How working in the Government of Canada makes achieving FIRE goals difficult

Night mode

Before I speak about the challenges of working in the Government, I do want to make it very clear that I’m very satisfied with my government job. When I started over a decade ago, I came to the door with three post secondary degrees, fluency in four languages, and job experience in Canada and abroad. I got hired through an external competition where I competed with over 10,000 other applicants for my job. So I was definitely well prepared, and I don’t feel that the Government did me a “favour” by hiring me. That being said, here are three reasons why working in the Government of Canada makes achieving FIRE goals difficult:

Office hours – For the most part, your manager will probably want you to be physically in the office every day. This requires that you spend valuable time in morning and afternoon commutes , or eating lunch at work that could be better spent working on a side hustle for 30 or more minutes.

Raises – As long as you are not at the top step in your classification level, you will get a yearly raise. HOWEVER, if you work far and beyond what’s expected of you, you will need to do a competition, because there are no bonuses. Finally, when you reach the top of your classification, you are stuck. You would have to wait until the next collective agreement to get an adjustment. Let’s face it, not everyone’s dream is to be in the senior management level (where there are bonuses).

Bureaucracy – Everything takes a LONG time to be done. Sometimes it’s simply demotivating. Need to write a briefing note? It will come back to you at least three times. Need to write a Deck (powerpoint presentation)? It will come back to you at least four times with every new idea that someone has. I once did a document on a federal government position that went through 38 different versions! How’s that for morale? These type of things cause you to waste time and allow other tasks to build up and prevent you to go home on time.