A guy I know hired on with a private company as an early hire engineer at about $65K (he's maybe 28) and has about 3-4 years of entry level construction experience out of college. Less than 30 days later he turns in his notice (of only 4 days) and is going to work for the US Patent Office. They offered him:
$70K
20% signing bonus
6 weeks PTO
flex time (up to 3 days per week work from home)
after 3 years he can work full time from home
full benefits.
once his dept meets their self imposed quota for the week......they get to take the rest of the week off paid.
5% min cost of living increase per year or more
and something else but I threw up listening. No patent experience and after 20 years he gets full "tenure" or whatever they call it now.

That's a $400K+ per year vote your government just bought.

If I had this there would be some butts put in jail on Mondays. LOL

Good for him, at least he has a job and not sucking off welfare.

So if he sits around on welfare he is an undeserving welch, and if he goes out and takes the initiative to find a good job he is an underserving welch too?

Maybe his new employer sees something in him you don't?

Has to be an AU grad...

Not to mention..... every holiday paid .... which for the government is equal to about 19 - 21 days. 8 to 10 more than the average company offers.

Sweet deal maybe I shoulda stayed on the government payroll when I left them for the private sector rather than public

Not true. I'm a contractor at a federal facility and get the same 11 holidays that the government employees do.

Must be 19-21 federal holidays. I saw it on the internet so it has to be true.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_holidays_in_the_United_States

I count 11, but then I was not taught the "new math".

Explain again how it went from $70K to $400K. I don't follow your math! LOL

70,000 Base
14,000 Signing Bonus
12,000 Regular Bonus
35,000 Quota (PTO)
15,000 Full Benefits
8,500 401-k Matching
5,000 PTO
5,000 COLA on above
25,000 Burden on Above

Now if you run that out over 20 years and bring it back to today's dollars it's actually over $500K (per year). And that does not count the lifetime benefits and 50% retirement income guaranteed for life.

And to clear things up, I helped him write his resume. The title of this thread should have delivered the message that my irritation is not with him, but the government. But I understand that I did not log onto an MIT forum.

I'm still not following that math. He gets the 70,000 base but they don't pay him more for the time off....it is part of the 70,000. If he gets $70,000 worth of work done, who cares how long it does or does not take him to do it?

Also....are you sure a federal government employee is going to get a 401K match?

As far as the COLA. They tell you what to expect when you sign up, but you are at the mercy of the government in regards to when they give you a COLA if it is like a state position at least.

If he gets a bonus, I'd consider that progress. Government employees paid on production is something we probably need more of.

Which job? Here are the positions.

FERS Retirements He can't be CSRS ( I retired on) due to his hiring date. FERS retirement is nowhere near as good as CSRS, it takes some good Stock Market savy, since TSP makes up a big percentage of retirement.

TSP website For his 401K (TSP).

PTO= Annual leave is earned based on time in service. I was making 5 weeks Annual leave a year, 8 hours a pay period (2 weeks) when I retired with 30 yrs. I also got 120 hours of Military Leave a year. And everyone earns 4 hours a pay period of Sick leave.

Unless everything has changed in the last few months.......

COLA's are usually based on where you live. That is normal in government pay. The new (1984) retirement, FERS, is based mostly on ones contributions into TSP, and yes the government does match. I'm not sure how they limited the matching, whether a yearly limit or percentage. see above link or visit OPM website and search.

GS pay scale

I have no idea which position and it really doesn't matter. He had a civil engineering degree and there were no positions which had that as a requirement. He had no idea what a "patent" was from a technical aspect until 3 weeks ago.

Some people don't want to get the point and that's fine. This department sets their cost of living adjustment by choosing a company in the private market and mirroring their adjustments. If that company doesn't live up to what this agency wants, they choose another one. They also set their own production goals within the department. The boss gets to go home when all his subordinates reach their weekly goal. How high do you think he sets the goal? He said they have only worked a Thursday and Friday once in 3 years. On top of that, if they ask him to work over 40 hours regardless of how many he worked per week in the past he gets OT.

In my opinion, PTO includes sick leave. That's why they call it PTO and not vacation time. 12 hours per pay period is 15% time off per hour worked. Now you are okay getting 15% on top of hours you never worked? I haven't run the math, but if this department averages 2-3 days per week and get time off "earned" on the other 2-3 days they didn't work I'd venture to say they are working at a far less than 65% efficiency rate. They get ALL those benefits on hours they never worked and on top of time off hours.

But hey, it's your money and it's another vote for the current system. So if you're okay with it just say so.

I just don't know any federal employees that work like that personally so I wonder if he is getting a runaround from whoever is recruiting him.

If you do have knowledge about it and don't think it is right, why not call the proper people to complain about it rather than helping someone land the job?

In the Federal Government it is NOT called PTO. Its called Annual Leave, Sick Leave, Military Leave, Comp time and in some cases Credit hours. You have regulations when and how you can use each one (if your eligible to even have it). The rules and requirements do not allow for accrual at the rate you are saying, for a NEW employee. He can accrue more, with time in the system. Which I bet is what he is saying, unless there have been rule changes in 2 months time, there is no way he can earn that much leave starting out. I would also bet that some of the other perks are intended to be earned with tenure. I just retired in January with 30 years CSRS. So I am familiar with most of the pay/retirement rules of government employees.
I'm replying to some of the information and showing where to find them in the regs, and believe me there are a TON of them. As for as his working at home, that was not a luxury I could've done, due to my job.

No, its everybody's money. But, my money is from the Federal Government, which gets its money from everyone.
As for as voting goes I will vote for whom I want, but it dang sure isn't Democrat.
As your signature says I work and I am Happy. I'm on my 3rd career, and all three involved pay from the government in one aspect or another.

Bottom line of my post was that I do NOT think he supplied you with ACCURATE information, I was providing links to verify.

What kind of run around? Do you know every federal employee's employment details? Do you know ANY in the DC area? He's not being recruited, he already signed a contract. He put the pro's and cons of both sides on a spreadsheet and asked me to look at it. I did and I told him he should take it. The Federal Government is driving this Country broke. If you can't see that, you don't want to see it.
I helped him write his resume to get his job with the company I work for. I'd have done it for him regardless of where he wanted to work.

What agency do you work for?