My experience was similar. We tended to receive implementation directives that frequently contradicted the functional requirements, and when we requested clarif

My experience was similar. We tended to receive implementation directives that frequently contradicted the functional requirements, and when we requested clarification got no response. The government tended to make exceedingly expensive purchases based on politics (my guess is that there were kickbacks involved) that were entirely inappropriate for the project, yet we had to use them. And our advice rarely had any effect on decisions, as far as I could tell. So far, I've only worked for one organization that was genuinely more convoluted, irrational, and technologically backward than the government... and that was amazon.