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Why is it that, whenever some politician yaks about wasteful government spending, they fuss over some wretched little lump of pork in the latest bill? Oh yeah, because the real problem is much more boring. But still:
When I was recruited as a census clerk, I had to go through about ten hours of training. All of it was worthless, pertaining only to the Recruiting Assistants who were also in my class. What little pertained to my job could have been learned much more effectively in ten minutes hands-on. I was one of five clerks taking that training at about $10/hr, plus a new tech officer who presumably earns considerably more, and the assistant manager who had to teach us probably earned the same amount. Result, well over a thousand dollars in tax money spent NOT DOING A DAMNED THING USEFUL.
Upon hiring, I was assigned to recruiting, a rather busy operation given that our office wants about six thousand applicants in the space of a year. The applicants are signed up over the phone to take the mandatory test. We write down their names on paper and stick them in binders. Binders, FFS. If the CEO of a non-government agency in the middle of a massive recruiting drive found his people in charge scribbling notes in binders in the year 2010, I assume he would axe several people and get a sensible database to keep track of all this. I imagine we could buy and set up a reasonable dedicated system for the cost of not-training ten clerks. But we don't, so we have problems with people getting signed up for canceled testing sessions, five sessions with two people each on the same damned day, etc.
Less than a month ago, my office got an order from Philadelphia (the higher office) that I-9 identity forms are no longer to be stored with applicants' other paperwork. We have about 2500 applicants, but okay. We went through all the folders, taking about 15 man-hours to separate the I-9s and alphabetize them. Sometime this week, a second order came down that I-9s are now to be stored with the other paperwork. Yay!
There are many more examples if for some reason you want them, but my point is, if this kind of crap is found throughout the federal government (and my fed retiree dad assures me it is), we could probably get by on two-thirds of our present budget by just not acting all ex-governor-of-Alaska'd. We're bleeding money from a million tiny cuts, not to mention the absurd hiring process that all but ensures incompetents will be hired. Are the governments of other countries like this?
When I was recruited as a census clerk, I had to go through about ten hours of training. All of it was worthless, pertaining only to the Recruiting Assistants who were also in my class. What little pertained to my job could have been learned much more effectively in ten minutes hands-on. I was one of five clerks taking that training at about $10/hr, plus a new tech officer who presumably earns considerably more, and the assistant manager who had to teach us probably earned the same amount. Result, well over a thousand dollars in tax money spent NOT DOING A DAMNED THING USEFUL.
Upon hiring, I was assigned to recruiting, a rather busy operation given that our office wants about six thousand applicants in the space of a year. The applicants are signed up over the phone to take the mandatory test. We write down their names on paper and stick them in binders. Binders, FFS. If the CEO of a non-government agency in the middle of a massive recruiting drive found his people in charge scribbling notes in binders in the year 2010, I assume he would axe several people and get a sensible database to keep track of all this. I imagine we could buy and set up a reasonable dedicated system for the cost of not-training ten clerks. But we don't, so we have problems with people getting signed up for canceled testing sessions, five sessions with two people each on the same damned day, etc.
Less than a month ago, my office got an order from Philadelphia (the higher office) that I-9 identity forms are no longer to be stored with applicants' other paperwork. We have about 2500 applicants, but okay. We went through all the folders, taking about 15 man-hours to separate the I-9s and alphabetize them. Sometime this week, a second order came down that I-9s are now to be stored with the other paperwork. Yay!
There are many more examples if for some reason you want them, but my point is, if this kind of crap is found throughout the federal government (and my fed retiree dad assures me it is), we could probably get by on two-thirds of our present budget by just not acting all ex-governor-of-Alaska'd. We're bleeding money from a million tiny cuts, not to mention the absurd hiring process that all but ensures incompetents will be hired. Are the governments of other countries like this?
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