I used to be a public sector dev with an agency that stores plaintext passwords and direct deposit information. People simply didn’t know any better and because government doesn’t have merit raises, the rest of us simply didn’t do anything about it.
That may be true in software (where the pay gap in the private sector is particularly blatant) but it's not true in most industries. The stereotype of lazy government workers is essentially conservative propaganda - I've known and worked with plenty, and with a few obvious exceptions (political appointees, software, etc.) across the board they're passionate and great at what they do. Civil engineers, road builders, park rangers, EPA researchers, administrative assistants, even IT.
> have you ever been to a government office to pull a permit?
Yes, several times, and it is always completely straightforward. Fill out the appropriate forms, provide the correct documentation, pay fee. If it can be approved by the administrator, it’s issued promptly. If it needs a hearing, it’s scheduled for the next one, you show up and answer questions, they make a decision promptly and it’s either issued or not. I’ve rarely had such efficient interaction with private companies.
Have you ever been to the IT department of a private company, to get a small change made that makes your job more efficient or helps a customer solve a problem?
My girlfriend works public service. The only lazy coworkers she has are Ron Swanson types taking it upon themselves to make public work shittier because they believe the government shouldn't do anything.
And have you ever been to a government office to pull a permit? Or dealt with government procurement? Or attempted to get paperwork through the FAA?
Yes. It was relatively straightforward, as long as you followed the rules.
The hard part is following all the relevant rules, almost all of which exist because people have tried to rip off the government or lawmakers decided to impose unrelated requirements on procurement. That's not the fault of the government workers whose job it is to carry out the requirements that have been imposed on them.
And what does an opinion piece about teachers have to do with procurement? Those are completely separate things.
>Yes. It was relatively straightforward, as long as you followed the rules.
The hard part is not going postal as you find out piece by piece that person A didn't tell you about rule X and that department T actually has a revised form W that... and on and on until you find out that you didn't actually have to do any of that because there's some other less shitty process none of these people told you about.
It's like the bureaucratic runaround is the default behavior in some of these organizations.
It's not person A's job to tell you about rule X or that department T revised form W, or that you don't even have to do any of that at all because there's an alternative process for doing it.
It's your job to do the research and do things out correctly so that person A doesn't have to waste time telling you what you should be doing.
Or do you think that government agencies have the budget to hire customer support representative and receptionists with intimate knowledge of their department's rules and regulations?
something that's helpful to keep in mind is that the government orgs you deal with frequently have what have what they must do set by law, with little latitude to change things other than bugging congress
Yes, I've never heard of a private company that has absolutely useless security protocols, let alone one that was broken into as a result of complete incompetence of their security architects and admins. /s
"The problem with corruption, inefficieny and ignorance in government is corruption, inefficiency and ignorance, not government".
Let's not put the cart before the horse, shall we? Yes, all human organizations can suffer from these things (and maybe some more than others). But that's not a reason in and of itself to dismiss an entire class of human organizations as irretrievably doomed.
Look at what the UK government's digital service has done: absolutely outstanding online presence for so many important government services.
also in many cases if regulation is written to prohibit such practices, the government exempts itself from that.
For example, you can't use SSN to identify someone. Unless of course you were doing it before the prohibition was established. Apparently it's fine if you keep using it, forever.
I used to be a public sector dev with an agency that stores plaintext passwords and direct deposit information. People simply didn’t know any better and because government doesn’t have merit raises, the rest of us simply didn’t do anything about it.