Having served 33 years with the government, I can speak to this issue. Yes, it is nigh on impossible to fire a vested Federal employee, unless the reason is so grave as to be undeniably sufficient cause for dismissal, i.e. murder, assault, treason, that sort of thing. I saw numerous instances of misconduct excused or dealt with lightly, partly because of what was laughingly referred to as our "Union" which was merely an excuse for union reps to sit around in the union office with feet on the desk, much like the illustration here, instead of doing their regularly assigned jobs. That in itself should be actionable, but middle management was so plagued with stupid unnecessary paperwork they mostly couldn't be bothered to mount much of an effort. I saw a guy refuse a random drug test, then later go back and take it; it tested positive, but the "union" determined that the lab hadn't been re-certified in three months. So the guy was offered early retirement (he was in his 40's) WITH retirement benefits. Some punishment, huh? Another fellow from PA was caught forging duty receipts and embezzling money. I'm pretty sure he was eventually let go, but not before an entirely new system of writing and accounting for duty collection receipts was put into place all over the country. All the existing supplies of receipt books, etc. were destroyed and a complex new format was introduced, all because of one miscreant. The government clearly doesn't know how to deal with the small percentage of misfits and petty criminals on its roles. Government workers have crappy morale, and it's easy to see why. I saw any number of minority and female workers who could barely spell their own names hired to fill government-imposed quotas. No matter how badly some of them performed, they could not be removed, causing the rest of the workforce to cover for them. ACLU, alive and well in the system. I don't know if it's the same now as it was when I left the service, but this article makes me believe not much has changed. Unfortunately, it causes all Federal employees to be painted with the same negative brush.
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Having served 33 years with the government, I can speak to this issue. Yes, it is nigh on impossible to fire a vested Federal employee, unless the reason is so grave as to be undeniably sufficient cause for dismissal, i.e. murder, assault, treason, that sort of thing. I saw numerous instances of misconduct excused or dealt with lightly, partly because of what was laughingly referred to as our "Union" which was merely an excuse for union reps to sit around in the union office with feet on the desk, much like the illustration here, instead of doing their regularly assigned jobs. That in itself should be actionable, but middle management was so plagued with stupid unnecessary paperwork they mostly couldn't be bothered to mount much of an effort. I saw a guy refuse a random drug test, then later go back and take it; it tested positive, but the "union" determined that the lab hadn't been re-certified in three months. So the guy was offered early retirement (he was in his 40's) WITH retirement benefits. Some punishment, huh? Another fellow from PA was caught forging duty receipts and embezzling money. I'm pretty sure he was eventually let go, but not before an entirely new system of writing and accounting for duty collection receipts was put into place all over the country. All the existing supplies of receipt books, etc. were destroyed and a complex new format was introduced, all because of one miscreant. The government clearly doesn't know how to deal with the small percentage of misfits and petty criminals on its roles. Government workers have crappy morale, and it's easy to see why. I saw any number of minority and female workers who could barely spell their own names hired to fill government-imposed quotas. No matter how badly some of them performed, they could not be removed, causing the rest of the workforce to cover for them. ACLU, alive and well in the system. I don't know if it's the same now as it was when I left the service, but this article makes me believe not much has changed. Unfortunately, it causes all Federal employees to be painted with the same negative brush.
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