called evil because they never thought they would be called on it, that they would have to explain why (this goes for local agencies, by the way) they enjoy pay and benefit packages better than the private sector while retaining immunity from being fired.

Of course, there are certain fed jobs that pay less than the private sector, but they are few and far between. At one point you could compare apples to apples – company accountant versus government accountant – but that idea disintegrated years ago. What private company position can be compared to “Principal Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Energy, Installations, and Environment” at the Pentagon?

The guy who calls Grainger for supplies, maybe?

Or this, from the Treasury department:

The Office of the Procurement Executive advances adaptive and equitable practices in leading the Treasury acquisition, contracting, and suspension and debarment programs.

OPE achieves this mission by leading the Treasury procurement system to:

1. Prioritize competition while advancing Administration priorities through procurement (e.g., category management, domestic sourcing, climate change, cybersecurity, supply chain risk management)

2. Modernize Treasury operations in leadership of the acquisition organization (data, innovation, customer experience, workforce)

The Deputy Assistant Secretary for Acquisition (DAS-A) serves as the Department of the Treasury’s Senior Procurement Executive (SPE), Deputy Chief Acquisition Officer (DCAO), Suspension and Debarment Official (SDO), and Senior Accountable Official for Domestic Sourcing. DAS-A serves as the principal expert advisor to the Assistant Secretary (Management)/Chief Acquisition Officer (CAO) in all policy matters regarding procurement and contracting, advises other top departmental officials on procurement and contracting matters, and serves as the Department's key spokesperson and official representative on matters involving procurement and contracting.

The DAS-A is delegated full procurement authority for the Department of the Treasury, and is responsible for the maintenance and oversight of a Department-wide procurement system, including policy and operational matters, continuous improvement, acquisition career management, e-Government, evaluation and monitoring, and procurement and non-procurement suspension and debarment.

Procurement authority is delegated through the DAS-A to Heads of Contracting Activity in Treasury bureaus, who further delegate authority to Chief Procurement Officers (CPOs). Bureau CPOs delegate procurement authority to Contracting Officers who plan, solicit, award, and administer contracts for goods and services to support the Treasury mission.

If you weren’t counting, that’s seven layers of bureaucrats in six paragraphs.

And you wonder why they are panicked.

It’s funny, they never seemed to care that the regulations they enforced put other people out of work.

As for the buy-outs being offered, the general reaction has been “that’s neat, but what the hell are we going to do after that?”

So never say fed workers are stupid – they know there is no place else they can go. In fact, they could finally be realizing that their highly-credentialed, highly coddled, criminally uneducated upbringing has made them essentially unemployable in any industry or endeavor that must show some form of actual accomplishment to continue to exist.

They could of course band together and buy a restaurant, but I fear it may look like this:

So don’t feel bad for the fedocrats whinging and crying to house organs like the WaPo and Politico about how the federal government – since when it cuts stupid and pointless jobs every other agency follows – that their existing jobs are their “only lifeboat.”

Even they know they can’t get another job like the one they have and one assumes the following conversation is happening all around DC right about now:

Personally, I’d rather eat the public outreach assistant deputy under-secretary of logistics, procurement, and supply of the EPA.

I assume they would be vegan and therefore lean.

But maybe a bit of ginger and garlic, too?

As to epigram, I thought something from MADTv from years ago might be fun…

That was actually on broadcast television, so it can’t have been thaaaat dirty…

Thanks for subscribing!