Interesting thread. I am new to the board, having recently retired from a thirty year Federal career. I started as a GS-7 and worked my way to SES, twenty years in HR (including the director) and then ten years in IT.
For a while in HR I was the guy who fired people. It is actually possible, but is a painful process. I would estimate that about 2/3 of the pain is the process itself, and the other third is the internal difficulty most managers have firing people -- it really is not an easy thing. During my years in HR, I networked with a lot of private sector HR managers. Those in large organizations reported many of the same people problems we experienced in the government. It is all about people who are mismatched in their jobs and can't or won't do anything about it.
As for my impression of the environment -- mostly good. I was at the General Services Administration, which gets almost no appropriated funds - GSA charges for the services they provide other agencies and the agencies can generally choose to go elsewhere. Employees and managers had to hustle to get the job done and most did.
The benefits (sick leave, health, vacation time) are pretty good, not exceptional. But the inflation protected retirement package is gold. I had no real understanding of how valuable it is until I neared retirement and started paying attention to how much of a nest egg is required to reasonalbly guarantee a modest income. It makes the so called "pay gap" seem OK.
The politics are mostly the same small "P" BS you would find in any organization. Some individuals are awful, others are great. That holds true for most of the political appointees I dealt with. (I do have some good stories about the exceptions, but they will remain private
Friends at agencies with more politically charged missions (EPA, Justice, Education, etc.) reported more problems with political changes since the newcomers might be very hostile to the underlying mission or, conversely, might support the mission but distrust anyone who would have stayed in the previous, hostile administration.
One of the more amusing things was to see how many political appointees came into government, liked the people and the work, and then found a way to "burrow in." Sure, some of them were hacks, but many found the work rewarding and chose to stay.
Overall I would recommend the government. It is like a huge multifacted corporation with fascinating missions. If you are not challenged where you are you can move elsewhere with a modicum of effort. There is a lot of turmoil - reductions in force, reorganizations, political changes - but what corporation isn't worse?
And despite what some posters say, there is an element of public service that is rewarding in itself. That may seem obvious for military, law enforcement, firefighting and the like, but it is true to some degree for most of government.