5 ms·

How does one go about getting contracts like these with the government to do trivial tasks for exorbitant amounts of money?

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jonknee 8y ago
What trivial task? Maintaining a very large legacy system for something as important as a police force sounds like a very difficult task. All this for the price of one cop sounds like a bargain.
- bena 8y ago
  I wouldn't say the task is "very difficult" either. The task is probably no more or less difficult than maintaining the inventory system for a store. The cost and job security comes from the fact that you have to do it in Lotus Notes.
  - jonknee 8y ago
    If you screw up and a store is out of X it doesn't matter to anyone but the owners of the store. If you screw up the police databases someone can die, evidence can be lost, all sorts of awful results. It's a much, much, bigger deal.
    - bena 8y ago
      First of all, if you screw up and say something is in stock when it's out and that thing is critical to someone's life, someone could die. Even with mismanagement of an inventory system. So let's not descend into "but lives are at stake" hyperbole. The vast majority of the database are fines and tickets. And it's likely a lot of this stuff is duplicated elsewhere. If the police have a warrant for someone's arrest, that warrant is also on file at the courthouse where it was issued. If they booked a suspect and he went to county jail, the county jail has that information. If the entire evidence log is wiped out, all of the necessary information is written on the bags. There is a ton of redundancy both intentional and accidental built into law enforcement. No one is dying because you need to restore the database from a back up because Larry deleted the database again. And even still. Even if the consequences are that much dire, the work is the same. There is nothing special about the data that makes it any more or less difficult to store.
  - pavel_lishin 8y ago
    > I wouldn't say the task is "very difficult" either. I wouldn't say anything, given that we know very, very little about the system in question.
    - bena 8y ago
      I mean, any difficulties would be accidental difficulties, not essential ones. I mean, according to the article, the system already has consistency and integrity issues. (And no one is dying because of them either.) The point is that the job is essentially data management.
      - steego 8y ago
        > The point is that the job is essentially data management. You might be right, but you could so easily be wrong. You really have no idea what the job entails. The software might be great, it might be a nightmare to maintain/operate. What I do know is $88K/year for any consultant typically doesn't get you much.
        bena 8y ago
        It being a nightmare to maintain/operate would be an accidental difficulty, not a necessary one. The guy I responded to implied that the fact that it is for the police department made it more difficult. My position is that that has no bearing on the difficulty of the task.
        steego 8y ago
        > It being a nightmare to maintain/operate would be an accidental difficulty, not a necessary one. Who's saying it would be a necessary one? If you inherit an awful system that's time consuming to maintain and operate, you have a few options. You can simply maintain it and bill for that, or you can improve the system. Sometimes it's easy to improve the system, sometimes it's not. It all depends on the circumstances. I'm sorry. What point were you trying to make? > The guy I responded to implied that the fact that it is for the police department made it more difficult. Do you think that's an unreasonable assumption? Forget whether the systems are actually mission critical or not. The only thing that actually matters when it comes to billing a customer are the terms of the service agreement. I've worked on government contracts where my company was significantly fined if the system did not operate at some minimal operational threshold. The system was definitely not mission critical, but we built it like it was and billed them for it. (We also got a bonus for getting the job done early) I don't care if he's only working on the parking ticket system. If it's clear from the service agreement that it's going to require a significant portion of his time/energy to service it, the last thing you want to do as a consultant is to underestimate the effort. I have no idea if this guy is taking advantage of the Baltimore PD or not. Neither do you. What I do know is $176K for two years is not a lot for an organization the size of the Baltimore PD. > My position is that that has no bearing on the difficulty of the task. I agree. The terms of the service agreement combined with complexity/maintainability of the system determine how much effort is involved. Again, life/death doesn't dictate the price. The service agreement and expected level of effort do. However, knowing a project is for an organization like the Baltimore PD, it's not crazy to assume they might be more demanding than other customers. State and local governments can be a real pain the ass sometimes. My position is you're pretending like you know this guy's business. You don't.
bigtunacan 8y ago
Just manage to be the last company standing that stills supports the most obsolete technology possible. To be clear; I'm not joking in that regards either. I used to do Foxpro work more than a decade ago and apparently it was still on my LinkedIn profile. About a year ago I got a call from a company that was super desperate; I turned them down because it had been a decade and I didn't feel like I was qualified to help them anymore, but they were desperate. Someone made bank off of that.
HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago
"While all you high-tech guys are starting complicated businesses that don't make money, City Hall has a contract for $100,000 per year to vacuum the floors once a week and no-one's bidding on it."

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

jonknee 8y ago

What trivial task? Maintaining a very large legacy system for something as important as a police force sounds like a very difficult task. All this for the price of one cop sounds like a bargain.

bena 8y ago
I wouldn't say the task is "very difficult" either. The task is probably no more or less difficult than maintaining the inventory system for a store. The cost and job security comes from the fact that you have to do it in Lotus Notes.
- jonknee 8y ago
  If you screw up and a store is out of X it doesn't matter to anyone but the owners of the store. If you screw up the police databases someone can die, evidence can be lost, all sorts of awful results. It's a much, much, bigger deal.
  - bena 8y ago
    First of all, if you screw up and say something is in stock when it's out and that thing is critical to someone's life, someone could die. Even with mismanagement of an inventory system. So let's not descend into "but lives are at stake" hyperbole. The vast majority of the database are fines and tickets. And it's likely a lot of this stuff is duplicated elsewhere. If the police have a warrant for someone's arrest, that warrant is also on file at the courthouse where it was issued. If they booked a suspect and he went to county jail, the county jail has that information. If the entire evidence log is wiped out, all of the necessary information is written on the bags. There is a ton of redundancy both intentional and accidental built into law enforcement. No one is dying because you need to restore the database from a back up because Larry deleted the database again. And even still. Even if the consequences are that much dire, the work is the same. There is nothing special about the data that makes it any more or less difficult to store.
- pavel_lishin 8y ago
  > I wouldn't say the task is "very difficult" either. I wouldn't say anything, given that we know very, very little about the system in question.
  - bena 8y ago
    I mean, any difficulties would be accidental difficulties, not essential ones. I mean, according to the article, the system already has consistency and integrity issues. (And no one is dying because of them either.) The point is that the job is essentially data management.
    - steego 8y ago
      > The point is that the job is essentially data management. You might be right, but you could so easily be wrong. You really have no idea what the job entails. The software might be great, it might be a nightmare to maintain/operate. What I do know is $88K/year for any consultant typically doesn't get you much.
      - bena 8y ago
        It being a nightmare to maintain/operate would be an accidental difficulty, not a necessary one. The guy I responded to implied that the fact that it is for the police department made it more difficult. My position is that that has no bearing on the difficulty of the task.
        steego 8y ago
        > It being a nightmare to maintain/operate would be an accidental difficulty, not a necessary one. Who's saying it would be a necessary one? If you inherit an awful system that's time consuming to maintain and operate, you have a few options. You can simply maintain it and bill for that, or you can improve the system. Sometimes it's easy to improve the system, sometimes it's not. It all depends on the circumstances. I'm sorry. What point were you trying to make? > The guy I responded to implied that the fact that it is for the police department made it more difficult. Do you think that's an unreasonable assumption? Forget whether the systems are actually mission critical or not. The only thing that actually matters when it comes to billing a customer are the terms of the service agreement. I've worked on government contracts where my company was significantly fined if the system did not operate at some minimal operational threshold. The system was definitely not mission critical, but we built it like it was and billed them for it. (We also got a bonus for getting the job done early) I don't care if he's only working on the parking ticket system. If it's clear from the service agreement that it's going to require a significant portion of his time/energy to service it, the last thing you want to do as a consultant is to underestimate the effort. I have no idea if this guy is taking advantage of the Baltimore PD or not. Neither do you. What I do know is $176K for two years is not a lot for an organization the size of the Baltimore PD. > My position is that that has no bearing on the difficulty of the task. I agree. The terms of the service agreement combined with complexity/maintainability of the system determine how much effort is involved. Again, life/death doesn't dictate the price. The service agreement and expected level of effort do. However, knowing a project is for an organization like the Baltimore PD, it's not crazy to assume they might be more demanding than other customers. State and local governments can be a real pain the ass sometimes. My position is you're pretending like you know this guy's business. You don't.

bigtunacan 8y ago

Just manage to be the last company standing that stills supports the most obsolete technology possible. To be clear; I'm not joking in that regards either. I used to do Foxpro work more than a decade ago and apparently it was still on my LinkedIn profile. About a year ago I got a call from a company that was super desperate; I turned them down because it had been a decade and I didn't feel like I was qualified to help them anymore, but they were desperate. Someone made bank off of that.

HeyLaughingBoy 8y ago

"While all you high-tech guys are starting complicated businesses that don't make money, City Hall has a contract for $100,000 per year to vacuum the floors once a week and no-one's bidding on it."