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The market has not affected me personally. I certainly feel for those who have suffered due to the weakened market. Luckily 90 percent of the workers in this country have soldiered on in their jobs. Hopefully we will see improvement in the coming year.
Easy solution: work for Uncle Sam! (i.e., meaning here as a permanent full employee, not as a contractor or terrn / excepted service employee)
Almost or near-invulnerable job security...granted, RIF's and gov't shutdowns do occur on occasion, but the job security is practically bulletproof, at least compared to the private sector...you would have do something outrageously egregious or completely unforgivable, to be unwillfully let go, by Uncle Sam...
the problem is everybody cant work for uncle sam. that is the 3rd world hope, like nigeria, everybody works for the government.
btw if you think federal county and state gov cant flush u down the tubes 6 months b4 retirement on nonsense charges and save themselves a bundle in retirement payout, if you think that does not happen, think again.
Last edited by Huckleberry3911948; 12-29-2011 at 02:16 PM..
So many couples I know have one or both of them out of a job and it is causing them incredible strain. One couple used to be hard working professionals who rarely saw each other because of their challenging careers and 12 hour work days. Now that they are BOTH out of work they are killing each other because they are together too much.
What impact has the tough job market had on your relationship?
I simply cannot relate to the "killing each other because they are together too much".
I enjoy my alone time as much as anyone, but I always treasure the time my husband and I spend together, even when he was unemployed. And our tough times have always just made us stronger as a couple.
Maybe your friends problem was they weren't ever spending enough time with one another that they got too used to being without one another. Sad.
Easy solution: work for Uncle Sam! (i.e., meaning here as a permanent full employee, not as a contractor or terrn / excepted service employee)
Almost or near-invulnerable job security...granted, RIF's and gov't shutdowns do occur on occasion, but the job security is practically bulletproof, at least compared to the private sector...you would have do something outrageously egregious or completely unforgivable, to be unwillfully let go, by Uncle Sam...
Ummm, not really true.
No one wanted to work for Uncle when the outside world was good. The wages were about 20% lower than private industry.
There's a 10-15% reduction across the board over the next 9-10 months.
Easy solution: work for Uncle Sam! (i.e., meaning here as a permanent full employee, not as a contractor or terrn / excepted service employee)
Almost or near-invulnerable job security...granted, RIF's and gov't shutdowns do occur on occasion, but the job security is practically bulletproof, at least compared to the private sector...you would have do something outrageously egregious or completely unforgivable, to be unwillfully let go, by Uncle Sam...
True. But I would also have to live with the knowledge that, largely, I am a parasite feasting on the bloodstream of the American taxpayer.
That is not to say that there aren't some Federal workers who do valuable, indispensable work. The problem is that most of them don't, yet think they do. Based on my various experiences working with the Feds, I am pretty sure that you could randomly fire 50% of the personnel of any given agency or department and not have any letdown in efficiency. People would not even be working overtime to get their work done.
Ummm, not really true.
No one wanted to work for Uncle when the outside world was good. The wages were about 20% lower than private industry.
Wages can be lower, true...but the lower wages are also offset by potentially more-generous benefits, such as regarding pensions, time off, etc.
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There's a 10-15% reduction across the board over the next 9-10 months.
Hence my earlier references to RIF's...as far as I am aware, the "reduction" was meant in terms of hiring say 1 new gov't employee, for every 2-3 that leave, and not laying off any actual practicing gov't employees...I could be wrong though...
True. But I would also have to live with the knowledge that, largely, I am a parasite feasting on the bloodstream of the American taxpayer.
Not all federal agencies and bureaus operate off of taxpayer funding, though...some agencies are "non-appropriated" (I believe that is the technical term for it), meaning again that they operate and perform functions independent of taxpayer funding, and are self-sufficient in terms of how revenue is generated, so to speak.
Quote:
That is not to say that there aren't some Federal workers who do valuable, indispensable work. The problem is that most of them don't, yet think they do. Based on my various experiences working with the Feds, I am pretty sure that you could randomly fire 50% of the personnel of any given agency or department and not have any letdown in efficiency. People would not even be working overtime to get their work done.
We lost 50% or more of our office staff in the past several years where I'm at (due to retirements and vacant spots that were left unfilled), and I can assure you, the amount of overtime everyone was working has increased astronomically and exponentially, since then
None. My wife and are financially very conservative. We have always saved money. Even when I started my biz almost 20 years ago and we were eating lots of beans and rice, we tried to put back a couple of hundred bucks a month. And our rule of thumb is to be able to run our household on one spouse's income. As a result, our current mortgage is only one-third what the brokers said we could afford, we drive cars until the wheels fall off, and don't need to have the latest and greatest everything. While our friends were buying lake houses and leasing Mercedes, we pretty much kept our heads and just slogged forward. And while my consultancy took a major hit in 2008 and early 2009, we had already known that there would be a severe economic downturn as early as 2006 and planned accordingly.
I think the point of this is that hard times are going to hit. There will be rough financial patches in a marriage. People will lose their jobs. If you don't factor the Worst Case Scenario into your household finances, it's going to make things a lot harder for you in the long run. I know any number of couples who thought the Alice-In-Wonderland real estate economy would just keep going and went through major trauma as a result.
When the economy was great, we kept looking at these people who were buying new cars, renovating their kitchens, taking the kids on African safaris, and the whatnot and wondered how the hell they were paying for it all. As it turns out, most of them were depleting their homes' equity, thinking that values would keep rising indefinitely. When an attorney making $250K annually is living hand-to-mouth, you know that there are some seriously screwed-up finances at work.
Not all federal agencies and bureaus operate off of taxpayer funding, though...some agencies are "non-appropriated" (I believe that is the technical term for it), meaning again that they operate and perform functions independent of taxpayer funding, and are self-sufficient in terms of how revenue is generated, so to speak.
We lost 50% or more of our office staff in the past several years where I'm at (due to retirements and vacant spots that were left unfilled), and I can assure you, the amount of overtime everyone was working has increased astronomically and exponentially, since then
Ah. In other words, you're temporarily working like people do in the private sector and really hate it.
Look, I don't disbelieve you. But I've spent enough time dealing with government and NGOs to know that a great deal of the workload is wholly unnecessary. It is convoluted processes, mountains of paperwork, meetings upon meetings, and a host of regulations. It is amazing that anything of substance actually gets done around there.
What's more, my term 'parasite' refers to the mentality you just described--namely that you can do just about anything (Or not do anything) and not get fired. There is no real accountability, there is no pride in work, and there is no real responsibility for the bottom line results--at least compared to the rest of the world. As a result, almost all the Federal workers I know in their forties and fifties are just marking time for retirement. I think I'd rather live in a Westinghouse carton under the interstate rather than live that way.
Last edited by cpg35223; 12-30-2011 at 08:54 AM..
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(i.e., meaning here as a permanent full employee, not as a contractor or terrn / excepted service employee)
