tor they have few options and so stay in government, even though they are burned out by the work. An agency like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), however, can draw people who have skills that are needed in both private and public sectors, so "there is an active flow of people in and out of the agency and to and from the private sector," according to Linda Fisher, assistant administrator for pesticides and toxic substances.
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Also, some agencies, such as EPA, have a mission that calls forth personal as well as professional commitment, and so attracts "an outstanding, impressive, very well-educated, highly motivated workforce," according to Fisher. She observed that when she had meetings with other agencies she came away far more impressed with the EPA people than with those at the other agencies. Likewise, banking regulatory agencies tend to attract better people than do the other regulatory agencies because securities lawyers have good job opportunities elsewhere, so turnover there is related to a better job elsewhere rather than to burnout, according to Susan Phillips, a governor at the Federal Reserve Board.
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The ambient politics also affect the health and well-being of the career workforce. Donald Laidlaw, the assistant secretary for Human Resources at the Department of Education, saw "the yin/yang of politics" in the existence of his agency: "Ronald Reagan swore to kill this creation of Jimmy Carter but could not. George Bush, calling himself the 'education president,' resuscitated it. That kind of uncertainty takes its toll on career morale."
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Interviewees were asked if they had any sense that the careerists harbored political opinions contrary to their own, and if so, if they sensed any difficulty there. Most said that they did not have a clue about their subordinates' politics and had no sense that it affected their work in any way. HUD's Keating, for example, was pleasantly surprised at the high quality of the workforce he found at his agency, given HUD's reputation (another example of low expectations being overtaken by experience). He noted that
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 | | Kemp and company are not in sync with the majority of careerists but they've all gotten along well and the careerists respect Kemp's leadership. The agency has a Democratic culture of liberal Democrats but there is great agency solidarity among the political and career people due to Kemp's leadership. The careerists are more globalist than the administration but there's a good symbiosis there.
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Frank Hodsoll, deputy director for management at the Office for Management and Budget, said he had no sense that politics affected the work
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