4 ms·

From 11 to 3 employees. Doesn't seem that outrageous outside of such a time of crisis (since this lab seem dedicated solely to outbreaks, not research), which i

From 11 to 3 employees. Doesn't seem that outrageous outside of such a time of crisis (since this lab seem dedicated solely to outbreaks, not research), which is when the parent entity should temporarily allocate more people.

wnevets 2mo ago
> From 11 to 3 employees. Doesn't seem that outrageous outside I hope I never have you as my manager If you think a ~70% reduction in head count isn't outrageous.
- BoingBoomTschak 2mo ago
  I've worked along scientists a few times, many twiddling their thumbs and coasting along on the back of their PhD. No idea if this applies here, mind you, but I don't see an innate need for that many people, even if this disease has major outbreaks (let's say > 50 cases) every few years. 3 does seem a bit low, though.
  - georgemcbay 2mo ago
    > I've worked along scientists a few times You should have mentioned this up front so we all knew you were fully qualified to understand the staffing needs of critical governmental health organizations.
  - flatline 2mo ago
    Impressive judgment from someone who presumably has no knowledge of the types of problems the lab was addressing, the scope of research, the actual individuals employed, or the prior and anticipated impact of their work. This was the whole problem with DOGE: cuts were indiscriminate and based more on feels than factual data. I won't posit that those cuts were all downside - but we will be paying to discover which were really needed for years to come.
  - deleted 2mo ago
    [deleted]
  - pavel_lishin 2mo ago
    > many twiddling their thumbs Do you think some of them were wasting their time, by posting on various online forums only slightly related to their jobs?
  - cuvert 2mo ago
    We should also extend that to firefighters, they do nothing most of the time, anyway. Let the fires burn everything and after that let the insurance solve the problems for those who have it.
roughly 2mo ago
The thing about crises is by the time you’re in them, they’re gonna cost way more to clean up than just not getting there in the first place. Sounds like the lag time between going from 11 to 3 employees and having an outbreak was ~a year, so unless this is wrapped up fast enough and cheaply enough to cost less than 8 FTEs, we didn’t save a whole lot of money and we caused a whole lot of distress, so it’s hard to really call this a win.
- NetMageSCW 2mo ago
  That ignores that point that this department only activates after the outbreak has started, so if it was increased to 100 people it wouldn’t have prevented the crisis.
  - roughly 2mo ago
    The article indicates that the department responds to crises, it did not indicate that was its only function.
esalman 2mo ago
While you're at it, give AI to the 3 employees and they will do the work of 30 /s
felooboolooomba 2mo ago
Astroturfing still paying good?
greycol 2mo ago
We've discovered that ambulance drivers are only driving people to hospital for 5% of the week. As such we've cut the 20 staff that used to give 120% coverage to 5. The 4 days of coverage is still more than 8x more than needed to cover working 5% of the week, so obviously we don't expect any deaths on the days we don't have any ambulance drivers working. In the unlikely event excess ambulance drivers are needed we'll temporarily hire them on an ad hoc basis at double the normal rate. They will obviously happily jump on this opportunity, working less than 5% of the year at double pay is much better for just those hours than being paid 60% of what you'd get as an ambulance driver in another career all year round and actually being able to afford your mortgage.

wnevets 2mo ago

> From 11 to 3 employees. Doesn't seem that outrageous outside I hope I never have you as my manager If you think a ~70% reduction in head count isn't outrageous.

BoingBoomTschak 2mo ago
I've worked along scientists a few times, many twiddling their thumbs and coasting along on the back of their PhD. No idea if this applies here, mind you, but I don't see an innate need for that many people, even if this disease has major outbreaks (let's say > 50 cases) every few years. 3 does seem a bit low, though.
- georgemcbay 2mo ago
  > I've worked along scientists a few times You should have mentioned this up front so we all knew you were fully qualified to understand the staffing needs of critical governmental health organizations.
- flatline 2mo ago
  Impressive judgment from someone who presumably has no knowledge of the types of problems the lab was addressing, the scope of research, the actual individuals employed, or the prior and anticipated impact of their work. This was the whole problem with DOGE: cuts were indiscriminate and based more on feels than factual data. I won't posit that those cuts were all downside - but we will be paying to discover which were really needed for years to come.
- deleted 2mo ago
  [deleted]
- pavel_lishin 2mo ago
  > many twiddling their thumbs Do you think some of them were wasting their time, by posting on various online forums only slightly related to their jobs?
- cuvert 2mo ago
  We should also extend that to firefighters, they do nothing most of the time, anyway. Let the fires burn everything and after that let the insurance solve the problems for those who have it.

roughly 2mo ago

The thing about crises is by the time you’re in them, they’re gonna cost way more to clean up than just not getting there in the first place. Sounds like the lag time between going from 11 to 3 employees and having an outbreak was ~a year, so unless this is wrapped up fast enough and cheaply enough to cost less than 8 FTEs, we didn’t save a whole lot of money and we caused a whole lot of distress, so it’s hard to really call this a win.

NetMageSCW 2mo ago
That ignores that point that this department only activates after the outbreak has started, so if it was increased to 100 people it wouldn’t have prevented the crisis.
- roughly 2mo ago
  The article indicates that the department responds to crises, it did not indicate that was its only function.

esalman 2mo ago

While you're at it, give AI to the 3 employees and they will do the work of 30 /s

felooboolooomba 2mo ago

Astroturfing still paying good?

greycol 2mo ago

We've discovered that ambulance drivers are only driving people to hospital for 5% of the week. As such we've cut the 20 staff that used to give 120% coverage to 5. The 4 days of coverage is still more than 8x more than needed to cover working 5% of the week, so obviously we don't expect any deaths on the days we don't have any ambulance drivers working. In the unlikely event excess ambulance drivers are needed we'll temporarily hire them on an ad hoc basis at double the normal rate. They will obviously happily jump on this opportunity, working less than 5% of the year at double pay is much better for just those hours than being paid 60% of what you'd get as an ambulance driver in another career all year round and actually being able to afford your mortgage.