Devildoc
Verified Military
I have mixed opinions about it. I know a guy who left a local police department after some years and got a $20,000 year raise to go into corporate security. In any case, she was low-hanging fruit.
The Trump Presidency 2.0
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I have mixed opinions about it. I know a guy who left a local police department after some years and got a $20,000 year raise to go into corporate security. In any case, she was low-hanging fruit.
Have we? As I posted elsewhere a lot of folks are working without pay, including security guards. A lot of folks furloughed who aren't deemed "essential" have work to do. Just because someone was furloughed and the gov kept working doesn't mean they aren't necessary. My entire cybersecurity approval chain is sitting at home. I guess because they were furloughed and the system kept working we don't need those folks? Those are our policy makers. We're still generating work, but the people at home can't respond or do anything.
ETA: If your drain is clogged, but you don't immediately see the water backing up, you'll assume your drain is G2G. That's what we're doing, we're pouring water into a clogged drain, it just hasn't backed up into the sink.
This is where people need to look. Break up the good old boy clubs.
Devildoc
Verified Military
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I've been working for free this entire time and I've been told quite a few times - all the way back to COVID that I'm "not essential"
...which, coincidentally, back then I had to come in a couple times a week
...because I wasn't essential enough to have a "travel kit"
I'm just "happy to have a job in this economy"
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Not at all, but the argument I keep seeing here and elsewhere is the government is working, so do we need those furloughed people? Like my drain addition above, it isn't working like we think.
No, the gov needs an overhaul, but minus a few instances like USAID, I don't think we've done the best job eliminating waste. We went after numbers and declared victory based on a Vietnam-esque body count. We have crippled ourselves in some areas and won't see that payout for a few more years, but it will happen.
It isn't just about people, it is about processes. We haven't changed the processes but we're cutting people. hat's shortsighted and quite stupid if we're being honest. I could go into my department right now and chop 50-60% if folks upstream of us at DoN and DoW would make some policy changes. Some of our processes are just broken and everyone's worried about people, but we don't need as many people if we changed HOW we do business.
And that's where all of this is falling short: we aren't cutting the right people and we haven't changed how we do business. In some cases we've made it harder since Trump took office. It doesn't make sense.
Sure.
ThunderHorse
Verified Military
Oh they got stuff out of it, they used it as a way to leverage their candidates in an election and paint Republicans as the big bad wolf and Republicans didn't do enough "we just need 5 votes" to paint these assholes into a corner. It didn't go on long enough to hurt them.
You have to ask how many people not being paid while going to work are actually working on excepted tasks, and nothing else. If you're at work and not working those items then it's an ADA. The DoW put that list out and if the individual's haven't seen it then that's on the leadership.
And to AWP's point, if you get rid of a bunch of civilians, you will have to hire contractors. For the most part, the contractor is responsible for asses in seats, which aren't the best and brightest, so you lose on talent somewhere. It'll cost more too.
Just because the system didn't collapse due to the furlough does not make it a success. I'm so tired of the get rid of everyone mentality
Devildoc
Verified Military
If you inferred "get rid of everyone mentality" from me, you missed my points by about a billion miles
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Florida173
SOF Support
Interesting. My experience is that the civilians have mostly been the ones lacking any talent. Generally doing whatever minimum time required to get promoted out. The ones that are actually good head to the private sector. There was a great IG report across all agencies just on this problem with the attrition rates among STEM focused fields.
Whereas the contractors are usually the only actual continuity on any teams. If a contractor doesn't perform, he gets removed. Behind any poorly performing contractors is probably an even worse COR/COTR.
I've seen the spectrum of good and bad talent. Unfortunately good civilian talent doesn't always last before they get hit with the Peter Principle.
Regarding the shutdown. The excepted staffers working as branch chiefs have been doing an amazing job rotating people to get them working if possible where i work. Most of us contractors' companies are working at risk. The guidelines for what appropriate excepted work and not excepted work is pretty well spelled out for us, but our contracting officer is actually a good one.
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Devildoc
Verified Military
I will put this to bed once and for all (hopefully).
A couple months ago we were discussing how many FOGOs we had and the need to get rid of some. I don't recall anyone particularly concerned about whether they could pay their mortgage or where their next meal was coming from if they got RIF'd. When DOGE did its thing I saw a lot of applauding and not a lot of pearl-clutching because they were largely trying to get rid of government bloat, redundancy, and inefficiency.
I am sure, I am certain, I am 100% confident, that anyone who has spent more than about 45 seconds around the military has seen civilian employees or contractors who are both indispensable as well as worthless. I have seen the same; some punching far above their weight and are value-added, and obligate mouth-breathers whose sole job was to convert oxygen. My own very recent experience with the latter is with a former special operator-now contractor at SOCOM who was hired to design curriculum but has no education experience in curriculum design nor evaluation, who gave me the deer in the headlights look when I asked him about Bloom's taxonomy.
I am not nor have I ever advocated throwing the baby out with the bathwater, proposing a binary none-or-all philosophy.
I do think 5 or 6 weeks or whatever have highlighted who is working, and who is not, who is indispensable and who is not, and if 'they' use that to determine how to cull the heard to cut inefficiency, I am OK with that.
I also think this has shown us who the NIMBYists are: Not In My Back Yard, the folks who are good to go with RIFfing so long as it isn't in their agencies. You can't have it both ways.
A couple months ago we were discussing how many FOGOs we had and the need to get rid of some. I don't recall anyone particularly concerned about whether they could pay their mortgage or where their next meal was coming from if they got RIF'd. When DOGE did its thing I saw a lot of applauding and not a lot of pearl-clutching because they were largely trying to get rid of government bloat, redundancy, and inefficiency.
I am sure, I am certain, I am 100% confident, that anyone who has spent more than about 45 seconds around the military has seen civilian employees or contractors who are both indispensable as well as worthless. I have seen the same; some punching far above their weight and are value-added, and obligate mouth-breathers whose sole job was to convert oxygen. My own very recent experience with the latter is with a former special operator-now contractor at SOCOM who was hired to design curriculum but has no education experience in curriculum design nor evaluation, who gave me the deer in the headlights look when I asked him about Bloom's taxonomy.
I am not nor have I ever advocated throwing the baby out with the bathwater, proposing a binary none-or-all philosophy.
I do think 5 or 6 weeks or whatever have highlighted who is working, and who is not, who is indispensable and who is not, and if 'they' use that to determine how to cull the heard to cut inefficiency, I am OK with that.
I also think this has shown us who the NIMBYists are: Not In My Back Yard, the folks who are good to go with RIFfing so long as it isn't in their agencies. You can't have it both ways.
BWAHAHAHAHA!!!! Tell me another. And yes, I've seen it on the gov side. I've worked both and there are no angels in this discussion.
You are right about the COR though. 100% on that one and I saw that as a contractor and now as government.
I'm not sure that it has.
I see now you aren't in the extreme "if they are at home they can be fired crowd" but that crowd exists. DoW did a very poor job of identifying who should be fired earlier this year. Early retirement/ separation got us numbers "the head shed" wanted, but it didn't do anything meaningful except hemorrhage talent. If you look at USC...129, 125, something like that you see that cuts to DoW are supposed to be done after a study. That study was pencil-whipped this year. There's no way it was completed and approved in the few weeks' time while doing an accurate assessment of who to cut and where. Regardless...
I've said we need to cut people, I'm gov and agree with your NIMBY statement, and I've even said you can cut positions in my shop. I've also stated that we need to change processes and requirements because without those changes cutting personnel is frankly stupid. We can do more with less, but the systems in place do not allow that. If the administration wants to make a real and lasting change in the workforce, to better the country, to give us this "lethality" we keep hearing about, we need to start with how we're doing business. We need to revamp the how before we revamp the who.
We can make cuts, we should make cuts, but chopping people and saying we're good is very myopic. I think we're closer on this than we realize, we're maybe talking past one another?
ThunderHorse
Verified Military
The government needs to learn how to do more with less. Less contractors, less civilian employees. Everything.
Florida173
SOF Support
And maybe create a department of government efficiency?
ThunderHorse
Verified Military
WTF is the POTUS backtracking on H1Bs? Sorry, but we don't need bullshit Indians at InfoSys running all of our IT. H1Bs are not about who is the best and brightest...there are truck drivers on H1Bs, and those truck drivers kill people every day.
Absolutely not. I have been reliably informed that not only does adding to the glut of the government lead to efficiency, but if you make some sort of agency to cut the inefficiency, then you’re electing a shadow president and America is an oligarchy.
Been a fun year.
They were never going to touch H-1B visas. They save companies too much money for anyone to ever go after the program. If anything they will open it up to more visa holders.
Have y'all not figured out that this admin is no different than any other in history WRT telling us things for votes and never doing those things? Never having the intention to do "the thing?" In some cases (Kash Patel) doing the same shit as their predecessor?
ThunderHorse
Verified Military
Kamala Harris countered Trump's election strategy by <checks notes> playing 3-D chess!!
Kamala Brags That She Was Playing 3D Chess During Presidential Battle With Trump
Wow that woman is dumb. Maybe not dumb, but really can't hold an unscripted conversation.
Kamala Brags That She Was Playing 3D Chess During Presidential Battle With Trump
Wow that woman is dumb. Maybe not dumb, but really can't hold an unscripted conversation.
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