5 ms·

The key part IMO is buried in the article - there happened to be an existing, perfectly accurate database containing all the required info about each employee -

by epec254 9mo ago

The key part IMO is buried in the article - there happened to be an existing, perfectly accurate database containing all the required info about each employee - the same info that previously had to be manually found for each retirement. Without this, this effort would not have been possible. > Fortunately, we stumbled on a critical clue. While poring over old documentation, we discovered that OPM actually had data warehouses that stored historic information about every federal employee. Apparently, these warehouses were created as part of a modernization effort in 2007, and HR and payroll offices all across government have supposedly been regularly reporting into it. > For some reason however, this was not well known at OPM, and those that knew about it didn’t know what data it held, nor considered how it could be used to simplify retirement processing. Not many had seen the data, and administrators were initially resistant to sharing access. > From a software perspective, this was the holy grail: a single source of truth that held all the information that the manual redundant steps were meant to review. Because the information was regularly reported by HR and payroll, by the time an employee retired, OPM should already have everything needed to process the retirement, without anyone re-entering or re-verifying information.

fnordpiglet 9mo ago
Yeah this stuck out at me - the hubris of the stateless web stack supersedes the 18 years of hard unsung work at building and end to end stateful pipeline that ties out to the penny and handles all the complex business logic and reconciliations seamlessly across god knows how many integrations. No fancy diagrams or pictures of the nameless faceless heroes that had accomplished that act of heroism. For sure recognizing the value is something to trumpet, but that’s the Herculean hero story I want to hear - the DOGE bros who tied it all together with JavaScript frameworks, yawn.
- foltik 9mo ago
  They seemed to have replaced Mega Bloks with Legos, not skyscraper building materials.
- xp84 9mo ago
  The only way the database could be harnessed to do something useful is after all the people who were standing in the way in management for the last 18 years likely having been sacked. You can bet any useful project to put it to use was blocked by paper-pushers threatened by the spectre of automation, until most people had forgotten about it. Nobody believes the database sprung forth from the earth or was created accidentally. The fact that 18 years later that project had borne no visible fruit, and that most people who could have used it, didn’t even know about it, is proof of the problem. It’s a problem of terrible management. That is what, regardless of your politics, is being slightly jostled by DOGE. Personally I have dealt with enough of our absurd government processes that I don’t think they can make anything much worse, and it cannot be less efficient.
  - skybrian 9mo ago
    How do you know what the people involved did? Let’s not pretend speculation is fact.
  - Natfan 9mo ago
    any process can be made less efficient, especially by firing those who are aware of how the system actually works...
tigerBL00D 9mo ago
Yes! Whoever built the data warehouses and keeps the data pipelines running would seem to be the real heros of this story. I sure hope that group did not get gutted by DOGE.
- xp84 9mo ago
  If the people who set up the DW and set up the data to flow into it did not also build any applications to actually take advantage of the data, they didn’t complete their job properly. It’s been 18 years, that’s long enough to document the existence of it. Some might say 18 years is even enough time to build at least one useful application powered by it. I’m sure in reality the people who built this system were smart, and wanted people to use it, but were just buried under layers of technology-unaware management and bureaucrats who felt threatened, afraid it would marginalize or eliminate their paper-pushing jobs. But this very likely reality is just more proof that the government needs significant restructuring. Most people in management at the government are there purely because of tenure, not because they’re great leaders, nor subject matter experts in how complex things are efficiently built and run outside the government world.
  - fn-mote 9mo ago
    > If the people who set up the DW and set up the data to flow into it did not also build any applications […] they didn’t complete their job properly 1. That’s a whole extra level of responsibility / management / bureaucracy. At some point, somebody near the top needs to care or it doesn’t all get done. The existence of this DB says somebody cared, they just didn’t have enough power. 2. I’m curious how this compares to experiences at Big Old Corp, like IBM or GM, not just the SV darlings.
  - deleted 9mo ago
    [deleted]
moralestapia 9mo ago
[flagged]
- idiotsecant 9mo ago
  This is not new to Gen z.
  - moralestapia 9mo ago
    Didn't say it was. Edit: >I've noticed a lot of crime in [city]. >Crime is not new to [city]. >Didn't say it was. Come on, the quality of this discourse is abhorrent.
    - howenterprisey 9mo ago
      That's what saying "noticed with Gen Z" means. Reply to edit: generations are sequential; if you've noticed something with one generation it means that you're not accusing the prior generations of the same thing, otherwise you would've used different wording.
    - fragmede 9mo ago
      > There's a dangerous trend I've noticed with GenZ Those are some mighty fine hares you're splitting.
    - wredcoll 9mo ago
      You're literally being downvoted for stereotyping an entire generation. The word stereotype implies it, but it's not remotely close to true. Like, the easiest, most obvious example in the world is trump: he hyperbolically brags constantly about things he didn't do or actively tried to stop and it would be real hard to argue that he's genZ. When you single out a specific group for your observation, it has strong implications about the other groups you didn't mention. As in this case: why did you only mention genZ?
      - moralestapia 9mo ago
master_crab 9mo ago
Thanks for pointing this out. I think it does a good job of also highlighting that most problems aren’t technical; they are either people or organizational.

by epec254 9mo ago

fnordpiglet 9mo ago

Yeah this stuck out at me - the hubris of the stateless web stack supersedes the 18 years of hard unsung work at building and end to end stateful pipeline that ties out to the penny and handles all the complex business logic and reconciliations seamlessly across god knows how many integrations. No fancy diagrams or pictures of the nameless faceless heroes that had accomplished that act of heroism. For sure recognizing the value is something to trumpet, but that’s the Herculean hero story I want to hear - the DOGE bros who tied it all together with JavaScript frameworks, yawn.

foltik 9mo ago
They seemed to have replaced Mega Bloks with Legos, not skyscraper building materials.
xp84 9mo ago
The only way the database could be harnessed to do something useful is after all the people who were standing in the way in management for the last 18 years likely having been sacked. You can bet any useful project to put it to use was blocked by paper-pushers threatened by the spectre of automation, until most people had forgotten about it. Nobody believes the database sprung forth from the earth or was created accidentally. The fact that 18 years later that project had borne no visible fruit, and that most people who could have used it, didn’t even know about it, is proof of the problem. It’s a problem of terrible management. That is what, regardless of your politics, is being slightly jostled by DOGE. Personally I have dealt with enough of our absurd government processes that I don’t think they can make anything much worse, and it cannot be less efficient.
- skybrian 9mo ago
  How do you know what the people involved did? Let’s not pretend speculation is fact.
- Natfan 9mo ago
  any process can be made less efficient, especially by firing those who are aware of how the system actually works...

tigerBL00D 9mo ago

Yes! Whoever built the data warehouses and keeps the data pipelines running would seem to be the real heros of this story. I sure hope that group did not get gutted by DOGE.

xp84 9mo ago
If the people who set up the DW and set up the data to flow into it did not also build any applications to actually take advantage of the data, they didn’t complete their job properly. It’s been 18 years, that’s long enough to document the existence of it. Some might say 18 years is even enough time to build at least one useful application powered by it. I’m sure in reality the people who built this system were smart, and wanted people to use it, but were just buried under layers of technology-unaware management and bureaucrats who felt threatened, afraid it would marginalize or eliminate their paper-pushing jobs. But this very likely reality is just more proof that the government needs significant restructuring. Most people in management at the government are there purely because of tenure, not because they’re great leaders, nor subject matter experts in how complex things are efficiently built and run outside the government world.
- fn-mote 9mo ago
  > If the people who set up the DW and set up the data to flow into it did not also build any applications […] they didn’t complete their job properly 1. That’s a whole extra level of responsibility / management / bureaucracy. At some point, somebody near the top needs to care or it doesn’t all get done. The existence of this DB says somebody cared, they just didn’t have enough power. 2. I’m curious how this compares to experiences at Big Old Corp, like IBM or GM, not just the SV darlings.
- deleted 9mo ago
  [deleted]

moralestapia 9mo ago

[flagged]

idiotsecant 9mo ago
This is not new to Gen z.
- moralestapia 9mo ago
  Didn't say it was. Edit: >I've noticed a lot of crime in [city]. >Crime is not new to [city]. >Didn't say it was. Come on, the quality of this discourse is abhorrent.
  - howenterprisey 9mo ago
    That's what saying "noticed with Gen Z" means. Reply to edit: generations are sequential; if you've noticed something with one generation it means that you're not accusing the prior generations of the same thing, otherwise you would've used different wording.
  - fragmede 9mo ago
    > There's a dangerous trend I've noticed with GenZ Those are some mighty fine hares you're splitting.
  - wredcoll 9mo ago
    You're literally being downvoted for stereotyping an entire generation. The word stereotype implies it, but it's not remotely close to true. Like, the easiest, most obvious example in the world is trump: he hyperbolically brags constantly about things he didn't do or actively tried to stop and it would be real hard to argue that he's genZ. When you single out a specific group for your observation, it has strong implications about the other groups you didn't mention. As in this case: why did you only mention genZ?
    - moralestapia 9mo ago

master_crab 9mo ago

Thanks for pointing this out. I think it does a good job of also highlighting that most problems aren’t technical; they are either people or organizational.