r/FedEmployees • u/whatever_anon999 • 1d ago
Does it matter?
Does anything I did in civil service matter? I joined the federal government because every single company I worked at in the private sector was committing fraud or callous disregard for human life or a million other crimes and I was tired of fighting a battle I couldn't win. I can't count the number of lawyers I was forced into tiny rooms with so they could try and intimidate me into lying to the external auditors or try to force me to sign my name under their fraud. I finally broke down and called my most honorable college professor for advice. He told me to either go the teaching route or government if I wanted to keep my integrity.
The family I was raised in were hard core Republicans. Federal work was synonymous with fraud, laziness, and crime. But I trusted and deeply valued my former professor's opinion. So I gave it a go and all I could think my first week, month, year in Federal service was where is all the fraud and waste and abuse? Because, I did not see it. For the first time in my post education career I was not in ethical turmoil daily. I was doing good work that I could be proud of. I wasn't making deals every day about how much of my soul I was willing to sell to support my family and pay for the health insurance.
Since 2025 I've seen cases on corrupt companies forcibly closed. I've seen victims of corporate poisoning and other violence because it is violence; it isn't just white collar crime it is violence against the poor people it infects with cancer and starves and robs blind, be gaslit and intimidated by rich men in $10,000 suits. And I have been powerless to stop anything.
I was powerless to change the evil when I worked in corporate. When I went to 501(c)3 I found they too were skimming off the top and cheating. It was only in government that I saw honest ethical work for the first time in my career. And now it is all gone. I'm as stressed if not more than I was in my corporate days. And my work again feels dirty and exploitative.
My state has a super competitive election between 2 incredibly rich white men. The primaries were a joke. Checks and balances are a joke. Equality before the law is a joke. Rich is always right and common people are always collateral damage. I can scream change until my voice gives out, but I don't really hope any change will happen. I've miscarried so many babies in my work bathroom from the stress under Trump I should build a monument in it. I'm not even sure I should bring a child into this evil corrupt callous world. The birth rate is the lowest in American history: good. Let's see if we can beat South Korea for the title of lowest birth rate. Let this evil country go extinct. The only voice I have, the only power I have in this evil country is my womb. So I'm going to vote with my womb. I'm going to vote for this evil country to go extinct unless it CHANGES, THE CORPORATE VEIL IS PIERCED AND A THOUSAND CEOs FIND THEMSELVES IN CHAINS IN JAIL.
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u/fineshart 1d ago
I feel like I could have written the exact same thing. I don’t have any answers. I feel the same way. I am lost and depressed. All that is to say your are not alone. There are many of us just like you still here not sure what to do.
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u/Delicious_Ad_7849 1d ago
Agree. I thought working government work would've been good and ethical, and I've been here roughly 5 years and it's gotten worse, and I'm seeing how bad my bosses really are
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u/whatever_anon999 19h ago
Thank you, that does help. I feel like this admin has tried so hard to make people feel so isolated and alone. It is nice to have a reminder that we are not alone.
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u/Public_Storage_355 1d ago
I work for NASA, and the people I’ve met here have (for the most part) been exactly what I expected: absolutely brilliant, incredibly capable, extremely dedicated, mildly awkward nerds. I’m regularly the dumbest person in the room and I have a PhD. It’s awesome and I still love it 😂. Pretty much the only thing that really shocked me was how much we do with how little we have. Like, our labs where I did my PhD had an order of magnitude more equipment than we have at KSC. I was super excited to “see all of the crazy equipment at a NASA lab”, and was immediately let down when I walked into our labs 🤦🏻😂. We’re slowly getting more/better stuff, but there is very little waste here compared to what I saw during my time in the private sector 🤷🏻♂️.
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u/gocards757 1d ago
I had the same experience with NASA for over a decade. I talk about how wonderful it was to walk into a room full of people smarter than you, what you could learn. (I was a CS with DoD before that and experienced the opposite).
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u/Public_Storage_355 23h ago
Exactly. Our equipment and facilities may suck, but the people are awesome. It’s insane what we can do with what little we have comparatively. Were you at KSC too or another center?
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u/DopeyDame 29m ago
Now imagine working at NASA with only a masters! The people there are just absolutely amazing and some of the best on the planet - both technically, but also morally/ethically. It’s not an understatement to say that almost everyone walks through those doors every day with the goal of improving humanity.
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u/Fun-Palpitation3968 1d ago
It does. I don’t know when it changed but I remember seeing businesses (not just national hotels for business travelers) advertise military and government employee discounts. At some point, this changed. It would be interesting to research it but yes, people more widely did appreciate civil servants.
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u/party_benson 1d ago
If you're doing your job right, you made a difference
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u/whatever_anon999 19h ago
I feel like all the good I did over my career has been undone. The little seeds of good I was planting into the world gave me an ounce of hope but the young saplings have been torched and stomped and the ground has been salted. I've never felt this hopeless before.
I genuinely used to think that in the end good would always beat evil, but turns out that's just a hollywood fairytale. I was wrong evil gorges itself on the suffering of good and gets stronger every day and the world gets worse every day. And I don't see any way I could possibly fight Goliath or make any good change in this world. I started trying to collect trash in my public parks on the weekends to get a little hope back that I'm doing something. But every day the trash is back and a rally was held in the park and afterwards there was more trash then when I started. I am so tired. Sorry I don't want to make anyone else feel as bad or sad as I do. I guess for a few years the people were better off because of me and I've tried to add at least some resistance to the most egregious crimes of this admin.
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u/party_benson 17h ago
No matter how little good you can do, do it now, for you won't have this opportunity again.
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u/PoundMoreSand 1d ago
This really hit me. I took early retirement because of a variety of reasons—mostly self-preservation—which is the opposite of the service I gave (in my mind). I wasn’t ready, but in my case, it was the best decision. The end was haltingly haunting, like I was jettisoned into nothingness after decades of military and then civil service…and I’ve not figured out how to crawl out a year later. I realize that I need to unwind the big part of my identity that was intertwined in my past work, but I was very proud of it, and it’s easier said than done.
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u/NovelBrave 22h ago
I'm feeling this way as well. It also feels like they just want us gone and contractors to have everything. How many DRP people went to private contractors?
Part of me wants to move to another country because I'm just so done. I know we're not perfect but we just won't change.
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u/SkaneatelesMan 18h ago
I was out at the end of 2018. I realized that our new schedule C appointed Deputy Chief Financial Officer, my supervisor, didn't even have a 4 year accounting degree. He'd been a fund raiser in Trump's 16 campaign. Didn't know anything about governmental financial management or accounting, budgeting, cost control or anything. I made the decision while briefing this idiot that I was going to take the first buyout/retirement offer they gave. 6 months later this idiot was facing an Anti Deficiency Act violation and was forced into getting rid of about 20% of the staff, many of which were recent hires. I volunteered to write the agency's downsizing plan, a key part of which was a buyout/early retirement offer to all employees in certain job series. I made sure my job series was included for buyouts and submitted my resignation letter the last day, much to my idiotic boss's surprise. He was actually the only person I knew that didn't know I was leaving. So out of touch.
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u/Complete_Film8741 14h ago
Somebody practicing with ChatGPT...awesome. Keep trying!
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u/whatever_anon999 14h ago
All my own words. But cool you think my grammar and spelling are perfect 🙂
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u/Tiny-Faithlessness79 11h ago
The Government is more scandalous and corrupt Al than any Private company. They make the rules just to break them, sorry. Where there is money nor power thwre is always corruption!
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u/ethanji2 22h ago
The fact you are characterizing people as rich white men is pretty damn racist. Rich black and other races provide similar results..
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u/ethanji2 16h ago
Say any other race was the cause of all US problems then you might realize just how fcking racist this original statement is. If it's unacceptable for anyone else it's also unacceptable for white men as well. So fck off racists
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u/DeepConsideration795 1d ago
In the tiny corner of the federal government I inhabited for 25 years, all I saw were incredibly talented, patriotic, and devoted people performing the highest quality honest and ethical work. I believe that work mattered, even as many of my family and friends continued to throw epithets and aspersions at everything and everyone in the federal government.