For some federal workers, getting fired from a boring, albeit reasonably well-paid, job and a decades-long wait for that great pension to kick in may be the best thing to ever happen to them. From MN Gordon at economicprism.com:
No little boy or girl says they want to be a stiff at a government agency when they grow up.
Suppose you were an average student in high school without any real academic focus. Your guidance counselor told you that college graduates earn more over their working lives than their peers who only graduated high school.
So, you took the logical step and enrolled at your local state university. There you majored in history, or sociology, or psychology and social behavior.
You didn’t really know what you wanted to do with your life. But your uncle told you that government jobs are more stable than the private sector, and that they have better benefits and guaranteed retirement plans.
Upon graduation you went to work for the Bureau of Land Management, the Department of Education, the Internal Revenue Service, the Environmental Protection Agency, or some other federal agency that administers some obscure law that was passed over 60 years ago. You learned the ropes and it felt good to have a purpose and to be part of something bigger than yourself.
One day, about ten years into your career, as you’d advanced within the organizational hierarchy, it dawned on you that what you were doing was pointless minutia. A complete waste of your time and your life.
By this time, however, you were in too deep. It would be difficult to start over in another profession. Plus, at your agency job, the pay was generous, the work was easy, and you had a mortgage and a family to support. Your consolation was that after 35 years you’d have a cush retirement to look forward to.
Another decade goes by, and each day you count the years until you’ll be able to start enjoying those pleasant Florida winters in Tampa.
But regrettably, it was not to be…
