Will people sympathize much with laid-off government workers?
This is one of the approaches of the left and the MSM – to highlight the plight of laid-off government workers. For example:
60 Minutes gave laid-off employees a platform, allowing them to cry about paychecks and other difficulties they will face.
“Twelve days ago, people knew where their next paycheck was coming from. They knew how they were going to pay for their kids' daycare, their medical bills. And then, all gone overnight,” says Kristina Drye, who was fired in the USAID shutdown. https://t.co/cysOqteb8p pic.twitter.com/bUcOAnhMjs
— 60 Minutes (@60Minutes) February 17, 2025
Will many people weep for the government workers? I’m sure many of them really are encountering hardship, at least at the moment. But most have good skills and probably are quite employable elsewhere.
I think the sentiment towards government workers is generally not especially sympathetic. People at large are also hurting economically, and they blame the government in large part.
Comeuppance is a favorite word these days. Long long overdue comeuppance.
I have mixed feelings. Full disclosure. I was 35 years working for the US Army as a civilian logistician. Nine years in Germany, the rest stateside. I was there during the Kosovo war, as well as Desert Storm/Shield. I know that civil servants are absolutely necessary, and I experienced a couple of RIFs during that time (most notably after the Berlin Wall came down and the Cold War ended. So some of these government workers have my sympathy.
OTOH, from what I’m reading, it’s hard to regret that ISAID and other such organizations are getting….examined and corrected. In some cases eliminated. I agree with sdferr, it’s long, long overdue. I just don’t want to toss out the baby with the bath water.
I have mixed feelings about it. Full disclosure: I retired after 35 years as a US Army Civilian logistician. I did two tours in Germany (nine years total), and was there when the Berlin Wall came down (end of Cold War) and the war in Kosovo. I was there on 9/11, and worked through Desert Shield/Storm. I know that the civilian component is indispensable for the Army to do its mission. I was also working during a couple of FRIFs, most notably after the Cold War 18 Division Army was downsized to about 10 Divisions. (Don’t quote me on those exact numbers–it was a long time ago.) Lots of folks lost their jobs.
OTOH, what I’m reading about USAID and what they’ve been doing with our money, as well as other NGOs, I’m inclined to agree with sdferr that it is long, long overdue.
Waidmann
Having been in that position myself I understand the feelings of loss and betrayal. Anyone over the age of 30 that works in the private sector has seen and/or been involved in a Reduction in Force. It happens. It’s disruptive, frustrating, and anger inducing. But I am not sympathetic. They need to do what I and millions of others in that situation have done: shut up and move on. The odds are good that your next job will be better, and you will be better for persevering.
I was wondering if this would be the example used. The Progressive Left might have a chance of evoking sympathy from normal people, maybe even normal Republicans, if they could just have the integrity to choose examples in good faith. But, here we go. They pick a pair of consultants – not employees, temporary workers – that worked off USAID funding, the lady writing speeches for Samantha Power, the worst possible example poster-dweeb for out-of-control, partisan government overreach. Do better, Progressive Leftists ! There are compelling arguments that you could make, but you have to do it in good faith for these arguments to gain any traction !
Kristina Drye (she/her):
Yeah, I feeeeeeeeelll *REAL* sorry for Kristina Drye (she/her) .. *NOT!!!!!*
I retired from the federal government after 28 years. I can say that I did my diligently and efficiently, and I can say I never did anything of which I’m ashamed. Whether the job was essential is another question, however. I will say that at least 60-70% of federal jobs could be eliminated without any loss to the general public. I will also say that most federal funds provided to states, localities, and NGOs are improper under our Constitution and/or wasteful.
It sucks to be laid off. Have been when working as a contractor on Federally-funded projects, 1988, nearly in 1990, and in 2011. But then in the non Fed.-funded world of a geologist projects end, mines shut down, or the oil boom busts.
In 1990 the prime contractor on a Federally funded project decided to terminate the subcontract with my employer, so I learned how to be a “construction engineer” and over the next year got three additional lay off notices from “downtown” but the project in “the field” said “Hell No, don’t lay him off!” At the end of that project I was hired by the prime.
Life goes on for most after an employment separation, you have to make the best of what life gives you.
The biggest change I saw in my 34 years of Federal service was the explosion of contractors, often doing the same thing as the civil service people at the next cubicle. I’m willing to bet that eliminating the contractor workforce would save even more than firing the go employees.
Aw-w-w-w … and I was even once a Fed employee. Some are good, many, most, are ho-hum at best. Then there’s the question is “that” particular job necessary even if one is best at it. Lay-offs happen suddenly. Ask auto workers or oil pipeline workers or any number of private sector workers.
What was the advice? “learn to code”
Empathy, no sympathy.
Mongo…”The biggest change I saw in my 34 years of Federal service was the explosion of contractors, often doing the same thing as the civil service people at the next cubicle. I’m willing to bet that eliminating the contractor workforce would save even more than firing the go employees.”
Seems likely. Not only has the government outsourced a lot it its Doing, it has also outsourced a lot of its Thinking. How much are McKinsey and such being paid to advise government managers on things that they should be able to determine for themselves?
Wow, the real world of private employment will be a great awakening for these folks. Look up “at will” employment guys and gals. Then see if you can figure out how to get back on your feet in EIGHT months. Most I ever got was six months…
The private sector in the 80’s and 90’s became quite cutthroat as the Wall Street asset hunters did there work. Then there are the money hungry Private
Equity Companies. Not always bad, just mostly bad.
Work for a company that looses close to two trillion dollars a year and expect to keep your job?!?!?
It’s tough being between jobs. Been there more than once. If you’re competent, you find something else to tide you over. Then you get right back in as God permits.
Somehow crying on 60 minutes wasn’t on my “to do” list. This isn’t a bad set of “to dos.”
https://www.inc.com/minda-zetlin/travis-kelce-and-his-team-suffered-a-humiliating-defeat-his-response-is-a-lesson-in-leadership/91148105#:~:text=3.,people%20who%20cared%20about%20him.
Hope that link works.
JD Keen’s got it.
During the Biden regime, average wages rose, but the median (or middle of the distribution,ie, equal numbers above and below), significantly fell.
Meanwhile, Oligarch Biden ensured that his sinecured aparatchiks got raises above inflation.
THIS insecurity that’s finally arrived for Federal workers ought to be visited upon them every two years.
MAGA means abolishing lifelong government employment with much above national median Federal rewards become no more than the median. Keep firing the home-“working” surplus until this kind of equity is reached.
TimK:
“I will say that at least 60-70% of federal jobs could be eliminated without any loss to the general public.”
As a retired Federal government employee this is my feeling as well. It’s not so much that the workers are lazy or bad (although of course these exist), it’s just that what they are doing isn’t necessary. Nobody ever asks the question “do we really need to be doing this?” If you’re a manager in government, it doesn’t pay to say that you could probably easily do the job with half the staff.
I know that in my area of population estimates at the Census Bureau, the job could be done with about 10 percent of the staff. Actually with the advances in AI, I’m pretty sure that one of Musk’s data nerds could do the work of the whole division in a few weeks.
I took a very generous buyout and retired at 51 and kept my health insurance. How many people in the private sector have such opportunities? I know that losing your job sucks but government workers have gotten a pretty sweet deal for a long time.
I’ve worked for the government several different times. Post office -a summer job, the White Pine Blister Rist Control (National Patk Service) – a summer job, U.S Navy – 21 years.
The two summer jobs were back in the 19050s and there was no waste or slacking off ion those days. The Postmaster I worked for came in early and left late. He was a taskmaster who expected, and got, hard work from his employees. Same with Blister Rust. It was hard, physical work six days a week, and every crew boss was authorized to fire any worker who was lagging on the job. They fired a few people in mid-summer just to keep everyone else “motivated.”
The Navy was relatively efficient, but the way money was authorized and spent encouraged people to spend more and waste money. Coming up on the end of the fiscal
year, if the CO hadn’t spent all the allotted finds for fuel, parts, and equipment; there would be a push to spend all that money. We spent many hours boring holes in the air to burn fuel, buying spare parts to stockpile, and issuing new boots, gloves, sunglasses, flight suits etc, to all pilots. I don’t know if they still do that, but it wouldn’t surprise me.
The airline business was known for furloughing pilots. In 1972, my airline furloughed seven hundred. I missed the cut by ten numbers. For five years I expected to be furloughed but somehow squeaked by. I had a plan if it happened. And it forced us to live as frugally as possible.
Government jobs were always supposed to offer more security than private sector jobs, and in the 1950s they paid less than private sector jobs. That was the accepted tradeoff. As I understand it now, government jobs are more secure and pay as much as the private sector. So, these federal employees are probably shocked to find out they can be let go. So, we will hear a lot of loud complaints from all the usual sources about how “unfair” it is. And yes, life isn’t fair.
It’s also not fair to the taxpayers to expect us to support a bloated bureaucracy.
My advice to them: Apply for unemployment, get your resume honed up, and get on with your life.
No civil service protection for contractors to the Federal government. If the lay off of said employees is big enough there are laws that apply WARN Act notifications, etc. But the contractor employee is an “at will’ status, eg., can be fired, laid off at any time, for cause or whatever, or until the contract is over.
When is a Federal program or agency (until this February) over?
Construction on the Keystone XL pipeline, cancelled by Biden in 2021, may be restarting.
Am no business man. Govt jobs – Local, State, and Federal – have always been considered great jobs to have by many; however, the reputation of ‘Government Employees’ has been terrible. I’m sure most everyone has experienced horrid Govt workers if they have applied very often for building permits or such or etc, at any Local Govt office.
Not to be bashing Govt Employees—since I am sure there many hard workers. City or County power company isn’t going to put up with any lazy unproductive workers in the field, and have always found even their office workers are helpful.
On the Federal level – I have been hearing more and more about “contractors” working for the Federal Govt since Edward Snowden. Its like Federal employees get outside employees to do the work for them!?
What about privatization? I mean, The Federal Govt is hiring Federal employees and contractors doesn’t sound like a way to do things.
Well, both main parties love *BIG* Govt so more privatization and less Govt is never gonna happen.
A lot of South Florida was once swamp land…Governments didn’t drain, dig canals, lakes, and create high ground for homes and businesses—private businesses did that. Then *BIG* Govt moved in and took over…
Dixie County has a small *BIG* Govt. Took me months to get a simple building permit approved for a 600 sq ft hut (Living quarters were 320 sq ft). Some departments like Tax Collector & Voting & even County Manager (Cross City) have great workers. Went to the secretary for County Manager finally, and she got me my building permit. If I had complained to the Building Dept, their inspectors would’ve hounded me.
Fuk Governments…and their many rules ‘n even more Laws!
Given that federal employees generally have more job security, better retirement and benefits with comparable or better salaries than private sector employees, I am not going to cry a river for former federal employees.
Federal employees didn’t cry a river over my layoffs.
You unnerstan’ ?
I have not had good experiences with the Post Office. Such as the local PO never responding to my HOA’s requests to remove locks from former post office boxes. Had to go downtown. Such as taking 25 days for a certified letter to move from central post office to my post office box.
Work for a company that looses close to two trillion dollars a year and expect to keep your job?!?!?
Yup.
I’ve been fired twice and lost employment to two RIF’s (reduction in force)– one voluntary and one involuntary. That’s the nature of the economy most of us work in.
The first RIF (involuntary) was caused as the company was just trying to survive the Great Recession. The facility employed 1,300 at peak operation and about 1,000 people were let go. As the economy turned around I was asked if I wanted to go back to work two years later.
The second RIF was voluntary– but limited to who qualified. My boss knew I was retiring at the end of the year, but submitted my name for the RIF anyway– which included three months salary and continued health insurance, so I suppose this one doesn’t really qualify as a hardship.
The department I worked in (publications) was in the process of training Indian engineers at a company our parent company owned about the processes used in producing documents. My co-workers were very unhappy as there was a feeling we were training our replacements. I was leaving anyway, so I didn’t feel the resentment the others expressed.
It turned out to be true as the entire department was ‘outsourced’ to India about a year later.
I can empathize– losing your job, with all the uncertainties is hard, but most Americans face the realities of economic downturns at one time or another. Government employees shouldn’t be immune.
RIF’d 3 times, and fired a few times. Sometimes I got unemployment, sometimes not. Job security does not exist in the private sector. Now that Gov’t job pay better with better benefits, time for them to find out about real life. Don’t come crying to me.
“government” includes all levels and functionns. One may have a heck of a time getting permission to build that which is explicitly permitted, lots of jerking around from the city/township. Or be required to put in a parking lot in which semis can do a one-eighty for a doctor’s office.
That will reduce sympathy for any level of “government”.
Karmi has it right. This woman they interviewed was a plant directly hailing from the talons of Samantha Power who duped the likes of many including our blogger as a sob story
I worked for the feds a total of 21 yrs, between several agencies (mostly DoD), and then worked another 20 yrs for a contractor. During my gov’t time, my co-workers and I (all cynical engineers) frequently referred to our agency/jobs as “white-collar welfare” and estimated that 30% of the agency could be laid off with no effect whatever on “the mission”. Similar to TimK above, we were at times skeptical about whether “the mission” was even useful, and we even tried to get mgmt to make our jobs more meaningful – of course, to no avail since mgmt was concerned with the health of the agency and their own jobs before the taxpayer. Stagnation and waste was the norm. I finally quit the feds in disgust. A fair number of friends had the same opinion, but had thicker hides and stayed to get their “30”, the 30 yr mark where they could optimally retire.
By and large, contractor employees were of notably higher quality than gov’t. There was some dead weight, but the contractor had to make a profit and wasn’t shy about laying bodies off, unproductive first. The notion of having an uninterrupted 30 yr career in one place as occurs commonly in govt was fantasy at the contractor (a Fortune 100 company). It was normal to fear for your job every 3-4 yrs as contracts ended, reorganizations occurred, “skills mismatch” was identified, etc. If your job evaporated, you buffed up the resume and relocated to the next one. It was stressful, but that’s life.
Having worked a bit on both sides of the fence, I think it probably makes more sense to contract for a great many services rather than staff the govt for it. A new govt hire represents a 60 yr financial commitment – 30 yrs as an employee, and 30 more of retirement benefits, and is rather hard to fire over poor performance. A contractor can be hired to do a given job, and when the job is done, the contract ends. If a govt agency performs poorly, there really isn’t much that can be done in the existing system. Usually the fix is to throw more money and bodies at the problem. Whereas if a contractor performs poorly, they can shorted on the contract award fee, lose the contract recompete, or simply be terminated. Obviously, this supposes that the few govt workers overseeing the contractors are “the best and brightest”, so it isn’t necessarily the easiest thing to implement.
Anyway, I have rather little sympathy for the government workers who are the ones caught without a chair when the music stopped (including my son’s wife). It couldn’t go on forever.
Sometimes our language betrays us in regard to “jobs”. We talk and act as if the job that we are being paid by someone else to do is somehow “ours”. But of course it really “belongs” to the payer, not the payee. The employee has the responsibility to have or acquire the skills and capabilities needed to perform the tasks associated with that job (as demanded by the payer).
The following 4 examples from the above commenters, whom it seems do agree with me on this, still used language implying otherwise: [CAPS added]
steve walsh on February 17, 2025 at 6:27 pm said: “The odds are good that YOUR next job will be better, …”
TimK on February 17, 2025 at 6:33 pm said: “I can say that I did MY [job? or work?] diligently and efficiently, …” Tim’s inadvertent typo leaves it open as to which term he might have used?
DT on February 17, 2025 at 7:07 pm said: “Then there’s the question is “that” particular job [implied as “MY job”] necessary even if one is best at it.”
Brian E on February 17, 2025 at 10:43 pm said: “… losing YOUR job, with all the uncertainties is hard …”
Being fired or laid off is hard and unpleasant; I think any form of rejection is. But save your laments for your spouse and/or friends.
As Snow wrote above, there’s no guarantee of permanent employment in the private sector. Likewise there shouldn’t be in the public sector. Any employees beyond the minimum needed are parasites on the country!
Speaking of skills and capabilities, one of the more stressful aspects of losing employment is the need to sell yourself to the next employer — finding the right way to do so without bragging or exaggerating or seeming overly arrogant, etc.
It is not easy, but one way to get better prepared to do so is success factor analysis (SFA).
This involves examining your past personal and professional history for your successes (as you perceive them). Then determine which core or inherent capabilities and skills you used to achive those successes – focusing on the top one and one or two sub level contributors. Examing 30 to 50 success examples will probably surface that you inherently used some commen set of 3 to 5 or 6 such capabilities (writing, analysis, sales, speaking, manual dexterity, 3-D visualization, musical or artistic talent, etc.). Setting up a matrix of success examples vs. a list of capabiltiies and skills helps to highlight the subset that primed your results.
These are your success factors and the idea is that if you used them to achieve past successes, those same (inherent, core) factors should be emphasized as part of your sales pitch for what you are best suited to do in the future. On the surface a new opportunity may not be all that closely aligned with what your previous employment involved, but if your core skills are valuable to that new employer, you will succeed with and for them, too. The potential hiring manager needs to be made aware of that, so that they don’t leave potential talent (yours!) on the table (or in the waste basket).
Now, to avoid claims of “your just blowing smoke”, you also need to identify within your list of accomplishments or successes some quantitative aspects that show you also understand that businesses are concerned about money and your past work shows you are likely to contribute to the new situation in the same way. For example: “I wrote a maintenance manual that reduced maintenance time by 30% and saved the company $150K.” Even non-business successes can usually provide some form of quantitative contribution, doubling results or halving the effort, etc.
Then you can structure your resume around these 3 to 6 core factors, and use your most promising examples to quantitatively demonstrate your assertions. This makes the sales effort easier, gives you more confidence in pitching your value to the potential employer, and is backed up with discrete examples. No fluff or flash necessary!!
Not easy to do. Took me 50 or 60 hours to do my own SFA. Much of that was either just remembering what I had done that qualified as a success; and then surfacing the quantitative aspects (cost, time, etc.) involved or obtained. And much more time researching prospects and developing my search campaign. But when a RIF seemed in prospect in my career, I knew I had this method and mechanism available to use going forward. Adding new successes to your list and refinining the SFA as you perform the employer’s job(s) (aka your career) helps on yearly appraisals and side searchers you may entertain while still employed.
Related to all of this is the method of obtaining interviews using indirect queries rather than direct ones, but that is a topic for another time.
I’m sensing a consensus here, which is: “I’m playing my tiny violin for the now-unemployed feds.”
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Fmedia1.tenor.com%2Fimages%2F3d6c82e4d005007bd582afe4754d412e%2Ftenor.gif%3Fitemid%3D8316586&f=1&nofb=1&ipt=832381817ca153be479bc07ba28575f509d481b729c41f84c1f3082b12031b11&ipo=images
The other consensus, implicit in the discussions since DOGE started operating on 1/20 (almost a month now, the fastest ANY government vehicle has ever run) is that, especially with the Biden rush to hide money and the many contracts for DEI, most of the current government employees thought they were enjoying Job Security for Democrats.
That used to be called “patronage” and was supposedly what the Civil Service laws eliminated.
Per Aggie and Karmi, the Poster Children lamented by 60 Minutes were (per their modus operandi) plants.
https://notthebee.com/article/60-minutes-wants-someone-to-please-think-of-the-poor-usaid-workers
PS You can buy your own tiny violin, some of which play the familiar song; one of our sons got me one for Mother’s Day.
https://duckduckgo.com/?q=miniature+violins+for+sale&t=brave&iar=images&iax=images&ia=images
No comment is complete without footnotes and references. 😉
https://usdictionary.com/idioms/the-worlds-smallest-violin/
“Hearts and Flowers” 1901
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pXJ3U2Nus1g
@ Waidman > ” I just don’t want to toss out the baby with the bath water.”
As I have read the EO’s, and the commentators, most of them are designed to keep the kids and ditch the dirt. But, as many news stories have demonstrated, there is a lot more dirty water than there are babies.
Fun fact: the origin of that idiom is one we talked about at the Ranch where I served the past two summers. One of the buildings was the original wash house, with clothes tubs of various vintages and a bath tub, which most of the school kids thought was a coffin. Like this one, only not as luxurious.
https://external-content.duckduckgo.com/iu/?u=https%3A%2F%2Ftse2.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DOIP.torEK9KVVF7GGrP1GfEA1AHaFj%26pid%3DApi&f=1&ipt=2f504b2791e49f78fd30a8006b94ae75247f9b78f688111405cb36742299b851&ipo=images
So, our spiel included the information that bathing, being a very labor-intensive project — beginning with heating, on wood-fired stoves, multiple buckets of water, brought by hand from the river, to fill the tub — began with Dad (usually the dirtiest), then went down the chain of Mom and kids, to the youngest, often a baby.
After which the tub of now cold, dirty water was finally emptied.
Hence the saying.
@ R2L > “Speaking of skills and capabilities, one of the more stressful aspects of losing employment is the need to sell yourself to the next employer”
Excellent advice, and our kids have had to use similar processes more than once in their careers, especially the one who usually works for companies fulfilling government contracts – until they terminated, in which event so was he.
However, the caveat for this particular round of excess employees is that there is no there there to put on their resumes, because “their job” (loved your comment about who owns the jobs!) was shuffling useless paper and harassing other people because of DEI objectives.
Not seeing a lot of prospects for some of them, other than as greeters at Wal-Mart, IF they can qualify.
They would also do well to look at John Guilfoyle’s link about Travis Kelce; very good advice for when bad things happen.
First real job, chain drug store at 16, moved away. Second real job, temp job initial stocking and grand opening of new chain drug store at 19. Third real job, chain drug store (quit after divorce). Fourth real job, 33 years at Boeing. Always a retention 1. The experiences some of you are describing are alien to me. I can’t really imagine the fear these are people facing. I never had it. Wife was never riffed, laid off or fired either. Some of the people affected are probably dual incomes that both got whacked.
Many, if not all, people we know over, say, forty years old have lost jobs for one reason or another.
The fed employees’ plight is being sold as “special” or especially bad, or something. It’s a tough sell.
But we know people who’ve given up jobs for another job and improved their circumstances by a good deal. So….
Perhaps the fed employees had been led, formally or not, to believe they were guaranteed for life with all the bennies despite their performance, lack of performance, or the obvious nature of their job being surplus to requirements for the government to function. And now, they’re finding out it’s not so. That might account for the extra sympathy required.
I don’t get into pre-prison much—just too far back in the past, but here’s some briefs. Had worked thru high school. Had always figured I’d be a soldier like my dad. Volunteered and was shocked they turned me down—high blood pressure which I had had since at least the 7-8th grade. Rejected again 6-months later. Got a job with the real Ma Bell, but kept trying to pass the fuking military physical. Florida Power and Light paid better so went to them next. Kept flunking the military physicals, and a friend in the National Guard suggested I try them, but they were full. Military didn’t want a Killing Machine—they wanted someone with a low pulse & normal blood pressure!?!?! That all probably covers 18-24 months, and then I finally got into the Army Reserves. Went away for basic, MOS training—ditty dum dum ditty Morse code for radio operator, and then jump school. Had figured I would then go full-time military after jump school, but by the time I went into MOS training the Army had totally disappointed me. Couple years of rejections plus having to go to radio operator school instead of Infantry – and the Army was no longer appealing to me. After those schools I returned home and got a nice civil service job. Somewhere over the next 3-5 years I realized that I was born to be a Criminal.
Am surprised to see so many commenters here had been laid off ‘n such. Just never considered that many college educated people still experienced layoffs ‘n such…dunno why I would’ve thought that tho. Years later, after giving up a life of Crime, I got jobs as an electrician until construction died when business owners saw Obama was going to be President. Short layoffs during those years were something that was expected, but Obama basically ended construction work for me. Employers would hire electricians, but much lower pay, and much further distance to drive for jobs as gas prices also went way up. Went on SS as soon as I could…low income because I didn’t have a lot of years doing legal jobs.
ChayZed at 12:10 am had some good points of contracting:
Noting that the Govt workers hiring ‘n overseeing the contractors should be ‘the best and brightest.’ Tweaking that area to make sure it can’t end up being a political Swamp position and/or long-term safety net for a good employee turned bad.
With Trump, Musk, Vivek Ramaswamy, and whomever else the GOP has in that BIG Business ability slot should be able to do a serious upgrade to out Federal Govt in order to avoid a total privatization attempt at it.
I work at the state level. My salary is paid by a federal grant. I have also worked in the private sector, the non profit sector, and local government. This purging has to happen. It is long overdue. The bureaucratic state is out of control. The federal grants are all trojan horses for social engineering. It has gone on so long, there is little to no way to weed the good out with the bad. So, unfortunately, the baby is gonna get bounced with the bathwater. The best case scenario is that at least then we’ll be able to see the baby and pull him back into the tub. Worst case, we have martyrs for the cause of liberty and justice.
With insourcing (e.g. immigration reform), outsourcing (e.g. regulatory arbitrage) , redistributive change schemes (i.e. privilege, equivocation, progressive prices), and DEI (i.e. institutional, systemic Diversity, including: racism, sexism, ageism, “=”, etc), most people support auditing, mitigating, and correcting their insidious progress.
“ I know that in my area of population estimates at the Census Bureau, the job could be done with about 10 percent of the staff. Actually with the advances in AI, I’m pretty sure that one of Musk’s data nerds could do the work of the whole division in a few weeks.”
Was at Census from maybe ‘75-‘79, in the Decennial Census as a programmer. We were located in Suitland FOB 3, 6th wing, 2nd floor, towards the far end. I think I remember Population Division on the same wing and floor, but closer to the 0th (cross) wing. I remember it having a significant number of Jewish statisticians there – noticeable when I worked Christmas a couple years. We had a couple Population Division programmers detailed to DCD for the Decennial Census editing and post processing. Good guys. Very bright.
We were running Sperry Univac mainframes at the time. I learned it’s assembler language in my spare time, and wrote some popular utilities, that became popular throughout Census (like Biorythms), which brought me to the attention of the chief of the Systems Software Branch, who tried to offer me a job. Nope! Got nuked by our Associate Director until maybe 1982 (Decennial post processing). The guy who tried to hire me mentioned me to a friend of his who worked for Univac, who proceeded to offer me a job. I was a GS-11 at the time, and he sat there with the Civil Service salary table in front of him, and offered me 10% over what a GS-12 made. I jumped at it. I liked working at Census, esp on the Decennial Census, but systems programming was more to my liking. Turns out Sperry kept me in the same building, with NOAA but over one wing (7th wing) and up one floor. NOAA had their big Weather Bureau (IBM) computers over in FOB2.
Stayed in the same coffee club, and socialized with DCD programmers, until I managed a transfer to Fort Collins, CO, in early 1982, working at USDA’S (then) Fort Collins Computer Center (another UNIVAC shop). Fairly quickly got a DOE Q Clearance, and ended up as second level support for 1100 OS, and esp data communications support for all the DOE sites west of the Mississippi. Got to work at almost a half dozen DOE sites, but primarily Sandia in Albuquerque. Until I left Sperry, I was officially in charge of the office there, because I had a Master’s degree (MBA). The guy we had there permanently didn’t even have a BS degree, and Sandia was like that – you needed a Master’s degree to get in the door, and they were willing to pay extra to have a supervisor with a Master’s degree. Interestingly, 35 years later, they offered my daughter a job there after she got a PhD. She turned it down because of a fear that you weren’t as salable outside government contracting once you had gone to the classified side. Sandia’s mission had changed significantly during those intervening years – from nuclear device trigger designs to renewable energy. If she had taken that job, it would have been with an eye to a jump to NREL, in CO, about 5 miles from where I had grown up.
When I was with Sperry (later Unisys), I worked for Government Systems. Got to visit a number of other government computer sites. This included the IRS data center in Detroit for a couple weeks, a couple of times. Most depressing place I ever worked as a programmer. Miles of linoleum halls, with WW II surplus metal desks (like I had at Census and NOAA). Invariably stayed across the River, in Windsor (Canada), because even then downtown Detroit looked like a bombed out war zone. Good friend went to law school there in the latter 1980s, and was shot at a couple times.
To all laid-off and fired government workers:
Welcome to the party, pal.
I think people are starting to wake up to the tactics of the left and appeals to emotion don’t have the impact they used to have.
People are empathetic of the plight of laid of workers, sure…but anyone who’s spent any time in the work force has likely faced the situation themselves, I know of no one who was weeping over my plight when the contract I was working got canceled and I was laid off.
Basically, it was inconvenient and stressful, but I had planned ahead, had enough savings to see me through it and was diligent about finding a new job (versus sitting around crying about my plight) and it wasn’t a disaster.
Am I sympathetic to their plight from a purely human “I understand your pain” standpoint? Sure. Am I sorry we voted for the team that decided to stop paying their salaries out of the money we earn with our labor? Not a bit.
If 60 minutes is expecting us to realize the error of our ways, reverse course and reinstate billions (or trillions) of waste of OUR money…they’re going to be sorely disappointed.
There are two types of true USAID employees, outside of contractors and personal service contractors. 1) Commissioned State Dept Officers with world wide availability – there used to be about 4000 of these 2) Government GS employees – no idea how many there are now. Standard for 1) is up or out, the bottom performance 5% are out every year. 2) follows standard government, that is no performance norms and no requirement for overseas eligibility. When USIA was folded into the State Dept more than 20 years ago, its officers were transferred to State, which I believe has the same up or out standards as AID. Also there have been RIFs in USaid, last one in the 80’s aimed at mostly economists and other tech types who were focused on development and not on “education” and “democracy”. Prior to this, USAID hired more technical people and fewer generalist than State.
State and USAID always had IT Staff on contract – at the time they could not pay enough to get even adequate IT work, much less good.
https://x.com/elonmusk/status/1891385535681204396
Possibly not totally telling the truth or maybe frauds?
With 60 Minutes reputation very possibility
I don’t think it matters whether the story is sympathetic or not.
The situation was just so untenable that we need to go big or go home with draining the swamp.
That means cuts being made even to departments that you think are necessary and/or doing good things. We can’t get caught up in sympathy for the 23 year old who just found out that his dream job no longer exists or the lifelong do-gooder who was just trying to help mountain communities in Nepal. It is what it is. Change needs to come. And most of us voted for change. Not “cheap eggs.”
In the spirit of “cry me a river” (Aside: Ella’s good, but Julie London’s version is the ne plus ultra) to laid-off government employees- my tale: (one of 3 times I was RIFed)
In the late 60’s, I was on my second job out of college when the company had a financial crisis. The word descends from mahogany row: 10% across the board. 17 in the department; boss, 11 engineers and 5 techs. Long story short, in the next 3 months we had 6 rounds of “10% across the board”. In each one, one or two people would get the ax. It finally caught me on the last one, which left the department at 9 bodies. It was like Agatha Christie’s _Ten Little Indians_. I had a wife and a kid that just had his first birthday, and it took 2 months and a move of 2000 miles to get a new job.
To all those federal drones -I had a summer job with the Corps of Engineers and saw more goldbricking there than in my 52 years in the private sector – … welcome to the club.
I do sympathize, but that doesn’t mean I want them kept on the job. Good terms were offered to those who chose to leave, I thought the terms were generous and would give folks time to adjust.
“I took a very generous buyout and retired at 51 and kept my health insurance. How many people in the private sector have such opportunities?”
Except for people in the C Suite, virtually no one.
AesopFan on February 18, 2025 at 3:16 am said:
“… that there is no there there.”
Yes, there clearly has to be some value added to make SFA work, although it can involve only your personal viewpoint and not that of a boss, etc. The subtext of all this is that we all have some set of capabilities, skills, talent, etc., [aka “DIVERSITY!!”] and that sometimes we need help just recognizing what they are. As often as not, someone getting RIF’d is actually to their net benefit, even if they don’t appreciate it at the time. Their subpar performance shows they don’t have their “heart and soul” in it, and really should seek to do something else.
Certainly better to lose your employment status [I almost wrote “your job”] than your freedom. From what Karmi has provided to us herein, it appears that criminality was a skill set that worked moderately well for him, … until it didn’t.
Karmi on February 18, 2025 at 8:01 am said:
“Somewhere over the next 3-5 years I realized that I was born to be a Criminal.”
Now, as an ex-criminal he demonstrates considerable skills in computer building and testing, and some analytical ability sorting out Trump’s performance into + and – groups. And keeping his cool under verbal combat.
Lee Also on February 18, 2025 at 7:13 pm said:
“… retired at 51 and kept my health insurance. How many people in the private sector have such opportunities?”
Except for people in the C Suite, virtually no one.
But a focus on making and saving money, with the goal of retiring at a relatively young age [with or without health insurance] is an option open to more people than take full advantage of it. Not necessarily a goal that appeals to many as they end up on some other path in life instead, not willing to make the sacrifices required. Or they follow a less aggressive savings and investment regime, but retire later.
We generally no longer have pensions for retirement, but IRAs and 401Ks and personal investment portfolios are available. Maximizing them and remaining frugal can carry you a long way, at least if your core income is decent and not truly marginal.
No.