Stop dumb job tips to unpaid gov’t workers

In the past two weeks, many of my friends and former colleagues across government in national security related positions have received some of the dumbest advice ever from their U.S. government agency employers.

By now, everyone has surely heard about the Office of Personnel Management recommending federal workers trade services such as painting or carpentry with landlords in exchange for rent, or the Coast Guard suggesting its employees babysit, dog walk or have a garage sale. Aside from being insulting and demeaning, this advice is stupid.

First of all, any of these federal employees know that if they want to seek employment outside their agency, they need to go through an approval process to ensure that there are no conflicts of interest, that it doesn’t interfere with their federal job, and that there are no concerns about ethics or perception. I guess garage sales are fine because there are no restrictions that prevent employees from selling their own property — but many other jobs a federal employee might take to make ends meet during a furlough could cost them their federal job when the shutdown ends.

There are actually some pretty good reasons the government doesn’t want employees, especially those with security clearances and national security jobs, freelancing on the side to make a little extra scratch, even during a government shutdown. For one, many of those employees — such as FBI agents, the Coast Guard and Transportation Security Administration workers — still have to report to and perform their regular jobs during a furlough.

Additionally, who might be interested in hiring someone with a security clearance, even for a short period of time, and paying them decently? I don’t know, maybe someone who wants information on or influence in an agency when the shutdown finally ends.

That might be as innocent as a company simply wanting some insight into a government process, or it could be more concerning — for instance, a company wanting information on a pending regulation or acquisition decision that will give it a competitive advantage.

It gets worse. Our federal employees are generally smart, loyal, ethical, patriotic and aware of all this already, so they don’t go and get second jobs or sell information during a shutdown. However, they do get frustrated, angry even, and a lot of them will leave government service. The ones that stay (and, by the way, a lot of the best ones leave) risk having long-term financial problems.

Federal employees who have loans against their Thrift Savings Plan federal retirement savings accounts have to continue paying the government during the furlough, even though the government isn’t paying them!

It gets even worse. There are a few telltale signs to look out for in an employee who has been or is susceptible to being compromised by foreign intelligence. Is the employee in financial distress? Yes, thank you government shutdown. Does the employee seem frustrated or disenfranchised at work? Assuming they get back to work, hell yes. Has the employee ever made disparaging comments about the United States government or its leaders? I literally don’t know anyone who could honestly answer no to this question.

Well done. The government has just made tens of thousands of employees potentially fit the profile of an insider threat. It’s consequently going to be a lot harder to find the real threats now.

Erik Brine is a member of the Truman National Security Project’s Defense Council.