My last post ended with thank you – to those who have stayed as well as to those who have left civil service. After several questions from readers, I want to be more explicit on why my “thank you” was deeply genuinely written – as well as share suggestions that helped me with my own next steps. 

Thank you for working in jobs that are often thankless (when all goes well) or in the newspapers (when anything goes wrong – regardless of whether it’s your fault or not!). Thank you to those of you who literally put your life on the line as part of your job. Thank you for taking on a job that pays 24% below private-industry on average (and between 42% to 160% below private-industry average for high-demand tech skills). Thank you for doing your work using old legacy technology that is often so fragile, inefficient and needing so many overlapping manual workarounds that no-one I know would dare use these systems when starting or scaling a Silicon Valley company. (In case you were wondering, those systems are not cheap. The U.S. federal government spends $102 Billion last year on technology systems and contractors[1] which is more than the $90 Billion spent by *all* venture capitalists in Silicon Valley *combined* in 2024[1]). 

For those of you who are still in public service, I thank you for continuing to serve in these “interesting times”. I send you my thanks, best wishes and encouragement. Thank you for continuing to help other humans who depend on the services you provide. Other humans who you will likely never meet. Other humans who live in our *United* States of America. If faced with unusual or questionably illegal directives, I ask that you always keep your oath of loyalty to the Constitution of the United States as well as your personal and professional integrity. I, along with everyone else in this country, depend on you.

For those of you who have left public service, please keep your original heart-felt focus for helping others. There are plenty of organizations who crave your skills and your integrity – once you find them and they find you. These organizations exist in a range of different legal forms – state government, local government, NGOs, non-profits, public-private partnerships as well as pre-IPO startups, Public Benefit Corporations, multinationals and other forms of private industry. Avoid wasting your time running around in demoralizing interview/rejection spirals for roles that somehow don’t feel right in the first place. Instead, figure out whatever social need matters the most to *you* personally and focus there. After you think you have identified your focus, then start looking around – and talking about your focus with others. Maybe you’ll find that your focus is almost – but not quite – right, so be comfortable adjusting your focus as you talk, listen and learn with others. Maybe your next opportunity to do work that matters to you is sitting right there in front of you – with a different title or in a different part of an organization chart of an atypical organization. Or using different tools and a slightly different scope of work. Or maybe, just maybe, no-one is doing it yet, so you should gather some like-minded humans to start a startup! While the current venture capital AI funding frenzy is in the headlines, there are other funders out there looking for public-service-focused, mission-driven experts with proven real-world experience who want to make a difference in society! 

I’ve bounced in and out of roles in startups, non-profits, multinationals and government. In each of these worlds, the terminology, norms and expectations can be confusingly different. In each of these worlds, I’ve found good humans doing their best meaningful work to help others – and you will find them too. If we’re connected here on LinkedIn, and there’s anything I can do to help you continue to help others in our community, please let me know. 

Thank you (again) for serving.

John.

As of 30sep2025, I am no longer a federal employee – which is interesting because I never expected to be one in the first place! 

(That one sentence took a few months to write.)

What’s next for me? I’ll cover that in a later post. For now, I note that I was not the only one to leave federal service recently. Because there are no official numbers from the federal government, we have to rely on research from Partnership for Public Service who estimate over 211,000 humans have left so far in 2025, with even more expected to leave/be-pushed-out by 31dec2025. It’s important to keep in mind that, even after all those humans went away, the need for their work did not go away. Politicians in Congress create laws requiring those services be provided. Humans in civil service government provide the services (as required by those laws) to all those who depend on those services. Now, however, many of the humans in civil service who did the actual work of providing those services are… gone. 

Some humans left or were pushed out because they objected to legally-dubious or plausibly-illegal instructions from new leadership[1][2][3][4][5][6][7][8][9][10][11]. Some humans left because they were ordered to relocate at short notice to arbitrary locations intentionally geographically far from their operational work and their family – or else be fired in a form of clandestine layoff[1][2][3]. Some humans left because aggressive, changing and contradictory behavior by new leadership intentionally “put them in trauma”[1][2][3][4][5][6]. Some were fired without cause simply because they were easier to fire[1][2][3]. Some were fired, re-hired and then re-fired [1][2][3][4][5][6][7]. Some were fired against the recommendation of every living former head of that agency[1]. Some were fired simply because new leadership didn’t know what their department worked on – and later didn’t know how to re-hire them after the severity of the error of their firings was discovered[1][2][3]. Predictably, many of these actions triggered ongoing court cases[1][2][3]. 

Some humans stayed because they hoped to find a way, despite all the disruptions from above, to continue providing the services they cared about to citizens who depended on them. Some humans stayed because they are driven, in their heart, to serve and help others. Some humans stayed, despite being paid 24% below private-industry average, because they needed the very next paycheck. (This is not unique to U.S. government employees – 37% of all adult Americans, including those with jobs, don’t have enough spare cash to pay an unexpected $400 emergency bill). 

Some humans who left felt guilty for abandoning their friends and coworkers who stayed. Some humans who stayed felt guilty for not leaving with their coworkers. Some humans who stayed felt abandoned by their departing coworkers. 

Each human had to make their own personal decision – for themselves, for their family and for their professional career. These current/former coworkers are still trusted colleagues, respected domain-expert professionals and (often) lifelong friends.

To all of you who served alongside me in public service – the only words I have are: Thank. You. 

John.

ps: Click here for part#2.