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.
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.