Just in case you did not read the Washington Post this past Sunday (December 5, 2010) Please spread the word – all of these are untrue but still prevail by those outside of the goverment.
1. Federal employees are over paid compared with private-sector workers.
2. The Federal workforce is bigger than ever.
3. You can’t fire a fFederal employee.
4. Most Federal workers are paper-pushing clerks.
5. Pay or hiring freezes would help slash the Federal budget.
What do you think?
Yes! We need to abolish these myths! I created a post earlier that the stigma of being a lazy, paper-pushing, deficit creating federal employee hurts more than the pay freeze.
These myths have been around for a long time. When I worked in the government these myths existed. Gov workers do not have a strong enough lobby. I took pride in what I did. I do hope Gov employees will shout out.
#3 is one of my favorite myths. I’ve heard that from some of my privately-employed friends. My reply is to tell them that if proper documentation is done on a bad employee, then YES, they can be fired…the same as in private industry.
What I don’t say is that unfortunately (IMHO) is that too many supervisors don’t make the effort or take the time to do the documentation and just pass on problem or bad/poor employees to someone else. Although I think the great employees far outnumber the problem/bad employees this is still an issue that bugs me!
Here’s Nichole’s great post: https://www.govloop.com/profiles/blogs/its-the-stigma-that-hurts