Headline:
EPA Memo To Employees: Please Stop Pooping In The HallwayAt least they got a memo out, taking time from their blizzard of new regulations.
In a government clean-out, the first to go should include the Dept of Education, the EPA, The IRS, the ATF, Homeland Security, and the BLM. At least those are the first to come to mind as departments that serve the government, not the people. I'm sure there are many, many more.
Further, the only armed government employees should be US Marshals and facility guards employed by the US Marshal Service after screening and training; also, all armed services employees including civilian employees should be armed at all times, including Border Guards, who should be either US Marines, or US Special Forces (it is the ultimate absurdity to forcibly disarm soldiers on base, enabling on-base Islamic massacres).
3 comments:
I heartily concur with the sentiment to flush the government sewage. I was a career Civil Service Employee (after serving 8 years in the US Air Force), retiring in 1996 after 30 years total service. Perhaps I am the exception proving the rule, but I was neither stupid nor corrupt, although there were a significant minority of employees who were. As for "psycho": my sobriquet was "Crazy Bob."
I acquired that appropriate nickname from a US Navy Captain. I was the only technical manager who noisily opposed the notion that it would take the same amount of resources (time and people) to transfer large software systems from old antiquated computers to newer state-of-the-art computers. I made so much "noise" about it that the Captain gave me an ultimatum: "Put up or shut up." He placed me in charge of one of the two major migration projects. My initial resource estimate (which in my opinion was still padded, at least a little, for contingencies) was for 10 technical personnel and 15 months. The group "scientific consensus" had been 150 people and 5-7 years. The caveat was that I got 10 technical personnel that were trained by me, and therefore proven technical people who worked their butts off because they loved the work. At the start of the project, I got exactly - none, NO ONE. I spent the first two months developing software tools to translate COBOL dialects. At that point, I got exactly ONE additional person, who (happily for me) WAS one of my handpicked people. After another month, I got two "newbies" that other divisions wanted to get rid of. At start of the fourth month, I got one contractor person (another excellent technical person). I made a "midnight requisition" of a Unix server for development. We delivered the first installment (the major system administration module which controlled everything else) on board the USS Kennedy 5 months after I started by myself. The Captain promptly cut 2 months of my final schedule date. I got the team together and we figured out what we could do to accelerate the schedule. We sent out the next increment 1 month later. The Captain promptly cut 2 more months off my schedule. We sent out the third increment two months later. The Captain promptly cut my schedule by 2 more months. I went to him and asked him the purpose of continually reducing my schedule, especially in light of the fact that we had met each milestone. I asked, "Is it your purpose to make the schedule so ridiculous that we fail? If so, then declare a failure NOW, and let's do something rational." He actually laughed about it, then said, "No, the availability of ships in port is driving the schedule. But I'm going to start calling you Crazy Bob, because you are just crazy enough to believe you can pull it off." I ended up with a scheduled completion date that was exactly 10 months from my original starting date - and we delivered on time. The Captain continually referred to me as "Crazy Bob" and it stuck.
Here is the irony: After I completed the project, I asked for any critical project to lead. Instead, I was removed from the Directorate I had been working in and placed on the staff of another Director who didn't know I existed. I never got notification of status meetings nor anything else. So, for about 3 months, I designed and built software to analyze flat file structures and automatically translate them into relational database structures. The Navy provided an "early out" for civilians as part of a reduction in force. I retired from Civil Service rather than continue to draw salary for not working. I was only 48 at the time.
So, am I crazy? Perhaps. Stupid and/or corrupt? NOT.
(And no, Stan, I didn't consider it personal, and still concur with your overall assessment.)
Errata: The "transfer" duration should have been contrasted to the original development time. My apology for the omission.
Love your stories, there, Crazy Bob.
Naw I won't call you that more than just this once.
When it comes to government software, the ObamaCare rollout will always come to mind. I notice that the completely failed website team in Oregon (iirc) got huge bonuses to stay on, despite their completely nonfunctional site.
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