Edited: This was rambling and incoherent, even by my standards. I'll try to rewrite it later. Or not.

I talked to yet another government recruiter last week. They always say the government has a shortage of engineers, which means that they're doing everything they can to hire the best engineers. They're lying. They talk about fat pensions, strict forty-hour work weeks, and complete job security, but those inducements only attract slackers - those things repel good engineers, who don't want to be stuck on a team with someone who is only there because the firing an employee who hasn't commi...