I worked for two State Governments, Oregon and Nebraska for a combined 13 years total.
I ended my career at the State of Oregon as an IT Director for a State Agency.
So several things about state employment bothered me to no end:
1. State employee union contracts catered to the lowest common denominator. What I mean by that for one thing, is that you cannot negotiate your salary or your "work out of class" rules/pay.
2. Implementing technology (context was 15 years ago) one always had to consider the public perception. This meant that when iPhones were first introduced, I couldn't consider them as part of my IT planning because of the public perception that I'd be wasting tax dollars on them. Despite the fact that they were superior in every way to what Blackberry was offering at the time.
3. I couldn't buy things off of price agreement despite finding prices lower than what the State had already negotiated.
_I ended my career at the State of Oregon as an IT Director for a State Agency._
I think thats the issue you're too high up in the job ladder to not have any 'work responsibilities'.... If you drop back down to the nameless IT 'tinkerer' programmer , responsibilities will vanish!
You mention "If I could retire now, I would"... so maybe you have certain life logistics preventing you from taking a lower pay-grade... but if not...
I have wondered about that. Some jobs I think make you die from within even if they are only 9to5. One buddy of mine had a govt job and complained about it everyday… it made him toxic. He eventually left but took waaaay to long.
trick is to bounce around departments until you get into a good group of non-toxic folks, and your skill level is above everyone. 2 hours of work is the equivalent of 2-5 days of another programmers work, and everyone loves your output.
If you're working from home, its really not that bad, since the other 6 hours of teh day you can learn anything you want. Just have to be near computer incase something happens etc...
I can honesty LY tell you moving from private industry to state government was the best decision I have made. Definitely move around until you find people and a department that you like.
