As someone who has spent the last 15 years working with federal employees... There are a lot of feds in the sciences who probably don't do as well as they would in the private sector (in some cases, because the private sector expects the feds to do the work). I'm willing to accept there are lawyers who could do better in the private sector. And probably a non-trivial percentage of the overall workforce who are roughly as good (or as bad) as their private-sector counterparts.
But.
In the technology sector (especially the "technology management" sector), a lot of the feds I encounter make comparable (to slightly better) money than their private sector "peers" - except the private sector folks they get compared with aren't their peers. Lot of the fed tech management folks I deal with are absolutely f**king worthless. If I ran my side of the contract the way my fed counterpart runs his (not sure if he's technically my "peer", but comparable years of experience and education, and comparable job descriptions), my employer would fire me (and I'm not talking about "give me multiple opportunities to make good before letting me turn in a letter", I mean "call me on the carpet, and when I come out, the security guy is there with a box of my desk stuff").
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timeasmymeasure
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Date: 2011-03-15 11:11 pm (UTC)But.
In the technology sector (especially the "technology management" sector), a lot of the feds I encounter make comparable (to slightly better) money than their private sector "peers" - except the private sector folks they get compared with aren't their peers. Lot of the fed tech management folks I deal with are absolutely f**king worthless. If I ran my side of the contract the way my fed counterpart runs his (not sure if he's technically my "peer", but comparable years of experience and education, and comparable job descriptions), my employer would fire me (and I'm not talking about "give me multiple opportunities to make good before letting me turn in a letter", I mean "call me on the carpet, and when I come out, the security guy is there with a box of my desk stuff").