It’s hard for me to see how this difficulty they have, which plenty of non-military and non-law enforcement families also have, makes them a special class uniquely qualified for remote positions based on who they decided to shack up with.
I guess this is where I sound like an asshole, but…so what?
No one is drafted into the military. You volunteer for a term and they pay you (like shit, but I digress). Most of them never leave the US and most don’t see combat over corporate interests, so it’s basically like any other shitty job apart from being able to be put in jail if you try to quit before your term is up.
Why do we have this fascination with treating this one shitty employer’s employees better than we treat everyone else?
I'll be the first one to criticize militaries and the interests that control them (and I'm not even American)… but I do acknowledge the fact that not having a good army can fuck your life up big time. Well, just look at the three conflicts around us and how each one of those countries is surviving.
Yes, most soldiers might never see a war, but is it possible to measure how many countries would've tried to invade your country, or your allies, if you didn't have that large army to act as a deterrent? That's why this one shitty employer gets special treatment.
Rules that make joining the army attractive/mandatory to people who have other options is obviously good for the nation at large. This is just a move in that direction, and I totally get it.
As you’re not American, I’ll assume you’re unaware of all the attractive benefits this employer already gets. Here’s a few:
its employees gain access to massive subsidies for higher education that most Americans have to pay for, since we are a shithole country
those education benefits are already extended to their spouses and children in instances of total disability*
any veteran has access to a welfare stipend if they have low income
any injury they have on duty that results in any chronic symptom means they get tax free money every month and free healthcare for life — this isn’t just while working on base either, if you’re on leave and you twist your knee skiing and it hurts to bend it sometimes, the government will pay you for life for that, and pay you more if you’re married or have kids. Depending on how many “disabilities” you rack up, this can be upwards of $4k, tax free, every month, for life.
*if you rack up 100% of disability, this does not necessarily mean you can’t do anything, it just means you’ve hit a combination of government disability math that thinks you can’t
And those benefits? I’m all for them. I wish everyone got them, since there are far more useful things a person can do instead of joining the military-industrial complex, but whatever, at least someone gets them.
What bothers me about this one is that it’s at the expense of the competitive service, and thus at the expense of the public — Americans will get poorer service from their public servants because they didn’t have to compete against the best-qualified to get their jobs. They just got plonked in there because of who they decided to shack up with.
Fair enough, and I do agree that everyone should have free (or reasonably cheap) access to healthcare, education and shelter. (I'm "commie" as fuck, depending on whom you ask)
That said, if all the existing benefits aren't enough to attract good people into the army, I see why the government would want to keep increasing benefits till they get their fill of soldiers – all in the name of national security.
Also, these things tend to have knock on effects, no? If private sector starts losing out on his employees because they'd rather work for the government as long as it's a remote job, then the private sector is welcome to change rules to attract employees too! It's a "free market" of labour after all.
I really like your last point, and I hope that’s the effect of this. I just also hope that it’s not to the detriment of the competitive service.
We’re already seeing a decrease in quality hires due to direct-hire authority — without checks on the hiring authority, they have a tendency to just hire fast without actually determining if someone is qualified for a role.
Don't think of it as a benefit for the spouse, anyway. It is a benefit for the federal employee because their family will encounter less hardship when they are asked to relocate. The federal government tries to hire the best people for each position in the most fair way it can. If a candidate has to choose between a career and a well-supported family, you will get less quality candidates.
Ah, my mistake. I made an assumption, and I only skimmed the article. Thanks for the correction.
I'm still not sure this is a bad thing, surely it doesn't apply to every job? Obviously you wouldn't want this to apply to a job that requires a great deal of expertise, but that's not every federal job.
It’s totally possible that it’ll be an amazing thing, but past practices don’t give me a lot of faith in that. The competitive process exists to weed out one or two people being able to hire who they want to without checks and balances. Removal of that for certain classes of people just makes it easier to skirt those checks as long as someone is in a special class.
The problem we run into is what the government considers jobs that require expertise — for example, the people who write rating decisions for disabled veterans have an immensely important job that requires substantial training and skills, but much of the aptitude for learning these is tested for in the panel and interviewing process. They aren’t specific degrees or certifications. Under this rule, those tests would never happen for these people. They’d just be hired, plonked into a training class they might have no ability to pass, and start creating financial obligations for the government in as little as six weeks.
It’s hard for me to see how this difficulty they have, which plenty of non-military and non-law enforcement families also have, makes them a special class uniquely qualified for remote positions based on who they decided to shack up with.
I think it's the idea that military families have the issue at higher rates, not that no one else does.
I guess this is where I sound like an asshole, but…so what?
No one is drafted into the military. You volunteer for a term and they pay you (like shit, but I digress). Most of them never leave the US and most don’t see combat over corporate interests, so it’s basically like any other shitty job apart from being able to be put in jail if you try to quit before your term is up.
Why do we have this fascination with treating this one shitty employer’s employees better than we treat everyone else?
I'll be the first one to criticize militaries and the interests that control them (and I'm not even American)… but I do acknowledge the fact that not having a good army can fuck your life up big time. Well, just look at the three conflicts around us and how each one of those countries is surviving.
Yes, most soldiers might never see a war, but is it possible to measure how many countries would've tried to invade your country, or your allies, if you didn't have that large army to act as a deterrent? That's why this one shitty employer gets special treatment.
Rules that make joining the army attractive/mandatory to people who have other options is obviously good for the nation at large. This is just a move in that direction, and I totally get it.
As you’re not American, I’ll assume you’re unaware of all the attractive benefits this employer already gets. Here’s a few:
*if you rack up 100% of disability, this does not necessarily mean you can’t do anything, it just means you’ve hit a combination of government disability math that thinks you can’t
And those benefits? I’m all for them. I wish everyone got them, since there are far more useful things a person can do instead of joining the military-industrial complex, but whatever, at least someone gets them.
What bothers me about this one is that it’s at the expense of the competitive service, and thus at the expense of the public — Americans will get poorer service from their public servants because they didn’t have to compete against the best-qualified to get their jobs. They just got plonked in there because of who they decided to shack up with.
Fair enough, and I do agree that everyone should have free (or reasonably cheap) access to healthcare, education and shelter. (I'm "commie" as fuck, depending on whom you ask)
That said, if all the existing benefits aren't enough to attract good people into the army, I see why the government would want to keep increasing benefits till they get their fill of soldiers – all in the name of national security.
Also, these things tend to have knock on effects, no? If private sector starts losing out on his employees because they'd rather work for the government as long as it's a remote job, then the private sector is welcome to change rules to attract employees too! It's a "free market" of labour after all.
I really like your last point, and I hope that’s the effect of this. I just also hope that it’s not to the detriment of the competitive service.
We’re already seeing a decrease in quality hires due to direct-hire authority — without checks on the hiring authority, they have a tendency to just hire fast without actually determining if someone is qualified for a role.
It's a point preference, not absolute deference.Don't think of it as a benefit for the spouse, anyway. It is a benefit for the federal employee because their family will encounter less hardship when they are asked to relocate. The federal government tries to hire the best people for each position in the most fair way it can. If a candidate has to choose between a career and a well-supported family, you will get less quality candidates.
It’s not a point preference. It says that they can be appointed non-competitively if the head of the Executive agency thinks they’re qualified.
We saw the same thing with direct-hire authority — people abandon the competitive hiring practices because direct-hire is faster.
Ah, my mistake. I made an assumption, and I only skimmed the article. Thanks for the correction.
I'm still not sure this is a bad thing, surely it doesn't apply to every job? Obviously you wouldn't want this to apply to a job that requires a great deal of expertise, but that's not every federal job.
It’s totally possible that it’ll be an amazing thing, but past practices don’t give me a lot of faith in that. The competitive process exists to weed out one or two people being able to hire who they want to without checks and balances. Removal of that for certain classes of people just makes it easier to skirt those checks as long as someone is in a special class.
The problem we run into is what the government considers jobs that require expertise — for example, the people who write rating decisions for disabled veterans have an immensely important job that requires substantial training and skills, but much of the aptitude for learning these is tested for in the panel and interviewing process. They aren’t specific degrees or certifications. Under this rule, those tests would never happen for these people. They’d just be hired, plonked into a training class they might have no ability to pass, and start creating financial obligations for the government in as little as six weeks.