Yup. I am an engineer and have worked government and private sector. Private sector pays way more and is more exciting because of the hugely reduced bureaucracy. If you have a fun career you love government can really kill the passion.
But if your goal is stable employment with good work/life balance and guaranteed raises? Government is fantastic.
When I was in government my work life balance coming into the office two days a week was better than now when I am working full time WFH in private industry, so I guess that’s very subjective.
At NASA they regularly told us, “the rocket won’t crash if you clock out at 40 hours. Go home to your families.” A lot of government positions you could literally just check out and sleep all day for weeks at a time and nobody will even notice.
Even a lot of the meetings have so many people present nobody would notice if you’re there or not. A buddy of mine had a depressive streak where he was so bummed out he’d go to work and just pass out at his cubicle. It wasn’t deliberate, he just couldn’t bring himself to stay alert.
Missed a ton of meetings and everything. Then at the end of the week his boss would tell him he was doing a great job and to keep it up.
He ended up leaving because he felt like the indifference that everyone had towards the mission was making making him die inside a little.
Yup. I am an engineer and have worked government and private sector. Private sector pays way more and is more exciting because of the hugely reduced bureaucracy. If you have a fun career you love government can really kill the passion.
But if your goal is stable employment with good work/life balance and guaranteed raises? Government is fantastic.
I haven’t found a WFH government position, so even the work-life balance is terrible.
When I was in government my work life balance coming into the office two days a week was better than now when I am working full time WFH in private industry, so I guess that’s very subjective.
At NASA they regularly told us, “the rocket won’t crash if you clock out at 40 hours. Go home to your families.” A lot of government positions you could literally just check out and sleep all day for weeks at a time and nobody will even notice.
As long as it’s not in meetings, I guess 😂
Even a lot of the meetings have so many people present nobody would notice if you’re there or not. A buddy of mine had a depressive streak where he was so bummed out he’d go to work and just pass out at his cubicle. It wasn’t deliberate, he just couldn’t bring himself to stay alert.
Missed a ton of meetings and everything. Then at the end of the week his boss would tell him he was doing a great job and to keep it up.
He ended up leaving because he felt like the indifference that everyone had towards the mission was making making him die inside a little.