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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 10th, 2023

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  • Just like any other job, entirely dependent on your particular unit/department and manager. In the US Fed gov’t there’s a huge difference between working for CBP, civil Marines, and NASA, just to name 3 random agencies.

    The difference with the feds is that you get a basically predictable paycheck (as long as Congress does its damn job), health benefits that make life habitable, the best possible version of a 401k around (TSP), and you’re extraordinarily unlikely to get downsized.

    Last I checked, the plurality of civilian federal employees make GS-13, which in 2023 was between $98k and $153k depending on where you were located, and how long you’ve been at that pay-grade. It’s not an overwhelming plurality, butnit’s not unusual to promote into a GS-13, and then hang out there for most of your career.

    Retirement is a three-legged stool: your TSP (aka 401k), Social Security, and a small pension. People hired before 1985 were the ones who got the sweet fat pensions, but it doesn’t work that way anymore.






  • When the original news broke about Alabama using nitrogen, my wife woke me up by hitting my arm to tell me - because I’ve been saying that is the most humane possible method for the last 16 years.

    I think the death penalty is stupid to begin with, and am kinda over talking about its merits after years of debate team in high school and college. But trying all of these seat-of-pants cocktails of midazolam and pentobarbital etc, and then inventing all of these ridiculous devices that require two people to push buttons at the same time so no one ever really knows whose button actually killed the person… it’s just needlessly complicated and dumb. Not to mention the fact that the legal costs involved in defending appeals and housing someone on death row are much higher than the cost of a life sentence anyway. And that’s leaving aside the statistically significant number of wrongful convictions…

    I mean, we shouldn’t have the death penalty. But if we’re going to, it should be by nitrogen hypoxia.