4 ms·

Having bought a house in New Orleans 5 weeks before Katrina and watched the sycophants of the levee board move back in like nothing ever happened, this haunts m

Having bought a house in New Orleans 5 weeks before Katrina and watched the sycophants of the levee board move back in like nothing ever happened, this haunts my life. The replacement, Southeast Louisiana Flood Protection Authority, at least on the face of it, doesn't suck as bad: of 9 members, 5 must be engineers, 1 must be a civil engineer, and 1 must be a geologist. I'll take a technocrat over a bureaucrat any day. I say that as someone in US Federal government. I see a lot of both. A bureaucrat can literally be some secretary who was around to apply for a job that "had to be filled", and there are only so many people in these cities to fill the jobs. Oh yes. Let that sink in. By comparison, technocrats are generally experts in their field, often sought after by the agency because they're forced to by a mandate, and to person, for whatever insane reason, was willing to take a massive pay cut to render some public service.

selimthegrim 10y ago
If it makes you feel any better, I just watched half of the Ninth Ward yell themselves hoarse at the Army Corps of Engineers at a community meeting over the planned expansion of the Industrial Canal (for MR-GO traffic (rolls eyes))
- killjoywashere 10y ago
  > If it makes you feel any better Not sure. Wouldn't a bump in canal traffic be good for the city?
  - selimthegrim 10y ago
    What is the Ninth Ward going to see out of it? Didn't they say that with MR-GO, which turned out to be a complete boondoggle (and worse during Katrina)?
dragonwriter 10y ago
Just as a bureaucrat can be be some secretary who was around to apply for a job that "had to be filled", what you call a "technocrat" (actually, a bureaucrat in a position with a mandatory certification) can be someone who has that mandatory certification and is too incompetent to get any job that pays better than the vastly below-market public-sector payscale.
- killjoywashere 10y ago
  > mandatory certification and is too incompetent I suppose, government IT might be a good example of that...
  - dragonwriter 10y ago
    No, government IT mostly doesn't have "required certifications"; it actually has far less credentialism, IME, than private industry. Competence is something of a mixed bag; I'd say the biggest problems aren't with technical competence of line staff but with government IT management and organization and policies imposed from outside of IT in government that constrain IT practices.
    - gozur88 10y ago
      Depending on the agency, government IT may have to deal with security issues you don't find in the private sector.
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
- matwood 10y ago
  When you look at total comp (vacation, hours worked, benefits, job security), the federal government is competitive except against top tier tech companies.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    100% true if you are a career employee. My sister and I are at similar career paths. She works as a principal engineer at a big software company. I work for a state .gov. She makes more, but my costs are well defined... no $10k health deductible, etc. The present value of my pension is the equivalent to her performance stock grants, except they are near zero risk.
- knz 10y ago
  > can be someone who has that mandatory certification and is too incompetent to get any job that pays better than the vastly below-market public-sector payscale. Incompetence is hardly limited to the public sector. I don't know anyone who works at a business who hasn't seen gross incompetence or waste/fraud (the local F500 companies near me have a horrible reputation for their IT departments and friends who have worked for them have many stories about "working lunches" that are expensed visits to a strip club etc). I've also seen plenty of consultants come into government agencies that have no clue what they are doing and are charging 3x the hourly rate of a FTE but the agency is forced to use them because of some arbitrary cap on headcount due to political reasons.

selimthegrim 10y ago

If it makes you feel any better, I just watched half of the Ninth Ward yell themselves hoarse at the Army Corps of Engineers at a community meeting over the planned expansion of the Industrial Canal (for MR-GO traffic (rolls eyes))

killjoywashere 10y ago
> If it makes you feel any better Not sure. Wouldn't a bump in canal traffic be good for the city?
- selimthegrim 10y ago
  What is the Ninth Ward going to see out of it? Didn't they say that with MR-GO, which turned out to be a complete boondoggle (and worse during Katrina)?

dragonwriter 10y ago

Just as a bureaucrat can be be some secretary who was around to apply for a job that "had to be filled", what you call a "technocrat" (actually, a bureaucrat in a position with a mandatory certification) can be someone who has that mandatory certification and is too incompetent to get any job that pays better than the vastly below-market public-sector payscale.

killjoywashere 10y ago
> mandatory certification and is too incompetent I suppose, government IT might be a good example of that...
- dragonwriter 10y ago
  No, government IT mostly doesn't have "required certifications"; it actually has far less credentialism, IME, than private industry. Competence is something of a mixed bag; I'd say the biggest problems aren't with technical competence of line staff but with government IT management and organization and policies imposed from outside of IT in government that constrain IT practices.
  - gozur88 10y ago
    Depending on the agency, government IT may have to deal with security issues you don't find in the private sector.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
matwood 10y ago
When you look at total comp (vacation, hours worked, benefits, job security), the federal government is competitive except against top tier tech companies.
- Spooky23 10y ago
  100% true if you are a career employee. My sister and I are at similar career paths. She works as a principal engineer at a big software company. I work for a state .gov. She makes more, but my costs are well defined... no $10k health deductible, etc. The present value of my pension is the equivalent to her performance stock grants, except they are near zero risk.
knz 10y ago
> can be someone who has that mandatory certification and is too incompetent to get any job that pays better than the vastly below-market public-sector payscale. Incompetence is hardly limited to the public sector. I don't know anyone who works at a business who hasn't seen gross incompetence or waste/fraud (the local F500 companies near me have a horrible reputation for their IT departments and friends who have worked for them have many stories about "working lunches" that are expensed visits to a strip club etc). I've also seen plenty of consultants come into government agencies that have no clue what they are doing and are charging 3x the hourly rate of a FTE but the agency is forced to use them because of some arbitrary cap on headcount due to political reasons.