Those aren't cool companies, those are just paid a lot.
Cool is working on something that you, personally, find important -- and making progress.
The biggest barrier to that in government is being allowed to make progress, partially because the existing processes have a large inertia, and partially because the cost of failure is so high.
You know what's a cool job? Working at a great job doing interesting work... and having a schedule where I leave at 2:30 PM and pick my kids up from school. Then I get to spend the evening with my kids, playing with them, going to the pool with them, doing homework with them, reading with them, etc.
That sounds horrible. Start work at 6? So you have to get up at 5? Which means either going to bed at 9 or you're one of those types who can survive on minimal sleep. Starting work at 6 sounds like the most uncool job I can think of.
That's fine and cool if you have/love kids. I'm the opposite. Getting up at 5am to start work at 6am and being in bed for 9pm is the antipathies of cool for me!
On the other hand, I don’t have children but like having the rest of the day available, and it’s great to not necessarily be working when most businesses are open. I’d call that freedom pretty cool, especially if you’re in an area where that saves you commute time in rush hour.
I respect individuals who value time with their kids in addition to having a serious career. My father was too busy chasing C-suite positions and running Iron Man races to spend time with his six kids.
Antithesis. Of course. I'll edit my comment. I certainly respect those who choose to have kids but not something I ever planned or plan to do. Of course, now I'm in my mid 40s that ship, as far as I'm concerned, has sailed (not saying I couldn't father kids but no teenager wants a dad who is in the 50s/60s).
Yes. 9-5 is really more of a saying than legal truth. People who have to clock their hours usually work 8-5 with a one hour lunch, with some opting to take a half hour lunch and leave early / arrive late with manager approval.
Of course someone who has only worked salary without concern for billable time may never have experienced this. But even for salaried employees if your employment agreement says 40 hours, that does not include lunch breaks. Few employers in tech care because bean counting hours doesn't increase performance for creative types or knowledge workers.
>Those aren't cool companies, those are just paid a lot.
I get your point about an article redefining "cool" in a way you don't like but if we entertain what the article is talking about, they mean jobs that have "prestige" and are "desirable" to graduates.
There's no denying that top-of-the-class college graduates dream more about landing an analyst job at Goldman or McKinsey rather than getting hired at a government job such as "parks & rec manager". (A job as a park ranger to track bears may be "cool" but a parks & rec manager to shuffle paperwork around is probably not. A job as a park manager may be respected but it's not prestigious.)
Some government jobs that would be considered "cool" would be NASA scientists working on Mars rovers or NSA code crackers. However, those are not the type of government jobs (because NASA/NSA can attract talent) the article is talking about.
> I get your point about an article redefining "cool" in a way you don't like but if we entertain what the article is talking about, they mean jobs that have "prestige" and are "desirable" to graduates.
Those jobs are desirable to graduates because they pay lots of money. End of story.
>Those jobs are desirable to graduates because they pay lots of money. End of story.
There's more to it than that. I can't speak for the mindset of consulting jobs like McKinsey but for jobs like Goldman Sachs, there truly is a set of people that enjoy finance and therefore, working there or at one of the other prestigious bulge bracket firms (Citi, JP Morgan, etc) would be more interesting to them than working as an "Assistant to the Comptroller of the local city government".
Are there graduates that hate finance and only want a Goldman job only for the money? Yes. But those people are also not best suited for a low-paying job such as "Assistant to the Comptroller of the local city government".
That was my thought. In college (albeit 20 years ago now), Goldman (and similar Wall St) jobs were only cool because of the money involved. The actual work, and lack of life balance, wasn't cool. It was just something to do for a few years while you saved a pile of cash, and before going back for an MBA or something else.
The NSA was at OSCon last week, gave a great talk about the legal challenges to contributing back to the open source community.
They're almost done with a guidance framework that will not only allow their department contribute with less friction, but also allow other departments to do the same. Take a look at how much they've done: https://code.nsa.gov/
Ethical and political views of an organization that spies on citizens aside, I think a government organization that open sources it's code is pretty darn cool.
Cool is working on something that you, personally, find important -- and making progress.
The biggest barrier to that in government is being allowed to make progress, partially because the existing processes have a large inertia, and partially because the cost of failure is so high.