6 ms·

>I'm well aware of the common cognitive dissonance whereby a system which you are not familiar with seems like it should be trivial. I build these sorts of thi

by treis 6y ago

>I'm well aware of the common cognitive dissonance whereby a system which you are not familiar with seems like it should be trivial. I build these sorts of things and while it's not trivial it's also really not that hard. It's just insane the amount of money the government will spend on crap. The field I work in is pretty small and I know a decent amount of the developers that use it. One project I worked on for the government, I showed up on day one and ran into a few people that had either no desire or no ability to do development work. And they were in team lead/senior roles. Then, come to find out that you can't do anything for the project until you have a background check. And, by anything, I mean anything. No meetings, e-mails, or anything with an armed guard enforcing it. So there was an office full of people billing out at $200+ an hour for months doing literally nothing. Then, come to find out that the way they wanted the software couldn't do. Like within an hour of hearing the requirements and what they were building I knew that it (1) wasn't possible and (2) the design they chose had fundamental flaws. Several years of effort and 10s of millions of dollars later they gave up on it. The government is just a big whale too dumb, corrupt, and/or lazy to defend itself while a gigantic swarm of consultants/vendors are ripping off hunks of its flesh like the sharks they are.

staplers 6y ago
This means that ultimately, all tax-paying citizens are that whale. Even the very consultants/vendors doing it.
- dmm10 6y ago
  Oroboros
sdoering 6y ago
The saddest thing I witnessed were consultants like you describe bragging about how easy it is "to milk the cow" (to quote one). They bragged that they never earned their bonus in such an easy way.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
oivey 6y ago
I think the public focus on cost has paradoxically led to this situation. If you’re a good engineer, why work for the government? The compensation is extremely poor compared to industry, especially in tech. The lazy/incompetent people at the top have remained there because they’re too lazy/incompetent to leave for much greener pastures. If you fired them, their replacements will be at least as bad (on average, there are some passionate and competent people), since now the pay is poor and evidently there isn’t even job security. We’ve built a system where we refuse to pay public servants. We shouldn’t be surprised when a system designed to attract below average people leads to projects with below average results.
- DethNinja 6y ago
  Is it really true that government jobs pay less than their private counterparts? In Canada government jobs are actually provide far more compensation than private ones but I guess it might be different for USA.
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    In the US, actual public employees (not contractors!) are generally required to be paid according to the GS payscales: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/20Tables/html/GS.aspx https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... A GS-9, which is roughly a freshly-minted graduate with a Master's degree, starts at $45k/year, growing to about $60k/year (although this is also adjusted by locality). This is well below prevailing tech sector rates.
    - DethNinja 6y ago
      Thanks for the data, yep that’s pretty bad.
- treis 6y ago
  It's not the amount of pay. It's that results (good or bad) don't really impact your salary. Nobody missed a bonus for the project failing and nobody would have gotten one for it succeeding. The consultants have even worse incentives. The better they do the less they get paid. Meaning, it's better for them if the project drags on than delivering something on time.
voodootrucker 6y ago
I also worked on a state unemployment system, and it was much the same. Took a couple weeks to get my laptop, but I still had to come in and sit in a chair and read the physical newspaper. When it did arrive, it took the better part of an hour to run the build. That was the last government work I ever did. I lasted about 3 months.
jvanderbot 6y ago
Step 1: Fire all engineers on government money, to decrease "overhead" and let "industry" do it Step 2: Parent post Step 3: Government is inefficient, inept, if not outright corrupt, we must gut it further! Goto Step 1. The other day I was getting data from the USGS, and it was remarkable how well structured, sorted, searchable the data was, how it came in high quality, with a custom-built downloader applet that worked very nicely actoss multiple machines. I went from zero to complete solution in QGIS in one day. It's not all that bad.
shwoopdiwoop 6y ago
“There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government.” -Milton Friedman

by treis 6y ago

staplers 6y ago

This means that ultimately, all tax-paying citizens are that whale. Even the very consultants/vendors doing it.

dmm10 6y ago
Oroboros

sdoering 6y ago

The saddest thing I witnessed were consultants like you describe bragging about how easy it is "to milk the cow" (to quote one). They bragged that they never earned their bonus in such an easy way.

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]

oivey 6y ago

I think the public focus on cost has paradoxically led to this situation. If you’re a good engineer, why work for the government? The compensation is extremely poor compared to industry, especially in tech. The lazy/incompetent people at the top have remained there because they’re too lazy/incompetent to leave for much greener pastures. If you fired them, their replacements will be at least as bad (on average, there are some passionate and competent people), since now the pay is poor and evidently there isn’t even job security. We’ve built a system where we refuse to pay public servants. We shouldn’t be surprised when a system designed to attract below average people leads to projects with below average results.

DethNinja 6y ago
Is it really true that government jobs pay less than their private counterparts? In Canada government jobs are actually provide far more compensation than private ones but I guess it might be different for USA.
- jcranmer 6y ago
  In the US, actual public employees (not contractors!) are generally required to be paid according to the GS payscales: https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/20Tables/html/GS.aspx https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries... A GS-9, which is roughly a freshly-minted graduate with a Master's degree, starts at $45k/year, growing to about $60k/year (although this is also adjusted by locality). This is well below prevailing tech sector rates.
  - DethNinja 6y ago
    Thanks for the data, yep that’s pretty bad.
treis 6y ago
It's not the amount of pay. It's that results (good or bad) don't really impact your salary. Nobody missed a bonus for the project failing and nobody would have gotten one for it succeeding. The consultants have even worse incentives. The better they do the less they get paid. Meaning, it's better for them if the project drags on than delivering something on time.

voodootrucker 6y ago

I also worked on a state unemployment system, and it was much the same. Took a couple weeks to get my laptop, but I still had to come in and sit in a chair and read the physical newspaper. When it did arrive, it took the better part of an hour to run the build. That was the last government work I ever did. I lasted about 3 months.

jvanderbot 6y ago

Step 1: Fire all engineers on government money, to decrease "overhead" and let "industry" do it Step 2: Parent post Step 3: Government is inefficient, inept, if not outright corrupt, we must gut it further! Goto Step 1. The other day I was getting data from the USGS, and it was remarkable how well structured, sorted, searchable the data was, how it came in high quality, with a custom-built downloader applet that worked very nicely actoss multiple machines. I went from zero to complete solution in QGIS in one day. It's not all that bad.

shwoopdiwoop 6y ago

“There are four ways in which you can spend money. You can spend your own money on yourself. When you do that, then you really watch out what you’re doing, and you try to get the most for your money. Then you can spend your own money on somebody else. For example, I buy a birthday present for someone. Well, then I’m not so careful about the content of the present, but I’m very careful about the cost. Then, I can spend somebody else’s money on myself. And if I spend somebody else’s money on myself, then I’m sure going to have a good lunch! Finally, I can spend somebody else’s money on somebody else. And if I spend somebody else’s money on somebody else, I’m not concerned about how much it is, and I’m not concerned about what I get. And that’s government.” -Milton Friedman