The Inglorious Government Employee

[July 2, 2025]  ‘The Inglorious Government Employee’ is a repeat of the article I published ten years ago. Ernest Kennedy III has put his finger on this idea, based on simple observations that Government Employees are, on average, lazy. Little has changed. Here is what he had to say.

I spent a lot of time as a young man fighting in the jungles of Vietnam; looking the enemy in the eye and having to kill him. I returned to an ungrateful nation which was led to politicians who asked us to fight and then gave it all away. But, like my previous post (see link here), this blog you’re reading is not about me; this time it’s about the leadership of government employees. Having been so successful as a U.S. Marine, businessman, and family man I frequently get many folks who ask how I managed to do so well despite the obstacles imposed upon people like me.

Yes, that is exactly what I meant to say … “people like me” … meaning those who actually go out and live up to the American dream by working hard, having a family, getting along with my neighbors, and staying out of trouble with the law. This post is about the inglorious government employee (to twist the title of a recent World War II move1).

I live on the West Coast of the United States and every day I get the opportunity to work with government employees. As part of what I do in retirement as a Civil Engineer is to do contract work for both the federal government and the state of California. Working as a government employee is a good gig for the man who wants to get paid for doing very little. Because so many lazy people work for the government, they’re forced to hire outside contractors, like me, because they can’t get the average government employee to do good work.

I make some nice spending money off these contracts so I’m not complaining too loud … except when I realize that the lazy man government employee is consuming vast amounts of my tax money for little in return. Anyone who thinks I’m wrong about my judgment of government employees, just go to any Veterans’ Administration hospital and ask any employee who they work for. They’ll never say they work for the military veteran; nor do they care about the veteran. Of course, you could also go to any of the California Department of Motor Vehicles locations to get your car registered; that’s a real fun waste of a day (get my humor?).

But it’s the leadership of these government employees who do not have the courage to do anything about the employee protection racket that really gets me mad as hell. This includes all the senior leadership within their many agencies. You simply cannot fire a government employee. Sadly, the leadership will not challenge this problem. Further, government civilian leaders are afraid to give poor evaluations or reprimands because the employee might file a complaint against them and then act even worse. Folks, I’ve seen it happen over and over and I’m just observing from the outside.

We hear a lot about passing new regulations on government agencies and shaking up some of the management. What we never hear about is someone doing something about the civil service employee protection systems that prevent employee termination when they do something terribly wrong. In my business, if you don’t perform, I’ll fire you that day and get someone who will work. I’ll bet you never heard this before about the government employee. If you listen to the media, the failures of these government agencies is due to poor management (and yes some of that is true) but it’s the workers at the lower and mid levels that are the real problem because there is a culture of doing the minimum to keep the boss off their back … the boss who has little courage or incentive to do anything anyway.

Expect change? Never gonna happen. Why? Neither our Congress nor the senior leadership of the various government agencies have the courage to take on such a large number of people who vote and whose families and friends that vote. They fear investigations against them that will harm their career. They feel that there is no one who has their back, especially our politicians, if they do stand up to a lower level employee to actually have the gall to ask them to do their  jobs. This should never be happening. The best way to ensure employees do nothing is to let them know you fear them.

Hey, more news from my friends across the country in New York City. The NYC major continues to support the incompetent civilian workforce he has in place from the cronyism set up by his political machine. Wow, I thought we had it bad out here. Except for the police and fire departments of New York City, everyone seems to be on the take. Crime is up, vagrancy is up, city services are bad, but it’s okay to literally piss on the street and no problem … but let your inspection sticker expire and you get slapped with a huge fine.

The leadership of the inglorious government employee is the weak link in the employee protection system. You’ll never hear this anywhere and probably never will. Unless you know someone from the senior management of a government agency, you’ll never get the inside story like I did. Pretty soon, I’ll have my third retirement. Think I’ll go feed my dog and clean my rifle now.

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Please read my books:

1. “55 Rules for a Good Life,” on Amazon (link here).
2. “Our Longest Year in Iraq,” on Amazon (link here).