The government isn't "the bad guys". They are, however, a large, bureaucratic organization, with all the benefits and drawbacks that entails.
If you've worked for a large, bureaucratic private-sector organization (like Intel), then you'll have a pretty good sense of what you're in for.
Remember: every committee, every rule, every baffling thing that seems to make no sense is there for a reason (even a picayune, trivial, bad reason)--that's life in an organization that's had 10,000 hands in the cookie dough before you came along.
The difference is that public-sector work is something that conceivably we all have a stake in and can benefit from, while the beneficiaries of private sector work at any given company are distinctly more narrow in scope.
If you've worked for a large, bureaucratic private-sector organization (like Intel), then you'll have a pretty good sense of what you're in for.
Remember: every committee, every rule, every baffling thing that seems to make no sense is there for a reason (even a picayune, trivial, bad reason)--that's life in an organization that's had 10,000 hands in the cookie dough before you came along.
The difference is that public-sector work is something that conceivably we all have a stake in and can benefit from, while the beneficiaries of private sector work at any given company are distinctly more narrow in scope.