Moraine,

I'm sure that behavior goes on everywhere, like you said. Every office has that person that spends more time getting together the office fantasy football league than actually doing the work they were hired for. But, no, I don't have any real evidence to prove it's more common in the government than the private sector. It's merely obvservations I've made in my own limited experience. Here in the DC area, it is a common belief to think that it's nearly impossible to get fired from the government. "Get a job with the Federal Government and you'll never get fired", is what you'll hear pretty often.