Government or Private?

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I enjoyed this article in the Washington Post about federal versus private employment:


For both government and private-sector workers, grass is greener on other side

By Monica Hesse
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, February 12, 2010; C01



According to D.C.'s Department of Employment Services, 202,000 of the jobs in Washington were federal government positions as of November 2009. There were 471,000 private-sector positions.

Occasionally, there will be cross-sector pollination, socialization, relationshipation.

At a time when unemployment in the District is at a record high, this intermingling can result in uniquely D.C. conversations:

"He was a level G-I-don't-even-know-what," but definitely something up there, says Alex MacLennan. MacLennan is at happy hour at a 14th Street NW bar, talking with a friend about the government worker he used to date. "And he was on that schedule where he got every other Friday off."

"Well, they have a level of job security we don't have," concedes MacLennan's friend.

"And he was also at the gym at 9 a.m.," says MacLennan, instead of at his desk. Plus, the ex's boss let him leave early once or twice a week.

Pause.

"I never liked him."

The stereotype of the government worker used to fall within one of two categories. He could be the noble office drone, a human widget who bravely battled red tape. Or he could be the cobweb-covered sloth, overindulged compared with his private-sector counterparts, the ones who watch their unused vacation days float away like dreams deferred.

Either way, the most remarkable characteristic of the civil servant was being blandly unremarkable, which is why the Google phrase "movies about federal employees" will turn up exactly zero hits.

But during the dark days of the Great Recession, the sexiest fringe benefit to any job became security. Stodgy is hot. Civil servants = genius! Visits to federal jobs site USAJobs.gov were up 18 percent in 2009 from 2008, according to the Office of Personnel Management, and up 61 percent for those who came to the site more than once. In May 2009, a Gallup poll found that 40 percent of Americans would consider a federal career, compared with 24 percent in 2006. On Facebook groups for federal employees, there are sightings of fed groupies -- wall postings by people who are not employed by the government, but really wish they were.

When private-sector workers socialize with government employees, envy may arise. Couples offer the best view of the phenomenon.

"Those nights when I'd come home at midnight, I'd feel there was a real disparity," says Emily Kirk, who used to work grueling hours at an architecture firm before recently moving to a sustainable-design organization. "It's like he thinks I'm insane. Like I invented a reason to stay in the office until midnight, and I must be really crazy."

Her fiance, Charlie Willson, is willing to concede the enviable schedule and benefits he gets by working at the Government Accountability Office. But there are trade-offs. Quality of life things. Things like, "when they had a party, it was a very nice party," says Willson wistfully about Kirk's previous employer. "One year, it was on the grounds of the Dumbarton mansion, and we had the run of the whole place. For us, [a holiday party] is in the conference room at 2 p.m., and if you want to eat, it's $8.50. We're not going to use taxpayer dollars on our Christmas party."

* * *

Petty comparisons? You bet. Ridiculous? But of course. Couples are good at petty and ridiculous. And if it's true that people covet the specific rather than the abstract, then it's one thing to hear generally about government perks -- President Obama's recent 1.4 percent salary increase for federal workers might be relatively measly, but it probably stung the millions of private-sector employees who have lost their jobs this recession -- and quite another to watch your spouse telework in her pajamas during a week's worth of government snow days, watching Bravo, eating Oreos. Not that you're bitter.

(Inversely, it's also one thing to hear about the private-sector benefits, and quite another to learn that your boyfriend's newly renovated law office will have a sauna and free popcorn, while you're stuck in a concrete block of doom.)

These comparisons have recently trickled up from the kitchen table to Capitol Hill. Newly elected Sen. Scott Brown (R-Mass.) recently made headlines for suggesting that a pay freeze should be put in place for federal employees because of their apparently high salaries, comments that the National Treasury Employees Union met with exasperation.

Numbers, after all, rarely reveal a whole story. Much of that aforementioned salary "disparity" is due to the fact that federal positions tend to be white-collar jobs that require more training and education, and these jobs were being likened to private positions ranging from non-government lawyers to McDonald's cashiers. Federal surveys show that 20 percent of federal workers have a graduate degree, and 51 percent have a bachelor's, compared with 13 percent and 35 percent, respectively, in the private sector.

In job-to-job comparisons of federal vs. non-government employment, some federal jobs -- accountants, historians, information-systems managers -- did have higher salaries, according to the most recent data from the Bureau of Labor Statistics, but many had lower. A government lawyer, for example, makes an average of $124,000, and a private sector lawyer makes $131,000. An editor for the federal government earns an average of $42,000 vs. $51,000 in the private sector; economists earned $101,000 vs. $122,000.

Still, a glancing comparison can lead to irritation. Resentment. Wild generalizations. In a recent poll by Rasmussen Reports, a pitiful 7 percent of respondents believed that government employees work harder than those in the private sector.

"Have you looked into the vacation and sick days they accrue?" says Brian Joseph Lee, a local artist who consorts with federal workers. He lowers his voice conspiratorially: "If you take a few strategically placed sick days" in that holiday-laden stretch between Veterans and Presidents' days, Lee says, "you can manage to not work a full week for three months."

"What's next? Super Bowl Monday?" says Ginger Holden, whose primary friend circle and several assorted exes all worked for the government. "Hey, let's go out today, it's Super Bowl Monday!" She sniffs. "Might as well make that a holiday, too."

Oh, how the government workers have heard this before. Oh, how they try to beat you to the punch, making self-deprecating, apologetic cracks about their compressed schedules, and the occasional 3 p.m. dismissals that President Obama doles out on rare occasion.

But inside, it burns. It burns.

When James Wilson, a supervisory patent examiner at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, met his wife, he was spending so many hours at the office that he gave her only his work number, figuring that was where she could reach him. "She assumed I was married or had some other relationship going on," Wilson says, "because she didn't believe any government employee could possibly work those long of hours." Wilson made her come to his workplace and watch him, to prove that he wasn't a cheater.

"All of my friends have resentment," says Kyle Bowker, who works for the Department of Transportation and is dating a non-government employee. "But I'm not getting $10,000-a-year bonuses," Bowker says. "My boss can't decide to randomly take my whole office to the movies." The envious simply don't understand what's actually entailed in his job.

Maybe that's the whole issue with these couples, this situation, this city. It's a population of program associates, and program specialists, and program officers, and does anybody understand what anybody does, really? Something with some agency . . . that administers . . . something.

It's easy to burrow into our mazes of cubicles -- public or private -- and assume that the grass is greener in the office building next door.

"Even if I get holidays off, I'm still on the CrackBerry," says Melissa Bosma. She works in international banking and is married to Jason Fincke, a government lawyer. "Just because the U.S. is closed doesn't mean other countries are. Memorial Day, Martin Luther King, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving. " Every single one of them, she's tethered to work.

"But our daughter's preschool takes off the same holidays that I get," Jason says, offering his rebuttal. So, though he might technically have more days off, he spends them doing solo child care and running errands to keep the household operating. They don't entirely count as time off.

Melissa listens thoughtfully to her husband's argument. For a moment, it seems like Jason might have gotten through. Then she gives her response: "Waaah, waaah, waaah."

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