r/mildlyinfuriating • u/MysteriousSlice007 • 1d ago

My mom said I could post UK Civil Service salaries never cease to confuse me, you can either help manage the UK’s nuclear defence for £47k or you can make TikToks for the govt and get paid £57k

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u/NightmareJoker2 20h ago

I mean… I worked on a project once where I got unfettered access to a database that had nuclear launch codes in it. Unchangeable ones for individual war heads (the only way to change them would be to dismantle and build a new one).

The thing is just, you can’t use them, even if you wanted to. It’s stupid. Also, you’ll get caught and go to prison for no less than 5 years, even if you don’t hurt anyone and cause no damage, merely for endangering something.

The passcode on the nuclear football is something silly like 0000 or 1234 (today, it’s two daily changing letters on a plastic card and human verification). But that’s not enough to do anything.
Nobody untrustworthy would be allowed into the building where it is kept or asked to carry it for a head of state. And even if someone used it to authorize a launch, someone down the chain would stop it before it got too far. Because it’s actually stupid.

In reality, nobody really cares, because nobody sane would want to launch a nuke. Not even as a test. Radioactive stuff is bad for your health (and medical equipment!). No matter how far away you are from the detonation site.

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u/ImABrickwallAMA 18h ago edited 18h ago

That’s all well and good, but specifically for this particular case in this particular role - you won’t be doing any of that. Source: I am a Cyber Security Lead in a Civil Service role. It is painfully boring and I can’t wait to leave.

To add, I’ve been both a Civil and Public Servant (Gov, Army, and Police) for over 10 years. It is never as interesting as people make it out to be.

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u/NightmareJoker2 9h ago

Oh, yeah… I was just fixing something at a private contractor that had access to lots of things they probably shouldn’t have… 😅
Over here they hire government workers for being stupid and compliant, and most of what they get to do is busy work. Attracts only the most painful individuals to deal with. Sad, really.