Government employee thread! (Being a government employee is sweet) (1 Viewer)

[thecatch]

How much worker productivity is being lost while our government employee friends are having to deal with all of this nonsense? I'd posit it's likely well north of the "savings" DOGE claims to have gained.

If your productivity is hampered by writing five high level bullets on what you did last week...then I think that sort of proves out the use case of the emails.

If my job was riding on how some AI engine is going to interpret what I wrote (because presumably my manager knows what I'm doing and not writing this for them), I sure as hell would be spending a whole heck of a lot of time today writing them in a manner that would both show value and not trigger an AI engine.

After reading what power DOGE really has in this case, and the pushback that agency heads - which includes more than one put there by Trump himself - have given, I think my email would honestly (no really, honestly) be:
1. Drove to work
2. Did my morning work
3. Ate lunch
4. Did my afternoon work
5. Drove home from work

I think this is barely one level above jiggling your mouse to confirm to the monitors that you're actually sitting at your WFH desk.

I told someone today I don't think this has anything to do with what you do at work. It's an easy exercise to see who responds to the email. No reply? Your name gets moved into a category. And probably not a category that equals long term government employment. Simple way to cull the herd by another 20,000.

Even if you use AI to look at the drivel you're going to get back, who's going to action it?

Good luck in court arguing that not replying to the email is cause for termination.

 

[Gr00vus]

How much worker productivity is being lost while our government employee friends are having to deal with all of this nonsense? I'd posit it's likely well north of the "savings" DOGE claims to have gained.

If your productivity is hampered by writing five high level bullets on what you did last week...then I think that sort of proves out the use case of the emails.

If my job was riding on how some AI engine is going to interpret what I wrote (because presumably my manager knows what I'm doing and not writing this for them), I sure as hell would be spending a whole heck of a lot of time today writing them in a manner that would both show value and not trigger an AI engine.

After reading what power DOGE really has in this case, and the pushback that agency heads - which includes more than one put there by Trump himself - have given, I think my email would honestly (no really, honestly) be:
1. Drove to work
2. Did my morning work
3. Ate lunch
4. Did my afternoon work
5. Drove home from work

I think this is barely one level above jiggling your mouse to confirm to the monitors that you're actually sitting at your WFH desk.

I told someone today I don't think this has anything to do with what you do at work. It's an easy exercise to see who responds to the email. No reply? Your name gets moved into a category. And probably not a category that equals long term government employment. Simple way to cull the herd by another 20,000.

Even if you use AI to look at the drivel you're going to get back, who's going to action it?

That would be a pretty brain dead approach. There are a lot of legitimate reasons for not sending a response.

 

[belljr]

So apparently they "walked it back"

 

[Andy Dufresne]

I told someone today I don't think this has anything to do with what you do at work. It's an easy exercise to see who responds to the email. No reply? Your name gets moved into a category. And probably not a category that equals long term government employment. Simple way to cull the herd by another 20,000.

Even if you use AI to look at the drivel you're going to get back, who's going to action it?

Seriously, just fire all of DoD and be done with it.

Well he hasn't been compared to Stalin purging his generals yet so may as well check that box while we're at it.

 

[thecatch]

Good luck in court arguing that not replying to the email is cause for termination.

Not my circus but tell me you don't think it's plausible given some of the criteria being used to determine who stays and who goes.

No it's not plausible. Generally, the only career civil service people they can cut loose at will are the probationary people and the people who haven't started yet, which is why they went there first. If they could just fire all these people because they wanted to, they would have done so.

As a reminder, we used to have a government who changed over its entire staff every time there was a change in leadership and we decided that system sucked, which is why we had legislation like the Civil Service Reform Act (it's predecessors, really) that impose limitations on the executive's ability to just come in and clean house and replace everyone with his/her lackeys.

 

[Atomic Punk]

I worked for the Canadian government my entire career, with the last decade running a staff of 280 and a budget over 1Billion. I have gone through this type of exercise twice in my career and fully expect another on the horizon … although that is for some other sucker to worry about since I just retired.

There are obvious efficiencies to be had … and there may even be some fraud. But the method being used will not find either. Communicate the stated goal (10% Staffing level, 15% operating, 20% service contracts … whatever) and let the Branch heads do their thing over a set period of time (2-4 months). When the whining and complaining starts (which I did my share), politely nod and point to the original communique with the stated goals. Somehow we all figured it out and made things work. For those Branches that struggled after the cuts, well they were first in line to get topped up when the @#$! hit the fan.

This isn’t rocket surgery …

 

[FarFromHome]

Communicate the stated goal (10% Staffing level, 15% operating, 20% service contracts … whatever) and let the Branch heads do their thing over a set period of time (2-4 months).

This

 

[Alex P Keaton]

How much worker productivity is being lost while our government employee friends are having to deal with all of this nonsense? I'd posit it's likely well north of the "savings" DOGE claims to have gained.

If your productivity is hampered by writing five high level bullets on what you did last week...then I think that sort of proves out the use case of the emails.

I really hope that the first bullet every person provides is “wrote 5 bulletpoint list of accomplishments for last week.”

 

[SFBayDuck]

Communicate the stated goal (10% Staffing level, 15% operating, 20% service contracts … whatever) and let the Branch heads do their thing over a set period of time (2-4 months).

This

Well that sounds incredibly reasonable.

 

[ghostguy123]

I worked for the Canadian government my entire career, with the last decade running a staff of 280 and a budget over 1Billion. I have gone through this type of exercise twice in my career and fully expect another on the horizon … although that is for some other sucker to worry about since I just retired.

There are obvious efficiencies to be had … and there may even be some fraud. But the method being used will not find either. Communicate the stated goal (10% Staffing level, 15% operating, 20% service contracts … whatever) and let the Branch heads do their thing over a set period of time (2-4 months). When the whining and complaining starts (which I did my share), politely nod and point to the original communique with the stated goals. Somehow we all figured it out and made things work. For those Branches that struggled after the cuts, well they were first in line to get topped up when the @#$! hit the fan.

This isn’t rocket surgery …

Hmmmm, maybe he shoulda set this goal right after the election with a deadline of...say.....Jan 20th or so.

 

[BassNBrew]

so apparently the whole thing was a ruse to see if people were alive. wow what a bunch of ********.

Trump and musk might be the worst leaders in history. Who questions their entire workforce by calling them lazy and idiots and then sends out fake emails / Twitter messages causing tremendous amount of anxiety and fear throughout their entire workforce. not to mention huge amount of government waste with people responding to that fake email.

this is not political they are just hateful idiots. facts.

Dude, please leave this thread since you can't follow the rules. Don't destroy it for the rest of us.

 

[scorchy]

Literal words included in an email from my agency about what to write if we choose to respond:

"Assume that what you write will be read by malign foreign actors..."

 

[Harry Manback]

So apparently they "walked it back"

Did he realize it was a toothless and likely illegal action that was extremely inefficient and outright stupid?

30 employees reading 2 million emails would take years.

 

[Don Quixote]

So apparently they "walked it back"

Did he realize it was a toothless and likely illegal action that was extremely inefficient and outright stupid?

30 employees reading 2 million emails would take years.

Nobody is going to read them all. They are planning to feed it into an AI bot.

 

[belljr]

I spent more time today trying to massage my answer without giving away any actual information that could be used by foreign entities. What a waste of time

 

[FBG Moderator]

so apparently the whole thing was a ruse to see if people were alive. wow what a bunch of ********.

Trump and musk might be the worst leaders in history. Who questions their entire workforce by calling them lazy and idiots and then sends out fake emails / Twitter messages causing tremendous amount of anxiety and fear throughout their entire workforce. not to mention huge amount of government waste with people responding to that fake email.

this is not political they are just hateful idiots. facts.

That'll do it for now. Tired of deleting. We may revisit opening in future.