Why I Like Working for the Government Part I

I work for your federal government now. Thank you for your tax dollars! What do I do? Well, I do some employee relations and some labor relations. You see, federal employees are protected by a statute called Title V (the Civil Service Reform Act of 1978, I believe). This provides a number of statutory protections for civil service workers so that they can never lose their jobs. Or rather, the effort to remove them is so great that it is only worth it in certain circumstances, e.g., the employee has stabbed someone or looked at a porn site on their lunch break. In addition to these statutory protections, which the Supreme Court has said actually creates a property right for civil service employees in their job, requring due process before someone has that property right threatened, federal employees (non-management, non-national security sensitive) can organize themselves into unions. These unions cannot bargain over anything substantive like wages, benefits, or the mode and manner of work, but they can snipe and fuss over every other little thing that bothers them. But these are not the reasons I like working for the government (part I); this is just background for you, the Reader. "But Holmes", you might ask, "how can you take all of this time on a Friday to post on Rachel's blog?"

I have every other friday off. Yippie! It's called an "alternative work schedule." I have no idea why we have it. If it were to save gasoline and prevent the globe from warming up, I couldn't understand it, but at least it would be a reason. However, as a federal emloyee working in DC, I get a mass transit subsidy provided by you, the taxpayer. So on top of the subsidies mass transit receives from the area, my actual payments are also subsidized. That means I spend $0 each month on getting to and from work. $0. But today being my official friday off, I do not have to even spend the $0 to travel to work. I get a 3 day weekend. I get at least 26 of them a year now. Hooray! This was Part I of the series on "Why I Like Working for the Government."

Holmes

PS Thank you again for your tax dollars.