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Last week's "Federal Focus" column ("Whine Festival"), was written by Ed Chambers and produced intense feedback from our readers. Chambers, a former Marine and federal employee, chastised those in the federal workforce who "whine" about the Bush administration's competitive sourcing initiative without taking stock of its merits or their own job performance. Here is a sample of readers' reactions - positive and negative - to Chambers' June 16 commentary. To read all the feedback to the column, visit GovExec.com's Mailbag.

AMEN!! I am so tired of people complaining about job security in the federal government. Where else can you hit someone and not get immediately fired (seen it, twice)? Where else can you get caught in a sting, stealing from co-workers' purses and only get transferred to another department (seen that too). Get a clue, whiners.

Brad Crawford
Contract Specialist
SWNAVFACENGCOM
San Diego, Calif.

I agree with Ed's article. I am so tired of listening to cry babies who couldn't find a job in the private sector, if they had to go out and look. Unfortunately there are so many very bad managers who do not make their employees do their jobs. The jobs they won't do, I take on to make myself more valuable to the organization, and it has worked, as I am still here. I value my government job and show it. I wish more government workers had the same attitude.

JoAnn Kellogg
Environmental Protection Specialist
Watervliet Arsenal-Dept. of Army
Watervliet, N. Y.

Mr. Chambers, I enjoyed reading your article and agree with you on principle. Recently we have been inundated with horror stories from union reps and federal managers about changing the status quo. I fully support [Defense Secretary] Donald Rumsfeld's initiatives and hope the Bush administration can push through the changes. I have mixed feelings about contracting out government jobs. As a Naval Rework Facilities, I think we perform a unique function that cannot be performed by outside contractors. I've witnessed numerous jobs awarded to private companies and not honored. I personally have no problem with competition, but these decisions are generally made by politicians with more interest in furthering there own careers than improving the quality of support to the fleet. I found it amusing to read the attacks/responses to your article. Essentially there is no substance to their complaints. Like you, I am tired of listening to the whining and would feel better if my coworkers and managers would embrace the proposed changes instead allowing the unions to politicize the issue.

Mark A. Justice
Industrial Engineering Tech
NADEP
Cherry Point, N.C.

This article is a string of non sequiturs. There are a great many legitimate criticisms of the Bush plan for "competitive sourcing." It has been said that the primary motivation is political rather than logical, which is true. This administration uses competitive sourcing to fill the pockets of organizations that supported its campaign effort. It has been written elsewhere that the studies are unfair to federal employees and are biased toward the contractor, and that contractor victories have led to sundry disasters. This, too, is an accurate statement. To dismiss such arguments as being ad hominem is to do nothing more than manipulate the terms. In other words, since Mr. Chambers likes the idea of competitive sourcing, all scrutiny given the idea should be categorically dismissed as ad hominem. If anyone is really doing the whining here, it is Mr. Chambers, not us!

David Roberts
General Supply Specialist
DLIS
Battle Creek, Mich.

Sorry, Mr. Chambers, but it is not all about whining. It is about waking up and realizing what is truly best for the government and the taxpayers. Contracts that cost too much, run over deadlines, and do not deliver can be found easily in most every government agency. Have you been watching the Thrift Savings Plan changes? If not, you may want to ask why the changes are more than two years behind the published original dates. Is that best for the government? And that was after one contractor was released, but I have not heard that they refunded any money to the government. We have to face facts; it is more profitable for politicians (and I include congressmen as well as the current presidential administration) to vote for privatizing jobs. Politicians vote to support their jobs and those financing their campaigns, and they are not always looking at what is best for the government 10 years from now.

Lastly, some of the comments on this article are about federal workers who have successfully been in the job for years while not performing. You can place part of that blame on the workers, but more is to be placed on a management that allows such things to happen. It seems to me that the comment about not whining is the same as what many government managers do: they bury their heads and ignore issues that need to be addressed, such as employees who are not performing or contracts that are not meeting specified deliver dates. What makes you think it will be any better in the future?

Management of things is not changing. It is only going a different direction, and guess what? The government loses their corporate knowledge and pays more to do it. Again, is that good for the government and the most efficient use of taxpayers' dollars? Because as public servants, that is why we are here, and as voting citizens in a country with free speech we have not only the right to whine, but a responsibility to do something when we see such abuse in the system!

IT Specialist
DISA

One of the best articles on the subject of competitive outsourcing that I have seen which critically examines the issue and asks us to rethink our (federal employees') knee-jerk reaction to A-76 actions.

Michael Ryan
Management Analyst
U.S. Army Manpower Analysis Agency
Fort Belvoir, Va.

I couldn't agree with you more. As a relatively new federal employee (less than 10 years of civil service), I can tell you that it's frustrating to suffer through day after day of complaints from those who accomplish little more than scanning vacancy announcements between their coffee/smoke breaks. Those who have spent a lifetime at their present grade because they don't have any ambition (but it's always someone else's fault, of course), yet refuse to get off of their butts and earn their pay, always whine the loudest about how bad we have it. Maybe they need a few years of private industry employment to learn what it's like to work for a living.

Environmental Scientist
U.S. Army Installation Management Agency
Seoul, Korea

COMMENTS

• By and large, I think the points in the original article were well taken. We federal workers can and should always try to do the best job possible and be good stewards of the taxpayers' money. If we are not already Most Efficient Organizations (MEOs), we should become such ASAP and look to why we were not, instead of trying to blams Republicans, Democrats, or whomever else. "Whining" about jobs we have taken as guaranteed accomplishes nothing. As Dr. Zerhouni of NIH has said about employees' very vocally (and sometimes bluntly) expressed concerns about A-76'ing, "Stop whining and start winning!" But a small point: Mr. Justice of Cherry Point (and others with the same opinions of their "uniqueness": You are not an exception to the rule. You say "(at the) Naval Rework Facilities, I think we perform a unique function that cannot be performed by outside contractors." Do you mean unique functions like those performed at the "Naval Rework Facility" (Naval Aviation Depot, formerly called Naval Air Rework Facility) at the Naval Air Station Alameda? Its work was dispersed to contractors and other activities, and the base it was on is closed. It wasn't Republicans or sinister plots with campaign supporters that did it in; it was mostly avoidable cost and labor inefficiencies. I know, I was there. So were 4,999 other people with supposedly unique and irreplaceable functions. There is an aphorism in the Navy: If you think you're irreplaceable, stick you arm in a bucket of water; when you pull it out, if the water doesn't fill in the space taken by your arm, then you really are irreplaceable. Otherwise, you should be doing the best you can and improving on that constantly. John Heckler Posted August 1, 2003 10:33 AM
• I noticed that most of the comments in favor of contracting out and accusing federal employees of being WHINERS, were sent by employees at or associated with the military. While we do have a few jobs that could be contracted out and employees on board that don't do their jobs, most government employees (not in the military or assigned to the military) do their jobs, and do them well for a lot less money than a contractor would get. Currently the IRS is considering contracting out tax collecting, for 25% of whatever is collected by the private contractor. In-house, it could be done for less than half of that, but it doesn't look good to add instead of reduce the number of federal employees. Several years ago I worked with a secretary who had come from the Pentagon. She couldn't believe how much work was expected of her, and eventually quit because we expected her to produce, not spend alternate days shopping at the Pentagon Mall rather than working. Mary Booth Posted June 24, 2003 10:43 AM
• The funtion of leadership is to lead by example and make the best choice for the long term goals of the orginization. Great! Lets privitize Congress and the White House. Any bids out there? GovExec.com reader Posted June 26, 2003 1:31 PM