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Someone needs to do a study on government waiting lists. I was a government employee for a year and so many things just sit and rot in a pile waiting to be addr

Someone needs to do a study on government waiting lists. I was a government employee for a year and so many things just sit and rot in a pile waiting to be addressed. I sent a letter asking for info on a family member to the government archivist, and I am likely to get an answer in 2023 or 2024. When I was in government, I worked in parking management. We just kept generating an ever bigger backlog of images to process. Granted, neither of those are particularly high priority, but my point is that lagging government is a problem all over the place. There are probably many waiting lists like this species one which are causing substantial harm because nothing can get prompt attention.

Melting_Harps 6y ago
> Someone needs to do a study on government waiting lists. I I'll spare you the time and money with my best guess of the conclusion of said study: In conclusion, Government tasks outweigh the potential output of Government employee expectations, therefore we the researchers recommend ever greater budget allotments and grants to further study why the adage 'more money' doesn't translate into more 'productive' outcomes in the Public Sector. The very essence of the State as a bureaucratic system ensures that things move as slow as possible, which often illicit the occasional Kill-dozer [0] event, even if you have someone motivated to 'change it from within' they inevitably get burned out due to the amount of red-tape and general sense of apathy. I highly recommend you watch the Wire and maybe even Treme (same producer) as it outlines anything I say way better than I could ever articulate in a 10,000 page essay on the matter. We really need to move past the nation-state model and limit its scope to as little as possible as that could at least allow for more viable solutions. I just heard you can print car tags at kiosks in grocery stores in CA, which is an example of simple and elegant solutions that were only made possible because the pandemic shut down so many government offices and thus allowed for these services to allotted to more sensible methods--they were not going to let such a massive amount of tax money slip through their hands so they moved fast before people simply disregarded it just as they did lock-down or stay at home orders, and sadly even mask wearing in certain cases. I waited nearly 5 months for my tags prior to this for my motorcycle in CA, only to see this outcome, which normally would have driven me up the wall but at least produced a reasonable over all solution. No one needs to be paid to hand out something you can automate, it makes no sense. Put those people to more sensible tasks like addressing liens or title transfers that are more nuanced and require actual Human intelligence (and I use the word loosely) or zoning approvals, or solar tie in approvals etc... to solve as there is a massive back log of those right now that can't move forward until some bureaucrat signs off on it. 0: https://allthatsinteresting.com/marvin-heemeyer-killdozer https://allthatsinteresting.com/marvin-heemeyer-killdozer
- selimthegrim 6y ago
  As a graduate student in New Orleans Treme doesn't even cover the half of it. Read up on the saga surrounding the new Entergy power plant and astroturfing for a taste.
  - Melting_Harps 6y ago
    > As a graduate student in New Orleans Treme doesn't even cover the half of it. I don't doubt it, it's such a shame given it's rich history and deep cultural roots in music and culinary arts--perhaps the only real unique one you could call American if there is such a thing. It's hard for to me to put into words how melancholic I felt about my former POV about Louisiana especially after Katrina. Solid show for entertainment purposes, but as you said hardly thorough enough to scratch the surface of its deep issues with corruption, racism, and violence.
- memonkey 6y ago
  FYI there are and were government programs that operate very efficiently. Massive de-funding causes inefficiency and lack of innovation. What The Wire does great is show how money and power is actually routed. It's capitalism hiding in plain sight. Why wouldn't it be the same way in a world with less government?
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    Do we live in the same reality? Massive situations that constrains available resources cause innovation, prioritization of key goals and efficiency. Abundance of resources results in the resources being wasted on various forms of fluff. This is not unique to government, you see it in just about every type of organization. I'm not saying "defund all the things" is the right answer (mostly because I don't think it's that simple or it would have worked where tried and we'd have done it everywhere) but there's a very clear correlation between available wealth to allocate to government and bloated government. Not having government be a gravy train also seems to help select for people who genuinely want to be civil servants because the people who are just in it for the paycheck don't stick around in challenging environments like that. It seems like all the innovation in government (e.g. novel program to keep the parks clean or whatever) comes out of places like Detroits and Buffalos of the world who actually have a pressing need to figure out how to stretch their resources whereas the NYCs and the SFs of the world just increase their intake.
amelius 6y ago
> Someone needs to do a study on government waiting lists. No, someone should write a better todo list app. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=todo%20list%20app https://hn.algolia.com/?query=todo%20list%20app

Melting_Harps 6y ago

> Someone needs to do a study on government waiting lists. I I'll spare you the time and money with my best guess of the conclusion of said study: In conclusion, Government tasks outweigh the potential output of Government employee expectations, therefore we the researchers recommend ever greater budget allotments and grants to further study why the adage 'more money' doesn't translate into more 'productive' outcomes in the Public Sector. The very essence of the State as a bureaucratic system ensures that things move as slow as possible, which often illicit the occasional Kill-dozer [0] event, even if you have someone motivated to 'change it from within' they inevitably get burned out due to the amount of red-tape and general sense of apathy. I highly recommend you watch the Wire and maybe even Treme (same producer) as it outlines anything I say way better than I could ever articulate in a 10,000 page essay on the matter. We really need to move past the nation-state model and limit its scope to as little as possible as that could at least allow for more viable solutions. I just heard you can print car tags at kiosks in grocery stores in CA, which is an example of simple and elegant solutions that were only made possible because the pandemic shut down so many government offices and thus allowed for these services to allotted to more sensible methods--they were not going to let such a massive amount of tax money slip through their hands so they moved fast before people simply disregarded it just as they did lock-down or stay at home orders, and sadly even mask wearing in certain cases. I waited nearly 5 months for my tags prior to this for my motorcycle in CA, only to see this outcome, which normally would have driven me up the wall but at least produced a reasonable over all solution. No one needs to be paid to hand out something you can automate, it makes no sense. Put those people to more sensible tasks like addressing liens or title transfers that are more nuanced and require actual Human intelligence (and I use the word loosely) or zoning approvals, or solar tie in approvals etc... to solve as there is a massive back log of those right now that can't move forward until some bureaucrat signs off on it. 0: https://allthatsinteresting.com/marvin-heemeyer-killdozer https://allthatsinteresting.com/marvin-heemeyer-killdozer

selimthegrim 6y ago
As a graduate student in New Orleans Treme doesn't even cover the half of it. Read up on the saga surrounding the new Entergy power plant and astroturfing for a taste.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > As a graduate student in New Orleans Treme doesn't even cover the half of it. I don't doubt it, it's such a shame given it's rich history and deep cultural roots in music and culinary arts--perhaps the only real unique one you could call American if there is such a thing. It's hard for to me to put into words how melancholic I felt about my former POV about Louisiana especially after Katrina. Solid show for entertainment purposes, but as you said hardly thorough enough to scratch the surface of its deep issues with corruption, racism, and violence.
memonkey 6y ago
FYI there are and were government programs that operate very efficiently. Massive de-funding causes inefficiency and lack of innovation. What The Wire does great is show how money and power is actually routed. It's capitalism hiding in plain sight. Why wouldn't it be the same way in a world with less government?
- throwaway0a5e 6y ago
  Do we live in the same reality? Massive situations that constrains available resources cause innovation, prioritization of key goals and efficiency. Abundance of resources results in the resources being wasted on various forms of fluff. This is not unique to government, you see it in just about every type of organization. I'm not saying "defund all the things" is the right answer (mostly because I don't think it's that simple or it would have worked where tried and we'd have done it everywhere) but there's a very clear correlation between available wealth to allocate to government and bloated government. Not having government be a gravy train also seems to help select for people who genuinely want to be civil servants because the people who are just in it for the paycheck don't stick around in challenging environments like that. It seems like all the innovation in government (e.g. novel program to keep the parks clean or whatever) comes out of places like Detroits and Buffalos of the world who actually have a pressing need to figure out how to stretch their resources whereas the NYCs and the SFs of the world just increase their intake.

amelius 6y ago

> Someone needs to do a study on government waiting lists. No, someone should write a better todo list app. https://hn.algolia.com/?query=todo%20list%20app https://hn.algolia.com/?query=todo%20list%20app