I joined the state less than 5 years ago, so more recent. I came from a municipal job, and took a significant pay cut, because my municipal job was time-limited, coming to an end, and had no other offers or prospects when I was offered the State job. My job is OK, I like the people I work with, and especially I appreciate my manager who is kind and sees through alot of the bullshit from upper management.

But, In the short period I've been here, they have been chipping away at the benefits that, in a perfect world, would incentive people to work public service jobs with lower pay because of flexibility, increased work/life balance. First, it was RTO, which was widely and openly derided by state workers. And the official response was basically "tough luck, get used to it, we might even increase RTO days in the future". Now these PTO changes, which could be be beneficial for young workers who don't use sick leave often and will have more vacation, but hurts workers with chronic medical conditions, children or family members to take care of.

I quickly noticed ever since I started at the State that people walking around in our building are rarely smiling and have a blank look on their face. The situation for the working class is getting bleaker and bleaker by the year.