Reduction in Force
“Not to say that public service isn’t sexy, because it definitely is. But that’s not why we do it. We do it because we get the chance to work hard at work worth doing alongside people we love.”
— Leslie Knope, Parks and Recreation
No job is safer than a government job, right? Well, not anymore. Not in the United States. The federal government is poised to eliminate hundreds of thousands of jobs from its payroll—a “large-scale reduction in force.”
As Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson noted in her blistering dissent from a Supreme Court order that allowed the layoffs to move forward, this kind of job loss causes “signficant harm.” Job loss is often psychologically traumatic and economically devastating. Federal workers who lose their jobs will suffer now and in the future—even if they prevail in court in the end.
But it’s not only the affected workers or even their colleagues who survive the layoffs who will suffer. It’s all of us. Jackson explains that mass reductions in the government workforce will jeopardize programs that impact all of us—food safety, environmental protections, and disaster relief, to name a few. The “reduction in force” is a blow to our collective security. Poignantly, Jackson writes:
“What one person (or President) might call bureaucratic bloat is a farmer’s prospect for a healthy crop, a coal miner’s chance to breathe free from black lung, or a preschooler’s opportunity to learn in a safe environment.”
I’m paying special attention to the fight over government jobs (or, as the administration might put it, “bloat and inefficiency”) because it’s part of a more comprehensive narrative project—one that shapes how we think and talk about work, and therefore think and talk about who we are and how we fit into society. Questioning the narrative that government workers are lazy or that bureaucracy is bloated and unnecessary is one way to question the narratives we perpetuate in our own work lives.
And since questioning the narratives that shape our work lives is exactly my project, I want to take a closer look at “government work” and what it can teach us about our own insecurities.
“That’s not why we do it”
In a recent episode of Cautionary Tales, Tim Hartford asks bestselling author Michael Lewis about his interest in government workers, such as those profiled in his new collection, Who Is Government?. Lewis explains that these are people who are solving real problems and addressing pressing needs, while seemingly lacking the desire for fame or fortune one might expect from their accomplishments. He then bemusingly adds that he’s just not wired that way. He values recognition too much to do his work quietly.
As someone who also craves recognition for my work, I can understand his bewilderment. Contemporary culture conditions many of us to believe that fame and fortune are innate needs. And if not fame and fortune, at least recognition.
Part of Lewis’s fascination with government work has been inspired by what he calls “the most interesting organization no one’s ever heard of.” This organization, the Partnership for Public Service, was founded by a government attorney-turned-businessman with the goal of attracting new talent to public service. Each year, the organization presents awards to government workers in recognition of their contributions to the public good. Most of the awards go to people who have solved “some extremely narrow, difficult problem that the U.S. government—in many cases, only the U.S. government—has taken on.”
Max Stier, the president and CEO of the Partnership for Public Service, told Lewis that there was “no culture of recognition in government. We wanted to create a culture of recognition.” Stier also seems bewildered by government workers’ ability to do something incredible and simply move on to the next project—no need to bask in accolades.
I do think there’s a universal need for recognition, but not the kind that Stier and Lewis are describing. We want to be able to recognize the ways we’re contributing to something bigger than ourselves. We want to recognize our own skillfulness, creativity, and power. We want to recognize the direct line between our efforts and their impacts—no matter how great or small. We want recognition from others inasmuch as it allows us to augment and extend these qualities.
Or as Leslie Knope, the dedicated public servant at the center of Parks and Recreation, put it:
“Not to say that public service isn’t sexy, because it definitely is. But that’s not why we do it. We do it because we get the chance to work hard at work worth doing alongside people we love.”
The Partnership for Public Service makes the same mistake that many advocacy groups founded by wealthy benefactors often do: assuming that the public sector should operate more like the private sector. If private sector workers seem motivated by awards and bonuses and recognition, then public sector workers would probably benefit from the same! But what if being motivated by accolades is a symptom of a problem and not a solution to one?
Lewis claims that he’s not wired like these people who eschew recognition for their accomplishments. But what if it’s not a question of wiring? What if the desire for recognition is a product of private sector work itself?
Fame, fortune, and less extreme forms of recognition are, after all, tools for (imperfectly) avoiding insecurity. Those who seek them are perhaps less driven by a desire to be famous or amass a fortune than by the universal need for safety and security. While fame and fortune come with their own unique risks, in a society built on spectacle and driven by consumption, these outcomes do a lot to provide cover to those who attain them.
Of course, fame and fortune aren’t the only things we chase in the name of security. Others might crave the opposite—anonymity and meager self-sufficiency. Some prefer hierarchical family structures or brute force power. Any and all of these paths to something-like-security can play out in our work—from our day-to-day activities to our career choices.
If security were no object…
Guidance counselors and career coaches often ask, “What would you do if money were no object?” Ideally, the question helps one set aside the disparity in compensation between various career paths and consider what they really want to do for work. Fair enough. But “money” here is actually an insufficient proxy for “security.” To my mind, the question “What would you do if security were no object?” is a fundamentally different question.
I might go even further and ask, “What else would you need in life if security were no object?”
If you had a reliable way to pay the rent, procure nutritious (and delicious) food, clothe yourself, educate your family, etc., how else would you augment your life? How would you fill your time? Your attention? Your care?
It’s also worth considering the activities or goals we pursue in the name of security: fame, fortune, recognition—sure. But maybe also continuing to post to a social media platform you despise because it seems like a safety net. Or, people-pleasing your colleagues because creating even constructive conflict feels like a risk. Or, avoiding the doctor’s office or the mechanic because discovering that there’s a problem seems a bigger threat to your security than simply ignoring the possibility.
What are you currently doing in the name of security that isn’t making you more secure? What might you pursue instead with that time and energy that would make you more secure?
Perhaps it is not some inborn personality quirk that makes civil servants into unexpected heroes of the public good, but simply the material reality of being paid enough, with enough time off, and enough continuity from day to day that they have the personal bandwidth to devote themselves to significant, if not flashy, projects. Because they can worry less about taking care of themselves as individuals, they are free to focus on taking care of “us” as a whole and solve problems that threaten our collective security.
It’s little wonder that a political economy defined by insecurity (and inequality) would engender attention-seeking neuroses and fixations on wealth. It’s little wonder that this political economy produces people who wear identities like 'overachiever' and 'hustler' as a badge of honor. External validation and recognition seem essential to our well-being because they serve as key performance indicators that help us measure our distance from insecurity. We fear failure and setbacks because, for many of us, they are existential threats.
Specters of insecurity
Government workers are specters of our own insecurity. They represent the needs we have that can only be addressed collectively. In them, we see the potential of the commons, the possibility of more meaningful work, the promise of more equitable compensation and advancement. Conservative politicians and pundits attack government workers so that we lose sight of what could be and focus on what we—that is, you and I as individuals—might lose. They craft a narrative that makes government workers the enemy, the antithesis of the hardworking American.
In turn, we come to see “government work” as indulgent and unnecessary. Their salaries are too high, their jobs too stable, benefits too luxurious, schedules too accommodating. We end up “grateful” for the opposite—if not in fact, in metaphor.
We are reduced in force.
Not only does this narrative disrupt the process of building solidarity, but it also puts the squeeze on all of us. Mass layoffs generate surplus labor, increasing competition for limited jobs and so lowering the bar on compensation and working conditions. Small business owners and the self-employed aren’t insulated from these consequences—contracts are harder to win, attention is harder to earn, project rates stagnate.
As Astra Taylor observes in The Age of Insecurity, insecurity isn’t limited to people experiencing poverty or the working class. It’s not limited to those who earn less than the median salary or work in declining industries. Having enough money to pay the bills doesn’t automatically ease the burden of insecurity, much less eliminate it. Further, Taylor argues that insecurity is universal. None of us gets by on our own.
Our collective condition is why she argues for an “ethics of insecurity” that would redirect our attention away from individual struggles for security and toward the collective work of achieving security for all of us. Yes, that means building movements, advocating for policy change, and rebuilding a public infrastructure of care. But an ethics of insecurity can (and should) play out in our daily work lives, too.
Job performance becomes a team effort. “Solo entrepreneurship” gives way to collaborative entrepreneurship. Self-promotion wanes and community promotion waxes.
Individually, we are reduced in force. Together, we support each other in strength.
Imagine a different future & live it today
In Mythocracy, literature and media scholar Yves Citton describes how narratives channel the flow of power. By amplifying or suppressing certain narratives, institutions “structure social life insofar as they manage to collect and distribute flows of desires and beliefs through relatively stable structures.”
An institution can reduce the force of its constituents by crafting and distributing a story that feeds preferred scripts to everyone who hears it. Literally, we learn phrases like “good enough for government work” and “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’” But we also learn the disposition, expectations, and behaviors of someone who behaves as if that pacifying story is true.
Citton argues that this same trick can be and should be used by the public to imagine new futures, to reclaim our force. But the work of imagining new futures isn’t a task for tomorrow. It’s a task for the present, not only imagining but also behaving as if it were true today. To do that, we need to put our force behind questioning every assumption baked into the story we’re currently living and working in.
I believe that more of us are motivated by care and curiosity than fame, fortune, or flashy recognition. We fear losing each other more than we fear downward mobility or even financial ruin. We are motivated by, as Taylor puts it, “an intrinsic desire to create, collaborate, and care for one another” rather than “the threat of duress.”
The question, “What would you do if security were no object?” isn’t a mere conceptual provocation. It’s a call to imagine how your life and work would be different in a society that believes all people have a right to stability, a right to meet their own needs or have them met. It’s a call to measure security outside the narrow confines of money or attention. It’s a reminder that the only true security comes from working toward a better future for all of us.
Or, perhaps it’s time for businesses to operate more like the government.
What one has created doesn’t matter; the only thing that matters is what one might create next.
