Mike Causey is on assignment. While he’s away, some readers are filling in with guest columns. Here’s the second in the series.

On a pleasant April day recently, a married couple and their friend, all retired feds, were sitting on the back porch discussing whether the friend’s son should remain in the federal service. The young man has considerable skills in information technology, so he has options.

As a federal employee, he is currently assigned to a special project at a contractor’s office. The contractor’s employees are encouraged to participate in games whenever work permits, they can bring their dogs to the office, and when a new contract is won the boss breaks out the booze to celebrate with the employees! Safe to say this office does not resemble a government office at all. OK, some federal employees while away the hours watching porn, but that’s a solitary task, not one designed to foster camaraderie.

It gets better. Our friend’s son really likes the work, which was not the case when he was back at the ranch functioning as a typical fedhead. So I predict, to borrow a phrase from one Chicago White Sox broadcaster, He gone! Or so we would strongly recommend.

The conversation shifted to our son who went to work after college at the IMF, which is kind of like a government bureaucracy. After three years, he got hired by a Czech firm that had seen his work at the IMF, so he now works and lives in Prague. He likes the Czech firm way more than the IMF, and the Czech Republic capital way more than ours. His office environment resembles the aforementioned contractor’s, that is, dynamic, mostly young people who like to party (after work though). He has a 5 minute walk to the office. This year has featured business trips to Kenya, Tanzania and the Netherlands.

The question before our back porch panel, then, was how can the federal government attract much less retain young talent? Well, we’re not sure, but thinking of ways to make the work environment more appealing to young employees would be a good start, as well as streamlining the hiring process. Getting rid of the Professional and Administrative Career Exam over 30 years ago didn’t help. The result was that the type of college graduate the federal government hitherto had found most desirable was largely unavailable to it. Many college grads who could’ve passed the PACE with flying colors became uninterested in a government career. The removal of the exam complicated the hiring process. To this day, the path from application to job offer remains long and confusing, further discouraging applicants. But if young, talented individuals do manage to find their way into the federal service, they’re often confronted by managers whose chief skill is putting the fuddy into duddy.

Another way not to have a lively and creative workplace is to phase the elderly into retirement. There comes a point where any imagined bureaucratic wisdom gained through the years is trumped by fuddy-duddyness. We can envision the one foot in retirement geezer or geezerette regaling their young charge with back in the day stories, and picturing the youngster with one foot out the door. The so-called phased retirement law seemed like a good idea to some, but as with much of what comes out of Congress, it was not thought through to its logical conclusion. Young listening to old? Was there ever a period in history where that ever worked? — John Elliot

Nearly Useless Factoid by Michael O’Connell

It was guitarist Joe Strummer’s idea to sing the backing vocals of The Clash’s “Should I Stay or Should I Go” in Spanish. During the song’s recording session, tape operator Eddie Garcia called his mother in Brooklyn Heights to translate the lyrics from English into Spanish for the band.

(Source: Wikipedia)

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