People like me are behind the times.

I remember when civil servants used to be valued “personnel”.

Now we are “capital” or “resources”. I can't help but feel a little dehumanized by being referred to in that way.

So
with that new perspective in mind and with the new all important
emphasis on being the best of the best I should not be at all surprised
to find myself about to enter a system which tells me that if I give my
best to the civil service for thirty years, but for some reason
(health, maybe I don't move as fast, maybe I don't say yes without
thinking first) I should slip in my skills then my career could easily
be ended.

I could also be demoted, but according to the NSPS
regs they would try not to cut me more than 10 percent a year - unless
of course they needed to put me in a lower pay band in which case it
could be more.

You want to recruit bright young people for the
civil service? Are they as bright as they are young? Then they will
realize you are setting up a system that will cut off or reduce their
compensation as they age.

This is a great deal for the
government, but a poor deal for the employee. Try as they may I expect
almost 100 percent of those bright young people will age.

In
the beginning they will get pretty decent pay raises then when they
reach the top of their pay band (let's be real: not everyone gets
promoted) their compensation counting toward retirement gets frozen.

Don't believe me about the lack of pay raises or being frozen at the top of your band?

Ask the employees of the FAA, China Lake, the IRS, or the SES…

Yes, the GS system rewards many people. Perhaps the rewards are not much, but they are consistent.

You
may expect to get rewarded even if you express an opinion contrary to
your boss. You may expect to be rewarded even if you refuse to do
something clearly wrong or against the rules because your boss asked
you to (I did this, and the only thing that happened was that I was
transferred to a less desirable job).

Try doing those things
in the new system with the hardline authoritarian rules in place (but
wait - that labor relation system was declared illegal twice).

Do
those things in the new system and your rewards will be few. It matters
little whether you are right or wrong but you better go along.

Recently
I witnessed something wrong in the workplace. I questioned the
authority of the person who did it. I very quickly found myself alone
even though the same incident was witnessed by others.

One of
those who saw it told me that day that he saw exactly the same thing.
By the next day his memory had been rearranged. Later he told me that
no matter what happened he was going to look out for his own best
interests regardless of the situation.

Be careful what you ask for. You may get it.

Personally
I hope the new systems do very well because as a citizen I really need
a strong national defense ( that is where I work). In order to do well
they will have to actually reward the high performers.

Regardless
of what the public may think of civil servants or how the
administration may put us down in order to promote their agenda I have
worked with civil servants for over thirty years. I have seen some very
exceptional people. I am not the most exceptional person I have ever
met, but none of the exceptional people I have met ever completed
anything without the help of someone else.

Many times the
exceptional people relied on someone with perhaps less ability than
theirs to support them and enable them to accomplish their task.

Will those people still be as supportive with no pay raise?

Will
the exceptional people continue exceeding when they are pay capped and
told the “market” doesn't think they are worth anymore?

These are exciting times. Sometimes I wish I could still be there to see how it will turn out.