March/April 2006 Issue

Take This Department and Shove It!

The worst job in Washington

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It’s hard enough in these days of tropical storms and truck bombs to secure the nation; it doesn’t help if you loathe the job. In a recent study of 29 federal government agencies such as the Office of Management and Budget and the SEC, employees evaluated their satisfaction with work. They measured those basic conditions you long for when you punch the clock: good pay, teamwork, effective bosses. The final rankings revealed that some workers are less than pleased, notably those at the Department of Homeland Security (DHS):

DHS RANKINGS

Employee skills and mission match

29th

Strategic management

29

Teamwork

29

Effective leadership

29

Training and development

26

Support for diversity

29

Pay and benefits

29

Family-friendly culture and benefits

28

Work/life balance

29

The 29 agencies surveyed are made up of 217 smaller groups. A child of DHS, the Transportation Security Administration (TSA), is among them. It hit the bottom of the bottom:

TSA RANKINGS

Employee skills and mission match

217th

Strategic management

216

Teamwork

206

Effective leadership

217

Training and development

197

Support for diversity

215

Pay and benefits

217

Family-friendly culture and benefits

217

Work/life balance

217

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THE FACTS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES.

At least we hope they will, because that’s our approach to raising the $350,000 in online donations we need right now—during our high-stakes December fundraising push.

It’s the most important month of the year for our fundraising, with upward of 15 percent of our annual online total coming in during the final week—and there’s a lot to say about why Mother Jones’ journalism, and thus hitting that big number, matters tremendously right now.

But you told us fundraising is annoying—with the gimmicks, overwrought tone, manipulative language, and sheer volume of urgent URGENT URGENT!!! content we’re all bombarded with. It sure can be.

So we’re going to try making this as un-annoying as possible. In “Let the Facts Speak for Themselves” we give it our best shot, answering three questions that most any fundraising should try to speak to: Why us, why now, why does it matter?

The upshot? Mother Jones does journalism you don’t find elsewhere: in-depth, time-intensive, ahead-of-the-curve reporting on underreported beats. We operate on razor-thin margins in an unfathomably hard news business, and can’t afford to come up short on these online goals. And given everything, reporting like ours is vital right now.

If you can afford to part with a few bucks, please support the reporting you get from Mother Jones with a much-needed year-end donation. And please do it now, while you’re thinking about it—with fewer people paying attention to the news like you are, we need everyone with us to get there.

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