4 ms·

One of my jobs is public sector. Our project has maybe half the roles filled. A project that was supposed to take 6 months didn't even have a line of code writt

One of my jobs is public sector. Our project has maybe half the roles filled. A project that was supposed to take 6 months didn't even have a line of code written in those first months for want of some technical roles to be filled. And those more senior roles are still to be filled. But we are charging ahead anyway to give the idea of progress. People complain about terrible bosses and think that it is a symptom of "out of touch elites." But the general public is the worst boss I have ever had.

ghiculescu 4y ago
Why is the general public a bad boss?
- Proven 4y ago
- throwawaysleep 4y ago
  Combine the financial stingyness of pretty much every manager anywhere with the self righteousness of people who truly treat you like you are their Victorian era servant as in their minds they own you for paying you. Customer service people get treated like this all the time, public or private sector.
eastbound 4y ago
It sounds just like the private sector: Lack of staff everywhere. Perhaps talking too much about comfort of life led too many people to walk away; Meanwhile, well, we obviously generate enough wealth since they are walking away satisfied with their new standard of living. The danger is, as a society, perhaps the feedback look has inertia: WAY too many people have resigned from the “hustle life” and we are not yet feeling the effect of what happens when so few people work. Maybe, after 10 years, the Western countries will drop off the G8, and be replaced by cultures who are more willing to work.
- netsharc 4y ago
  The pandemic had the effect of the wake-up call of "Why hustle all of your life, enjoy it more, for it may end sooner than you expect.", although I don't know how great that effect is. Maybe in the West/all over the world the workers have also noticed that the wealth is getting funneled more towards the top (Bezos can now send Captain Kirk up to the sky in a penis and buy a yacht that made headlines because a bridge in the Netherlands had to be allegedly disassembled so it would fit through...). Even in China the youth are (or they were, was it just a fad?) doing the "lie flat" movement that the government has made statements of "Everyone has to work hard for the greater good!".
- XorNot 4y ago
  You're hiring at a pittance rate and then when no one wants to work for your company throwing red flags in the interview stage, and rather then asking "should we offer more money" you turn around and go "guess no one wants to work!" No. No one wants to work for you at the rate you're offering.
  - ghaff 4y ago
    Except the public sector, especially at the local level, only has a pot of money as big as the voters approve. You can pay more for fewer people (and it's often hard to layoff people) or pay less for more. So you can decide to pay more but that means hiring fewer people and doing fewer things (like filling in potholes) or staffing a DMV location. Private companies have constraints too of course but generally have more flexibility in dealing with them--which can of course be to decide that some job isn't worth it if they have to pay $X to fill it. We do this all the time at a personal level. While there are some service people who I would pretty much have to grin and bear it. There are plenty of other things I'd just let go, do it myself, etc.
    - rdtwo 4y ago
      The right thing is to just do less at the right staffing levels. Trying to do the same amount causes everything to grind to a halt. Most managers end up doing the latter because slowing things down against organizational inertia is really hard
Forge36 4y ago
How is the general public your boss? Why is the project delaying starting until some roles are filled? (What was done during this time?)
- throwawaysleep 4y ago
  They aren’t my boss. They just act like it in the outside world. We couldn’t hire any senior level technical talent, so there was nobody who could actually tell management whether what they wanted was possible. What was done during the time? Endlessly updating project timeline docs about the new deadline with assumptions about when senior tech people would be hired. I didn’t touch code for months.
  - ghiculescu 4y ago
    If the trash didn’t get collected for 6 months because there were no senior garbagemen, I think the general public would be upset about that too.
  - antisthenes 4y ago
    > We couldn’t hire any senior level technical talent, so there was nobody who could actually tell management whether what they wanted was possible. Whose job is it to tell the hiring team that hiring senior level technical talent at the budgeted salary is impossible also? Do you need to be a senior HR manager for that? Are those also impossible to hire?
christophilus 4y ago
Same. I spent a month working in the public sector (two weeks, followed by my two week’s notice). I just couldn’t stand sitting around doing nothing. Most of the folks there kind of seemed to enjoy not getting stuff done. It just isn’t for me. Also, it soured my already pretty sour view of public projects in the US.
- throwawaysleep 4y ago
  It’s not about enjoying doing nothing. It is that going out of your way in the public sector is not rewarded and just gets you dragged into meetings, so if your manager isn’t telling you what to do, why not just sit on your ass? The public sector’s motivation problem is relying on intrinsic motivations. Why do they rely on intrinsic motivations? As the public screams when they hear of people getting large raises or bonuses.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - rdtwo 4y ago
    The system actively punishes those that do work so yeah… 10x incentive problems
  - jackcosgrove 4y ago
    > Why do they rely on intrinsic motivations? The biggest problem is merit pay is politically impossible. Imagine paying a hotshot developer $300k to introduce a new LMS for a school district. That very well might be cheaper than hiring a consulting firm and paying a team of developers $85k. But there would be howls about taxpayer money being wasted on such a highly paid individual. The public only tolerates raises based on seniority because absent some tragedy everyone gets old, so everyone can imagine themselves in the public workers' shoes. This in turn attracts workers who bank on seniority rather than merit for pay increases, creating a culture of mediocrity and tall poppy attitudes. The private sector is shielded from such criticism by the magical "just don't patronize them" argument (when in fact many businesses are monopolistic and essential), and frankly because the public is ignorant of how well-paid certain individuals are within firms. Not arguing against high merit pay, as it can lead to the most efficient outcome, but boy oh boy is it unpopular with a lot of people who never fall into the highly paid bucket.
unity1001 4y ago
> But the general public is the worst boss I have ever had. General public reflects the existing social order. In a society that chews people raw and spits them out for profit, the general public won't be responsible or caring. They will start caring about the society and related morals and responsibilities as much as the society cares for them.
wildrhythms 4y ago
How much does it pay compared to the private sector?
- throwawaysleep 4y ago
  J2 (public sector) pays about 30% less than J1 (private sector), not including equity (which is kind of worthless now anyway).
antisthenes 4y ago
> A project that was supposed to take 6 months didn't even have a line of code written in those first months for want of some technical roles to be filled. If that's the pace of the project, then the project was never important in the first place. I've read plenty of job descriptions' sections for qualifications, and they're out of touch with reality. Many orgs want unicorn employees (e.g. 5 years in machine learning, 3 programming languages, also PM experience and SQL, and must have comp-sci degree of course) and are barely willing to pay market rates for it. It's unclear to me if they're actually serious about work needing to be done. They're certainly unwilling to train non-perfect-fit employees and/or let someone competent post a job ad that's realistic.

ghiculescu 4y ago

Why is the general public a bad boss?

Proven 4y ago
throwawaysleep 4y ago
Combine the financial stingyness of pretty much every manager anywhere with the self righteousness of people who truly treat you like you are their Victorian era servant as in their minds they own you for paying you. Customer service people get treated like this all the time, public or private sector.

eastbound 4y ago

It sounds just like the private sector: Lack of staff everywhere. Perhaps talking too much about comfort of life led too many people to walk away; Meanwhile, well, we obviously generate enough wealth since they are walking away satisfied with their new standard of living. The danger is, as a society, perhaps the feedback look has inertia: WAY too many people have resigned from the “hustle life” and we are not yet feeling the effect of what happens when so few people work. Maybe, after 10 years, the Western countries will drop off the G8, and be replaced by cultures who are more willing to work.

netsharc 4y ago
The pandemic had the effect of the wake-up call of "Why hustle all of your life, enjoy it more, for it may end sooner than you expect.", although I don't know how great that effect is. Maybe in the West/all over the world the workers have also noticed that the wealth is getting funneled more towards the top (Bezos can now send Captain Kirk up to the sky in a penis and buy a yacht that made headlines because a bridge in the Netherlands had to be allegedly disassembled so it would fit through...). Even in China the youth are (or they were, was it just a fad?) doing the "lie flat" movement that the government has made statements of "Everyone has to work hard for the greater good!".
XorNot 4y ago
You're hiring at a pittance rate and then when no one wants to work for your company throwing red flags in the interview stage, and rather then asking "should we offer more money" you turn around and go "guess no one wants to work!" No. No one wants to work for you at the rate you're offering.
- ghaff 4y ago
  Except the public sector, especially at the local level, only has a pot of money as big as the voters approve. You can pay more for fewer people (and it's often hard to layoff people) or pay less for more. So you can decide to pay more but that means hiring fewer people and doing fewer things (like filling in potholes) or staffing a DMV location. Private companies have constraints too of course but generally have more flexibility in dealing with them--which can of course be to decide that some job isn't worth it if they have to pay $X to fill it. We do this all the time at a personal level. While there are some service people who I would pretty much have to grin and bear it. There are plenty of other things I'd just let go, do it myself, etc.
  - rdtwo 4y ago
    The right thing is to just do less at the right staffing levels. Trying to do the same amount causes everything to grind to a halt. Most managers end up doing the latter because slowing things down against organizational inertia is really hard

Forge36 4y ago

How is the general public your boss? Why is the project delaying starting until some roles are filled? (What was done during this time?)

throwawaysleep 4y ago
They aren’t my boss. They just act like it in the outside world. We couldn’t hire any senior level technical talent, so there was nobody who could actually tell management whether what they wanted was possible. What was done during the time? Endlessly updating project timeline docs about the new deadline with assumptions about when senior tech people would be hired. I didn’t touch code for months.
- ghiculescu 4y ago
  If the trash didn’t get collected for 6 months because there were no senior garbagemen, I think the general public would be upset about that too.
- antisthenes 4y ago
  > We couldn’t hire any senior level technical talent, so there was nobody who could actually tell management whether what they wanted was possible. Whose job is it to tell the hiring team that hiring senior level technical talent at the budgeted salary is impossible also? Do you need to be a senior HR manager for that? Are those also impossible to hire?

christophilus 4y ago

Same. I spent a month working in the public sector (two weeks, followed by my two week’s notice). I just couldn’t stand sitting around doing nothing. Most of the folks there kind of seemed to enjoy not getting stuff done. It just isn’t for me. Also, it soured my already pretty sour view of public projects in the US.

throwawaysleep 4y ago
It’s not about enjoying doing nothing. It is that going out of your way in the public sector is not rewarded and just gets you dragged into meetings, so if your manager isn’t telling you what to do, why not just sit on your ass? The public sector’s motivation problem is relying on intrinsic motivations. Why do they rely on intrinsic motivations? As the public screams when they hear of people getting large raises or bonuses.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- rdtwo 4y ago
  The system actively punishes those that do work so yeah… 10x incentive problems
- jackcosgrove 4y ago
  > Why do they rely on intrinsic motivations? The biggest problem is merit pay is politically impossible. Imagine paying a hotshot developer $300k to introduce a new LMS for a school district. That very well might be cheaper than hiring a consulting firm and paying a team of developers $85k. But there would be howls about taxpayer money being wasted on such a highly paid individual. The public only tolerates raises based on seniority because absent some tragedy everyone gets old, so everyone can imagine themselves in the public workers' shoes. This in turn attracts workers who bank on seniority rather than merit for pay increases, creating a culture of mediocrity and tall poppy attitudes. The private sector is shielded from such criticism by the magical "just don't patronize them" argument (when in fact many businesses are monopolistic and essential), and frankly because the public is ignorant of how well-paid certain individuals are within firms. Not arguing against high merit pay, as it can lead to the most efficient outcome, but boy oh boy is it unpopular with a lot of people who never fall into the highly paid bucket.

unity1001 4y ago

> But the general public is the worst boss I have ever had. General public reflects the existing social order. In a society that chews people raw and spits them out for profit, the general public won't be responsible or caring. They will start caring about the society and related morals and responsibilities as much as the society cares for them.

wildrhythms 4y ago

How much does it pay compared to the private sector?

throwawaysleep 4y ago
J2 (public sector) pays about 30% less than J1 (private sector), not including equity (which is kind of worthless now anyway).

antisthenes 4y ago

> A project that was supposed to take 6 months didn't even have a line of code written in those first months for want of some technical roles to be filled. If that's the pace of the project, then the project was never important in the first place. I've read plenty of job descriptions' sections for qualifications, and they're out of touch with reality. Many orgs want unicorn employees (e.g. 5 years in machine learning, 3 programming languages, also PM experience and SQL, and must have comp-sci degree of course) and are barely willing to pay market rates for it. It's unclear to me if they're actually serious about work needing to be done. They're certainly unwilling to train non-perfect-fit employees and/or let someone competent post a job ad that's realistic.