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I'll two-up you: I've worked at two very large tech companies in the past. At both shops I have experiences that make that $50k in lost productivity look like

I'll two-up you: I've worked at two very large tech companies in the past. At both shops I have experiences that make that $50k in lost productivity look like a joke. First company invested tens if not hundreds of millions chasing the idea of scaled clustered deployment using Spark. I'm sure they saw some kind of technology return but the actual investment was never returned nearly a decade on and turned out to be a blunder. Second company had a far worse procurement issue than what you describe in your post. $50k in lost productivity would've been welcomed. They had a hardware failure in one of their datacentres affecting the cooling systems. Some customer systems impacted but mostly internal stuff. It took about seven weeks to replace during which time hundreds of employees basically got to twiddle their thumbs. Yeah, it shouldn't take four weeks to get approval for a $40 part but let's not pretend these kind of problems don't also happen in the private sector too. It's one of the reasons I left and won't go back -- I shouldn't need paperwork signed in triplicate to get a new monitor.

rdm_blackhole 3y ago
I agree with your point that things may not be more efficient in certain big companies of the private sector but there is a crucial difference between the two. The difference is that the government's employees are paid from taxes collected from productive companies, aka companies that create jobs and achieve a profit big enough to warrant paying taxes in the first place. A private sector company, unless it is subsidized in some way or has a monopoly on a certain market will eventually try to rectify these inefficiencies because its makes it more resilient in the fight against it's competitors. On the other hand, there is no incentive on the government side to make things more efficient. If a government looses money, they can just borrow more, increase the national debt and sweep any kind of reform under the rug. Because of this lack of incentives, some state and government agencies act as de facto subsidized job's programs. It's the same problem in many western nation, just look at how many people are employed in France by the government. Many basic services are actually decaying but the government keeps hiring more people. If we remove the employees who work as teachers, cops, in the military, and all other essential services, the rest of them, I am just not sure what the hell they do with their time. My point is that it should be a duty of the government to be as efficient as possible. To do more with less, should be a priority unless the tasks require more people. So I can understand when people complain of the inefficiency of a government agency.
lcssthrowaway 3y ago
Not saying that it doesn't happen in the private sector. But companies that are stuck on inertia and don't adapt, don't tend to fare particularly well. IBM was one of the most powerful companies in the world, now it's just a laughable shell of it's former self. Microsoft had it's time in the sun before the shift to mobile devices and cloud service gutted it's hold over over the computing space and left them scrambling to try to adapt to the world today. At some point or another it will be Google and Apple's turn to fall from the throne as technology marches on. The public sector is insulated from suffering that kind of failure. In some ways it's good; there's no real way to run a police or military force at a profit, but both are vital. But in other ways it's problematic when major failures occur and the consequences of such are are just shrugged off. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-pay-system-issues-impact-public-servants-six-years-later-1.6457840 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-pay-system-iss... $2.4 billion for a federal HR pay system that still doesn't work. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/gun-registry-cost-soars-to-2-billion-1.513990 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/gun-registry-cost-soars-to-2-... $2 billion for a gun registry database that ultimately had to be dismantled because no one could find any evidence that the accomplished the goal of making Canadians safer.
nvm0n2 3y ago
> It took about seven weeks to replace Because of waiting for internal approvals? Or because the lead time on datacenter equipment is quite long? > I shouldn't need paperwork signed in triplicate to get a new monitor. So in your new public sector job how easy is it to get a new monitor?
lozenge 3y ago
The government also makes huge decade long missteps, but the cost is inflated if all the individual employees are acting like the GP post said.

rdm_blackhole 3y ago

I agree with your point that things may not be more efficient in certain big companies of the private sector but there is a crucial difference between the two. The difference is that the government's employees are paid from taxes collected from productive companies, aka companies that create jobs and achieve a profit big enough to warrant paying taxes in the first place. A private sector company, unless it is subsidized in some way or has a monopoly on a certain market will eventually try to rectify these inefficiencies because its makes it more resilient in the fight against it's competitors. On the other hand, there is no incentive on the government side to make things more efficient. If a government looses money, they can just borrow more, increase the national debt and sweep any kind of reform under the rug. Because of this lack of incentives, some state and government agencies act as de facto subsidized job's programs. It's the same problem in many western nation, just look at how many people are employed in France by the government. Many basic services are actually decaying but the government keeps hiring more people. If we remove the employees who work as teachers, cops, in the military, and all other essential services, the rest of them, I am just not sure what the hell they do with their time. My point is that it should be a duty of the government to be as efficient as possible. To do more with less, should be a priority unless the tasks require more people. So I can understand when people complain of the inefficiency of a government agency.

lcssthrowaway 3y ago

Not saying that it doesn't happen in the private sector. But companies that are stuck on inertia and don't adapt, don't tend to fare particularly well. IBM was one of the most powerful companies in the world, now it's just a laughable shell of it's former self. Microsoft had it's time in the sun before the shift to mobile devices and cloud service gutted it's hold over over the computing space and left them scrambling to try to adapt to the world today. At some point or another it will be Google and Apple's turn to fall from the throne as technology marches on. The public sector is insulated from suffering that kind of failure. In some ways it's good; there's no real way to run a police or military force at a profit, but both are vital. But in other ways it's problematic when major failures occur and the consequences of such are are just shrugged off. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-pay-system-issues-impact-public-servants-six-years-later-1.6457840 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/ottawa/phoenix-pay-system-iss... $2.4 billion for a federal HR pay system that still doesn't work. https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/gun-registry-cost-soars-to-2-billion-1.513990 https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/gun-registry-cost-soars-to-2-... $2 billion for a gun registry database that ultimately had to be dismantled because no one could find any evidence that the accomplished the goal of making Canadians safer.

nvm0n2 3y ago

> It took about seven weeks to replace Because of waiting for internal approvals? Or because the lead time on datacenter equipment is quite long? > I shouldn't need paperwork signed in triplicate to get a new monitor. So in your new public sector job how easy is it to get a new monitor?

lozenge 3y ago

The government also makes huge decade long missteps, but the cost is inflated if all the individual employees are acting like the GP post said.