Great pay in exchange for dysfunction
Pros
Strong compensation and benefits, good work/life balance culture and resources, strong union representation, most employees are highly skilled, engaged and invested in the work and the organization.
Cons
Racism, nepotism, sexism. All the isms. Haven't seen homophobia yet. LGBT do very well and often hold high level management positions, especially Caucasians. In practice, for decades now, there's one set of rules for white employees and another more restrictive, unjust set of rules for the Black employees. Other minorities are few in number. The majority of managers often skirt around HR policy and are retaliatory, when you uncover this and hold them accountable. Managers will go behind your back to lower your HR established pay rate because they think you should be making less money than them (or in general); HR will oblige and lower the rate from what they've already calculated for you in order to appease managers. The majority of the time this is done to Black employees. Morale is low and there is a high level of distrust among colleagues and superiors. There is a concerted effort to keep management white, especially white male dominated. I suspect this is the case at most federal agencies.
