Jolt Country

This is a placeholder thread for my future GoFundMe fundraiser, in which I will try and raise enough to cover my 2% annual raise that Donald Trump cancelled today.

Trump's such a vindictive asshole, sorry he's fucking with your barely cost of living increase. Seems like it's always the republicans who shut the government and fuck with your pay. Too bad we can't tar and feather Billy Mays for his goddamn trump support. I stopped talking to my mother because she's a trumpster, I'm having trouble seeing them as americans.

Is this sarcasm? I think this is sarcasm.

But I agree with Trump. 2% is nothing for people who barely have an income, so it wouldn't matter anyway. People with higher incomes have enough money already, so they don't need the 2%.

Logic.

RealNC wrote: Thu Aug 30, 2018 11:57 pm Is this sarcasm? I think this is sarcasm.

But I agree with Trump. 2% is nothing for people who barely have an income, so it wouldn't matter anyway. People with higher incomes have enough money already, so they don't need the 2%.

Logic.

I think your comment is sarcasm though. Surely you're not saying that dump in chief is right to threaten Flack's cost of living increase?

So inflation is 2.1% and your man Dump thinks "an economic emergency" requires not allowing 2% cost of living increases for hard working federal worksers like flack. Whose side are you on?

CO all mad.

A little explanation for RealNC, whom I suspect may not fully understand the issue.

I'm not exactly sure where to start. Each year, the cost of "things" (food, rent, and services) increase due to inflation. The US Department of Labor (among others) track these increases. The difference (typically an increase) between two dates is known as a cost of living difference. According to the Department of Labor's website, the cost of living adjustment between July 2018 and July 2018 is approximately 3% (link). That means that, on average, things cost 3% more this year than they did least year. That also means that unless your salary has increased over the past year by 3% or more, you are essentially making less money than you were last year due to inflation.

Something you may or may not know is that most federal civilian workers (such as myself) no longer get performance based pay raises. (If you really want, I can go into the details in regards to GS vs. FG vs. Core Comp pay bands.) In the past, most federal workers received a yearly "step" increase, but that no longer happens. The way it works now is, whatever salary you start with is essentially the salary you'll have as long as you're in that same position. Today, the only standard raise most federal employees get on a yearly basis is the relatively paltry cost of living increase. So even though the cost of living has gone up 3% since last year, federal employees were only set to get a 2.1% increase. And now we're getting a 0% increase.

As part of his announcement, President Trump announced that this will not affect his plan to attract and retain the best and brightest employees. That's bull. I know several government employees who have left federal service due to low pay compared to comparable civilian jobs. When I was working in security, the kid I trained left for a position that paid 2 1/2x what I was making. Most of the people I know that still work for the government do so because of benefits, retirement, or a sense of dedication and/or loyalty to our country, not because they're getting rich. It's already difficult to attract the "best and brightest" when civilian jobs pay so much more, but when they see things like "oh and the president might cancel your raise on a whim," forget about it.

At this point, my co-workers and I are essentially in survival mode, hoping to make it until 2020 and come up for air then, hoping the damage that's been done isn't permanent.

A lot of people also work for the government because it's virtually impossible to get fired. That was the case a while back, Flack can correct me if that has changed.

Doing some loose math here.

Google reports that there are currently approximately 2 million federal civilian employees. It also says that the average salary of a government employee is $88,809. (Seems high, but we'll go with it.) That comes out to $177,618,000,000, or 177 billion dollars. 2.1% of that number is $3,729,978,000.

$4 billion sounds like a lot of money, but you have to look at it in scope. The federal budget for next year is 4.4 trillion dollars. ($4,400,000,000,000.) Dealing in millions and even billions isn't a shocking number. One of the first things Donald Trump did after being elected was buy 90 jets from Lockheed Martin for $8.5 billion. An internal report from the Department of Homeland Security has placed the cost of Donald Trump's nonsensical border wall at $26 billion (a low estimate according to most insiders). According to the Joint Committee on Taxation, Trump's Tax Cuts and Jobs Act will add roughly a trillion dollars to the federal debt over the next ten years. So while $4 billion may sound like a lot of money in salary increases, in the big picture, it's a pretty small capitol hill of beans.

pinback wrote: Sat Sep 01, 2018 1:37 pm A lot of people also work for the government because it's virtually impossible to get fired. That was the case a while back, Flack can correct me if that has changed.

Oh, absolutely true -- although Trump is actively trying to change that. But yeah, anyone who has ever seen a mailman bowl a package down the sidewalk toward their house knows that not all federal employees graduated at the top of their class. Partially because of unions and partially because legendary government paperwork, it's a lot easier to transfer (and/or promote) an employee than it is to terminate one.

I think we all grew up thinking that if this sort of horseshit ever happened, we had a system firmly in place to correct it. Now that that's obviously not the case, and the country is run by a crime syndicate, what are we gonna do? Anarchy? Anyone wanna flip a bus?

I think we're suppposed to flip a bus at this point.

A friendly co-worker reminded me that we are not legally allowed to strike (not that it went well for the air traffic controllers under Reagan, either). I dunno, man. As corny as it might sound, most of the people I work with really do care about aviation safety, and it's something we're reminded of from time to time in the office culture. Our already lean budget's been cut, and now with no raises on the horizon, I think people are just trying to do their best with what they have to work with and pray/hope nothing happens on their watch.

Christ, I have such a love/hate relationship with this country.

Flack, can you find a private company and get away from this horseshit?

THE
LAND OF THE FREE
HOME OF THE RED TAPE
AARDVARK

Thanks for the explanation, but I got all of that from your first post already.

AArdvark wrote: Sat Sep 01, 2018 7:06 pm Flack, can you find a private company and get away from this horseshit?

I could, and have considered it. I could list a dozen examples, but bottom line is I'm not sure I could re-acclimate to the pace and expectations of the private sector IT jobs at this point. I'm a little over a decade away from retirement so my current plan is to ride this ship out.

It should be noted that there are a lot of jobs in the private sector for what we do where pace is a crawl, there's no accountability and it's impossible to get fired. I worked with a person a few years ago that was never cut out to program. There were days where she actively made things worse due to some stupid idea she had. You couldn't tell her anything, either, without her getting offended.

They never fired her. She left on her own. Unbelievable to me.

Flack wrote: Sat Sep 01, 2018 1:25 pm As part of his announcement, President Trump announced that this will not affect his plan to attract and retain the best and brightest employees. That's bull. I know several government employees who have left federal service due to low pay compared to comparable civilian jobs.

Yeah this reminds me of a conversation I had with my mom when I came home from community college complaining about my teachers. Basically "Well if they were really good at what they were teaching.. they wouldn't be teaching in community college."

pinback wrote: Sat Sep 01, 2018 5:43 amCO all mad.

LOLOLOL

Jizaboz wrote: Tue Sep 04, 2018 10:09 am

Flack wrote: Sat Sep 01, 2018 1:25 pm As part of his announcement, President Trump announced that this will not affect his plan to attract and retain the best and brightest employees. That's bull. I know several government employees who have left federal service due to low pay compared to comparable civilian jobs.

Yeah this reminds me of a conversation I had with my mom when I came home from community college complaining about my teachers. Basically "Well if they were really good at what they were teaching.. they wouldn't be teaching in community college."

My experience was a bit different. The best teachers I had were at Syracuse, sure, but they also had by faaaaaar the worst.

It is apparently completely acceptable at a university that some are paying $20 grand a year to for instructors to speak with the thickest accents of all time, to the point where class is a thing you attend for social reasons, and then all the kids get to try to teach themselves. You wouldn't put up with it if you were making a radio ad for the university, but to teach kids? No prob.

Never had that problem in community college. There was actually a lot I liked about community college. I was still bad at it, but at least it was 100% my fault there.

ALSO. I will be evaluating all of you in terms of what it would be like to work with all of you starting tomorrow.