Veterans work for the government in record numbers
According to the Washington Post at least half of new hires for the Federal government are veterans, but even though they work for the government in record numbers, they also leave those jobs in record numbers.
The bad news is that once veterans get into government, they don’t stay long. They’re more likely to leave their jobs within two years than non-veterans, the Office of Personnel Management reports, even if they’ve transferred from other federal agencies.
The Small Business Administration had the most trouble keeping veterans in fiscal 2014, with just 62 percent staying two years or more, compared to 88 percent of non-veterans. Former service members left the Commerce Department at similar rates, with 68 percent staying two years or more compared to 82 percent for non-veterans.
Even the Department of Veterans Affairs, traditionally a draw for former troops, lost a little more than a quarter of its veterans within two years, compared to 20 percent of its non-veterans.
The only agencies that kept more veterans than non-veterans on board were the Defense and State Departments, the report released last month shows.
I’m not surprised. Having been a veteran who worked for the Federal government, I have a unique perspective – if a veteran has trouble adapting to being surrounded by civilians, that problem is even worse among the bureaucrats. When I brought up new and improved common sense way to do things in the office, it was usually shot down, because “we’ve always done it this way” or, “that’s not the way we did it last year”.
I was told by my workmates that “all veterans are crazy” because we had a Vietnam veteran who had worked in the office since that war who pulled the PTSD card out when he was criticized. You know, the PTSD that he caught working in an Okinawa supply room.
I stayed because they threw buckets of money at me, so I just tried to get along because I like money. Some people don’t. I also got a job about 150 miles from the office (with two other veterans) and I worked from home everyday. Some people aren’t patient enough to wait out the BS for the perks. Some of my workmates wouldn’t even take the free laptops and work from home because it meant that they would have to work from home on snow days.
Yeah, veterans who have always been innovative and looking for ways to improve how they spent their time at work won’t find the government very responsive and they’ll get the feeling that they’re wasting their time and their talents.
Of course, your experience working in government may differ from mine.
Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.
Category: Veterans Issues
If a Veteran is relatively young when he starts working for the gov’t, that’s a disadvantage. Veterans really don’t want to hear, “Please don’t ask so many questions” or “Just LOOK busy, okay?” and quickly resent the office clearing out at 2 p.m every Friday, folks strolling in late w/o repercussions, and the like. Older Vets don’t mind so much. They know what to expect and probably aren’t shocked into resigning. It’s life under the apple tree.
That’s definitely what I’ve found. I enlisted at 24 and just that few extra years of experience in the world definitely gives me a helping hand after getting out.
They are hiring vets for a couple of reasons…one they are “scared to death” of veterans and afraid we will get sick of their corruption and turn on them! and the 2nd reason is that they figure if they hire vets, vets will cowtow like the blacks and not want to lose their paychecks….nothing…ABSOLUTELY NOTHING about this administration gives a shyt about veterans or Americans, or America or the WEST period!! imo
After Navy retirement I went to work for the Department of Veterans Affairs. Big mistake. Nothing like I had thought it would be. I thought there would be camaraderie with a strong work ethic. Wrong. Bailed when I could no longer tolerate the BS and foolishness.
BLM employee here.
Ditto to everything said so far, not to mention the folks who never served that you work with commenting on the time you “wasted” playing war, instead of sucking at the GOV teat.
Same here where I am….30+ yrs of civilian service type people who have never served talk mad shit about how awesome they are at working “with” generals, or knowing “how soldiers live/do things” when in reality it’s just empty cock of the walk grandstanding. I’ve got some old-timers on my team who constantly assume their policies dictate whazt the soldiers must do and that we must make sure every gnat is accounted for in “what-ifs”…and I keep telling them, Joe is going to do what Joe is going to do, and when Commanders’ Intent comes in, you can take your ideas/policies and shove them up your ass.
some of the biggest limp-wristed flaming Ivy League holier-than-thou liberals I ever worked with were in a major intelligence agency doing intel for the military. In some cases, I was surprised they didn’t drown in the rain, their noses were held so high in the air.
What David said. Holier Than Thou who came late to work but made up for it by leaving early. Management by Walking Around? Forget it. NEVER saw management interacting with the ‘grunts on the ground’ unless mandated by a problem. We had an ‘all hands’ once a month where management addressed us and told us how proud they were of us and thanking us for our commitment to the veterans. They would then disappear until the next month. The posturing was staggering.
Guess I’m the fortunate one here. I work every day with real live sailors, mid-grade O’s and NCO E’s, and most of the civvies both Government (me) and Contractor (used to be me) are vets. Plus, if I’m doing my job right, Boeing is pissed off at me for writing deficiency reports against with their software, and the Program Office is pissed at me for affecting their precious schedule. Neither have input to my annual review or sign my paycheck.
Win-Win!:-)
Braggart.
Heywood Jablowme.
It would be nice if they would revalidate my position description. I’m a GS5 and it was last updated in 2004…
Sarge, don’t know you or your situation, but I recommend you get on a military friendly degree program and get a sheep’s skin. I did, and it sucked, but it is the key to higher pay grades. In my case, it was the way to go from contractor to GS (STRL, actually. Pay bands instead of steps, and more ass pain on annual reviews).
Only plan on working 4 more years. Between retired pay & disability, I don’t have to work. Only doing this job to get daughter school on the military base here.
It sucks, but I can tolerate it, plus it’s my old unit 🙂
Excellent. We do what we gotta do for family. I’m fortunate in (mostly) enjoying my work, but I envy you in your retirement window. I have about seven more to go before I can hang it up.
Not that I’m counting…
🙂
I am counting. If you guys ever happen to come through Osan, hit me up.
Stupid shit at work is killing me this week.
Some days I want to be a statistic and quit before the two year mark (next March).
Very kind invite and much appreciated! Doubt I’ll be headed to Korea again, though.
I would think that because of the considerable amount of effort being put forth to get veterans hired by “everyone” in the US, that could be another reason for them not staying and/or not even trying to get a fed job.
At the same time, I don’t even have to see evals of certain people at the VA to know (just by looking at them) who the ones that are there for vets are versus the ones that are there to get a paycheck and warm a seat with their ass.
As well, there are a lot of “veterans” being created these days with all the ways they are kicking people to the curb. I don’t know if that’s a factor or not in this report, but more and more veterans are being “created” by this administration who would’ve wanted to stay in if the military was functioning the way it was 7-10 years ago.
Thankfully every single person I work with is a vet. It’s almost like I never left the Army.
I generally don’t like people!
I think everyone is jacked up because my standards are high.
My idea of satisfying work includes: long green grass and sharp mover blades and a pile of rocks with a wall to be built (six pack on ice within reach).
PS: Truth be told, I have been continuously employed by Uncle Sam, in some form, since October 3, 1979. Most of what is said above holds true to me as well. I am holding out just a wee bit longer, then I have something big to do!
My first experience with sand crabs was at NPC. The Color Lab hired a new guy. He had 2.5 days of annual leave credit each month, so he took them every month. That was one eye-opener.
The next was at Great Lakes, at a facility that supplied training materials to the Service Schools Command. I’ve never seen such a bunch of slugs in my life. Petty, bitchy, come in late, leave early, do as little as possible, and hire another sand crab when the SSC peeps complained about slow delivery.
So, when I left the Navy, I went to work for a civilian AV company with a modest load of graphic artists who created the artwork, which I, in turn, put on the Forox table and turned into slide shows for client corporate meetings. Unfortunately, the same slacker ‘tude prevailed there, but I ignored it because the pay was good, until I found that they were all coming in when they felt like it and leaving before end of day (5PM) and I had to stay until 2AM and fix their sloppy work and then shoot it. So I told the owner if the art wasn’t in my camera room by 3PM, I would not stay past 5PM. That worked for a while, but the slackers didn’t change their attitude, so after five years of that crap and feeling quite fried by extremely long hours that provided paychecks to those potheads, I left.
Slackers and sand crabs and ‘don’t stir the pot’ stuff exist in many parts of the work world. It has less to do with gubbmint employment than it does with the attitude that ‘I work here, so I’m privileged’. There’s is a lot of crap you have to put up with everywhere you go.
Just very happy I’m retired and don’t have to deal with that crap any more.
Slainte!
I was lucky that I got to work in a USMC Recruiting Station for a few years before I got dumped into the BIG govt agency. Most of the civil service I have seen could use a lot more veterans, and I don’t mean just at the GS pay grades. Management and Exec level people have absolutely nothing to gain by actually fixing processes and getting the job done, because they would have to admit to somebody that their division/agency/bureau/department is not working well if they were to propose a fix.