Government employee thread! (Being a government employee is sweet) (2 Viewers)

[Capella]

A person might think the sentiment, "I'm in favor of cuts, but this seems like the wrong way to do it" would be easy to grasp, but that person would be wrong.

Yea I think I’m gonna move on from this thread, at least in terms of any real discussion. Too many people being purposefully obtuse. Almost everybody has come in and said some cuts would be good.

 

[Orange&Blue]

And to be clear I'm all for cutting the dead weight.

It's the constant barrage of we are lazy, we suck, we don't actually work and random email blasts that are making people "crazy" and firing new hires only because and telling them it was because of poor performance

You want true outside independent auditors, cool go through each agency and do it.

It's unfortunate that the the dedicated are lumped in with the dead weight.

And Musk's methods aren't how I would go about it. But at present, the bar has been set pretty low with "Give an answer. Any one will do."

Again we have not been given any direction that "give an answer, any one will do"

There has been NOTHING.

Employees should not need twitter for formalThe email was sent from

And to be clear I'm all for cutting the dead weight.

It's the constant barrage of we are lazy, we suck, we don't actually work and random email blasts that are making people "crazy" and firing new hires only because and telling them it was because of poor performance

You want true outside independent auditors, cool go through each agency and do it.

It's unfortunate that the the dedicated are lumped in with the dead weight.

And Musk's methods aren't how I would go about it. But at present, the bar has been set pretty low with "Give an answer. Any one will do."

Again we have not been given any direction that "give an answer, any one will do"

There has been NOTHING.

Employees should not need twitter for formal directions.

All right. I'm seeing where that would be frustrating. I still think that the question is right to ask even if it's not being asked "correctly".

I'd be interested in seeing the actual email.

Chris Geidner (@chrisgeidner.bsky.social)

BREAKING: As Elon Musk said on X would be happening, I can now report that all federal employees are receiving an email directing them to provide “approx. 5 bullets of what you accomplished last week.” It directs them not to send any classified information and is due by 11:59p Monday.

bsky.app

And it's flagged as outside servers

Okay. Let me sum up.

How this is being asked is dumb.

The reaction of "how dare this question be asked by this guy" is also bad.

I empathize with those doing a good and valuable job that don't know what the heck they're supposed to do about this.

Agree but unfortunately as an employee we don’t get to decide how things are done. Have had several streamline agencies come in and recommend a list of changes that to me seem stupid and like they have no idea how things are really run. You do what you’re asked or basically find another job is how it usually shakes out.

did your job involve the nations defense?

No but it involves HIPAA laws. It’s the president of the country or his direct appointees asking for the info. It’s not like you’re being asked by the janitor.

no offense, but those aren't close to the same level of impact.

Is it? Last week they said musk wasn't an employee of DOGE and isn't an administrator. Not to mention the email came from an outside organization and flagged by almost every IT system.

 

[the moops]

No but it involves HIPAA laws. It’s the president of the country or his direct appointees asking for the info. It’s not like you’re being asked by the janitor.

Can't you at least admit that the way this was asked was, let's say haphazard?

 

[Orange&Blue]

think I'll take a break as well

 

[BrutalPenguin]

I have seen, in a private tech F500 company, an edict that every first line manager with 10+ employees has to pick 2 to lay off. To me, that seems to have parallels to what's happening now.

But that's not what is happening at all. There is no manager getting to choose who to let go of. This is not weeding out unproductive employees it is weeding out a percent regardless of their performance

I was more referring to the arbitrariness of the layoffs.
Underperformers in smaller groups were spared.
Underperformers in groups with worse performers were spared
Exceptional performers in groups of other exceptional performers got laid off

It's not to the same degree, but certainly arbitrary.

 

[fruity pebbles]

No but it involves HIPAA laws. It’s the president of the country or his direct appointees asking for the info. It’s not like you’re being asked by the janitor.

Can't you at least admit that the way this was asked was, let's say haphazard?

Absolutely

 

[fruity pebbles]

I’m going to back out of the thread as well. My goal wasn’t to be antagonistic to those going through this.

 

[Dan Lambskin]

I have seen, in a private tech F500 company, an edict that every first line manager with 10+ employees has to pick 2 to lay off. To me, that seems to have parallels to what's happening now.

Also, I have manager level info that an employee that moved on from said company, was being paid, or at least being sent paychecks, for 3 pay periods beyond his departure.

These things seem to happen in both private and government work.

Yeah that’s how it works where I’m at VPs get told “I need 5 heads “ or whatever and then usually C players and those close to retirement age get cut

 

[Don Quixote]

If you want to understand some of the issues with the bullet e-mail, this article describes the conflicting and unclear approaches various departments/agencies are taking with respect to the request. Some are telling people to respond; some are telling people NOT to respond; some are telling to people to prepare something, but don’t submit anything until further guidance is given. Guidance is also contradictory in some cases because FBI was one of those telling its employees not to respond, but DoJ (of which FBI is a part) is telling its employees to respond.

 

[AAABatteries]

I'm frankly bewildered by all this.

What sort of Kafkaesque world have we created where asking someone the Office Space question of "What would you say...you do here?" results in this level hysterics?

Anyone with a job should be able to answer that. What would these people say about places where I worked where I had to give a status report and timesheet of every hour and activity I worked... Every single week?

The justification of non-response seems to be "One of the benefits of taking a government job is that I don't have to explain when and what I'm actually doing." That just doesn't make sense to me.

(I realize this is more of a generality than the specific topic of SS fraud some are focusing on here.)

I’m not personally up in arms about it - but if employers don’t know what their people are doing then that’s on them, not the employee. But I’m constantly amazed at my own job how incompetent the leaders are so I’m not surprised that our governmental leaders are just as incompetent.

 

[3C's]

I mean just look at the first page of this thread. About a guy trying to get hired by the government and everybody warning him it's not a quick process. It took someone a full year. Just to hire someone. In the private sector that takes 5 minutes. Then a half day for orientation, they can be working by lunchtime.

Not saying the guys in charge are doing it right or not, but, there is a ton of waiste in our government. I'm glad someone is trying.

Fortune 100 employee here. After some time waiting for an approved job req, then initial interviews, I did technical interviews in early Sept of last year. The first new employee started work almost 2 months later, then spent several weeks in orientation(s). One of the other interviewees started 2 weeks ago.

 

[AAABatteries]

I'm frankly bewildered by all this.

What sort of Kafkaesque world have we created where asking someone the Office Space question of "What would you say...you do here?" results in this level hysterics?

Anyone with a job should be able to answer that. What would these people say about places where I worked where I had to give a status report and timesheet of every hour and activity I worked... Every single week?

The justification of non-response seems to be "One of the benefits of taking a government job is that I don't have to explain when and what I'm actually doing." That just doesn't make sense to me.

(I realize this is more of a generality than the specific topic of SS fraud some are focusing on here.)

I’m not personally up in arms about it - but if employers don’t know what their people are doing then that’s on them, not the employee. But I’m constantly amazed at my own job how incompetent the leaders are so I’m not surprised that our governmental leaders are just as incompetent.

Another way to say it - if an email went out saying please give five bullet points about each of your direct reports and what they do - that’s a-ok in my book.

 

[thecatch]

I'm frankly bewildered by all this.

What sort of Kafkaesque world have we created where asking someone the Office Space question of "What would you say...you do here?" results in this level hysterics?

Anyone with a job should be able to answer that. What would these people say about places where I worked where I had to give a status report and timesheet of every hour and activity I worked... Every single week?

The justification of non-response seems to be "One of the benefits of taking a government job is that I don't have to explain when and what I'm actually doing." That just doesn't make sense to me.

(I realize this is more of a generality than the specific topic of SS fraud some are focusing on here.)

You think there’s someone at OPM preparing to sit down a read all these submissions with the requisite experience and expertise to evaluate whether the submission indicates the person is doing a valuable job? No, of course not, because that would be ludicrous. Layer on top of that there a significant percentage can’t be fired without cause even if they didn’t have a busy week, and all the security and classified materials that would come up in response to this requests, and it’s readily apparent it’s not a good faith effort to cut wasteful spending. This is an immature effort to harass workers the government can’t fire in an effort to make them quit. And in the process of doing so they are alienating and demoralizing people who work tirelessly every day to keep you from being killed by criminals, terrorists, and foreign adversaries. I’m a small government advocate who has previously lamented in this thread how difficult it is to fire incompetent government employees, but this is one of the dumbest governmental efforts I’ve seen in my lifetime. Even Kash Patel thinks this is insane.

 

[Balco]

Sure. But they still have to submit timesheets. I have no doubt there may be questionable SS checks going out.

How you get 3 levels of approved timesheets to pay a dead person every 2 weeks seems unlikely. If they uncover some sort of shenanigans great but I'm sure family members would have put in to collect the life insurance policy and managers we just keep rolling with it?

Obviously any identity theft/fraud scheme would be designed to circumvent in-place checks and balances. It could also possibly be occurring past the human level and at the system level

This whole thing started with someone saying this type of fraud was "ludicrous." And if it's a consensus of you saying it's impossible then that's fine.

But like I said my money is on there being some fire with the smoke given the amount of bank and other financial fraud that occurs where there are also plenty of checks and balances.

Happy to leave it there

I don't think we need to just leave it here. We should discuss these things. I shouldn't have used the word ludicrous - I will refrain from such language going forward.

I do think that we are trying to compare two vastly different things. Just because they both fall under the feds and under payments, i don't think they need to be discussed together.

I actually wouldn't be surprised if there is social security fraud. I just have a hard time figuring out how dead people are getting current paychecks from the feds, when as many have pointed out, it would need to involve several layers of fraud/incompetence/ignorance/etc.

Was he referring to pension checks going to dead people? I work for the state and I cannot think of how it is possible a dead worker would be getting money. And we utilize COBOL as well (in the process of transitioning away from it).

 

[the moops]

Was he referring to pension checks going to dead people?

No. This is what he said/typed

The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud.

 

[Balco]

Was he referring to pension checks going to dead people?

No. This is what he said/typed

The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud.

Oh mylanta. I nean for this to happen a person in HRM or payroll would have to do something nefarious. Could it happen on a small scale? Sure, that scale being around 50 instances in the entire workforce and it would have to be for the reasons I mentioned. There are so many safeguards against this.

 

[BassNBrew]

I'm frankly bewildered by all this.

What sort of Kafkaesque world have we created where asking someone the Office Space question of "What would you say...you do here?" results in this level hysterics?

Anyone with a job should be able to answer that. What would these people say about places where I worked where I had to give a status report and timesheet of every hour and activity I worked... Every single week?

The justification of non-response seems to be "One of the benefits of taking a government job is that I don't have to explain when and what I'm actually doing." That just doesn't make sense to me.

(I realize this is more of a generality than the specific topic of SS fraud some are focusing on here.)

You think there’s someone at OPM preparing to sit down a read all these submissions with the requisite experience and expertise to evaluate whether the submission indicates the person is doing a valuable job? No, of course not, because that would be ludicrous. Layer on top of that there a significant percentage can’t be fired without cause even if they didn’t have a busy week, and all the security and classified materials that would come up in response to this requests, and it’s readily apparent it’s not a good faith effort to cut wasteful spending. This is an immature effort to harass workers the government can’t fire in an effort to make them quit. And in the process of doing so they are alienating and demoralizing people who work tirelessly every day to keep you from being killed by criminals, terrorists, and foreign adversaries. I’m a small government advocate who has previously lamented in this thread how difficult it is to fire incompetent government employees, but this is one of the dumbest governmental efforts I’ve seen in my lifetime. Even Kash Patel thinks this is insane.

Any worse than this?

https://www.barrons.com/articles/jamie-dimon-leaked-audio-jpmorgan-return-to-office-7064ee64

 

[KarmaPolice]

You could make an argument that this is a coincidence of sorts. I don't want to discuss it politically here, but the reputation of the parties is certainly small govt conservatism vs big government spending - so of course if you're just tracking waste, you'd look at all the stuff you think is wasteful first, which would likely be anything that extends beyond the "small govt" ideology.

I think it would be difficult to untangle the two because, for example, one persons idea of waste could be "not achieving the agency's mission in the most efficient possible manner" while another could be "anything in support of a mission that in itself is wasteful".

The FFA probably isn't the place for debating what is or isn't a wasteful mission, but I don't think it's remotely ground breaking, surprising, or sinister that things might line up that way quickly in execution of a huge waste reduction initiative.

Thank you.

I agree with you this doesn't seem groundbreaking it would line up this way.

And please, let's drop it there and keep this to the topic of non partisan information and helping people affected by this navigate. The "what is wasteful spending" or "look at how dumb these people are" stuff is political forum talk.

Please let's keep this thread alive if possible and avoid taking it there.

I'm glad you popped in here because I want to ask a couple tough questions and you are the guy to set the narrative or keep us on track

-#1 I've seen it with people from ALL walks of life on the TV, ALL Networks...with these potential mass layoffs, many of us have family members that we do not associate with a particular political party. They are just regular people like the rest of us. And some of these people are being shown the door or walked out or asked to voluntarily resign.

How do you accept that innocent folks are having their entire lives turned upside down?
It feels very unsettling, my brother has worked for Veterans Affairs for years and I'm afraid that time is coming to an end. He is in IT-CyberSecurity so I have no doubt he will land on his feet but that choice should not have been forced on him IMHO. He sacrifices a lot of potential paycheck by working as a government employee and part of that his dedication to other Veterans that have put their lives on the line so we can all enjoy the freedoms of this country. My brother was a Navy Corpsman

#2 Is it natural to support some of these cuts in government while at the same time also feeling disturbed by some of the folks that are being forced out of their careers?

I believe that is as far as I can really take it. I just want others out there going thru this either themselves or family members, you're not alone.
I am concerned many of these folks are likely living paycheck to paycheck, people with families/children could lose their homes as this unfolds.

Thanks JB

It’s interesting to watch how this is being viewed when this happens in the private sector every day. It’s accepted because, “Capitalism”, but we expect more from government. And maybe that is the discussion - should government be run like a for-profit organization? I suppose you can then have a discussion around the morality of Capitalism.

I think it should largely be. Large layoffs have been happening in the private sector for a couple years now with no notice or recourse and like you said nobody cared. Is it the process or the layoffs themselves in government that are causing people to be up in arms?

That is the core fundamental difference. IMO we can't treat them the same. Not everything can be looked at through the lens of profit and efficiency, especially when we are talking about basic needs for people or protections for the citizens.

I can't speak for others, but what makes me angry about the situation is to me it is clear it is not about efficiency or getting more bang for the buck for the taxpayers. Very few of the steps taken seem to point to that being the case from my POV. I am all about cutting corruption and waste, but that is not what seems to be going on.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

I'm frankly bewildered by all this.

What sort of Kafkaesque world have we created where asking someone the Office Space question of "What would you say...you do here?" results in this level hysterics?

Anyone with a job should be able to answer that. What would these people say about places where I worked where I had to give a status report and timesheet of every hour and activity I worked... Every single week?

The justification of non-response seems to be "One of the benefits of taking a government job is that I don't have to explain when and what I'm actually doing." That just doesn't make sense to me.

(I realize this is more of a generality than the specific topic of SS fraud some are focusing on here.)

You think there’s someone at OPM preparing to sit down a read all these submissions with the requisite experience and expertise to evaluate whether the submission indicates the person is doing a valuable job? No, of course not, because that would be ludicrous. Layer on top of that there a significant percentage can’t be fired without cause even if they didn’t have a busy week, and all the security and classified materials that would come up in response to this requests, and it’s readily apparent it’s not a good faith effort to cut wasteful spending. This is an immature effort to harass workers the government can’t fire in an effort to make them quit. And in the process of doing so they are alienating and demoralizing people who work tirelessly every day to keep you from being killed by criminals, terrorists, and foreign adversaries. I’m a small government advocate who has previously lamented in this thread how difficult it is to fire incompetent government employees, but this is one of the dumbest governmental efforts I’ve seen in my lifetime. Even Kash Patel thinks this is insane.

Agreed that it's ludicrous. This isn't a job evaluation.

Disagree that this is harassing at all. And if it is to the point that it would cause someone to quit their job, that is also ludicrous.

This is a matter if low hanging fruit. As in, "Let's see who doesn't respond at all and start there."

Once again let me reiterate that I will agree that this was not a good way to go about this.

 

[fatness]

Fwiw, the cuts to DoD are probably starting this week. As a pragmatic matter, It’s more challenging to cut the larger agencies including DoD.

To be faaaaair, we got similar news last weekend about the DOD cuts, so maybe it'll happen this week and maybe not.

I hope not. I'd rather preserve jobs until it's know which ones are superfluous, and cut some large defense projects that are only funded because of pressure from one or a few Congressmen whose districts will benefit from those projects. The projects are in the interest of their districts so of course those Congressmen have to press for them. But the projects are not all in the national interest, and far more waste can be cut there than in these blind job cuts.

 

[fatness]

Last year when my father passed away, instead of converting my living mother's SS paychecks as surviving spouse to my father's higher amount, the gov't shut down both SS accounts and my mother was left with zero income for six months before it got resolved.

We got social security checks for my 80 year old grandfather for 15 months after his death in spite of us reporting them repeatedly (15 times) and not cashing them. Just kept coming.

Can we please get it straight that receiving Social Security checks is not the same as receiving paychecks from the federal government?
One is "you paid in all your life and now here's your automatic check every month" spit out automatically.
The other is "OK, you say you worked X hours, your supervisor checked and verified this, you're approved to receive your paycheck."

If somebody wants to start a thread on Social Security "fraud" than start another topic, because it has nothing to do with federal paychecks.

 

[fatness]

And Musk's methods aren't how I would go about it. But at present, the bar has been set pretty low with "Give an answer. Any one will do."

I'm not sure we know the second part is true.

 

[thecatch]

I'm frankly bewildered by all this.

What sort of Kafkaesque world have we created where asking someone the Office Space question of "What would you say...you do here?" results in this level hysterics?

Anyone with a job should be able to answer that. What would these people say about places where I worked where I had to give a status report and timesheet of every hour and activity I worked... Every single week?

The justification of non-response seems to be "One of the benefits of taking a government job is that I don't have to explain when and what I'm actually doing." That just doesn't make sense to me.

(I realize this is more of a generality than the specific topic of SS fraud some are focusing on here.)

You think there’s someone at OPM preparing to sit down a read all these submissions with the requisite experience and expertise to evaluate whether the submission indicates the person is doing a valuable job? No, of course not, because that would be ludicrous. Layer on top of that there a significant percentage can’t be fired without cause even if they didn’t have a busy week, and all the security and classified materials that would come up in response to this requests, and it’s readily apparent it’s not a good faith effort to cut wasteful spending. This is an immature effort to harass workers the government can’t fire in an effort to make them quit. And in the process of doing so they are alienating and demoralizing people who work tirelessly every day to keep you from being killed by criminals, terrorists, and foreign adversaries. I’m a small government advocate who has previously lamented in this thread how difficult it is to fire incompetent government employees, but this is one of the dumbest governmental efforts I’ve seen in my lifetime. Even Kash Patel thinks this is insane.

Agreed that it's ludicrous. This isn't a job evaluation.

Disagree that this is harassing at all. And if it is to the point that it would cause someone to quit their job, that is also ludicrous.

This is a matter if low hanging fruit. As in, "Let's see who doesn't respond at all and start there."

Once again let me reiterate that I will agree that this was not a good way to go about this.

What are you going to be able to do with the people who don’t answer? Nothing. Particularly when coupled with the prior communications these emails are 100% harassing. There’s no redeeming quality to this plan even if you subscribe to the goal of trimming a percentage of the federal workforce regardless of where those reductions are from.

 

[Instinctive]

Last year when my father passed away, instead of converting my living mother's SS paychecks as surviving spouse to my father's higher amount, the gov't shut down both SS accounts and my mother was left with zero income for six months before it got resolved.

We got social security checks for my 80 year old grandfather for 15 months after his death in spite of us reporting them repeatedly (15 times) and not cashing them. Just kept coming.

Can we please get it straight that receiving Social Security checks is not the same as receiving paychecks from the federal government?
One is "you paid in all your life and now here's your automatic check every month" spit out automatically.
The other is "OK, you say you worked X hours, your supervisor checked and verified this, you're approved to receive your paycheck."

If somebody wants to start a thread on Social Security "fraud" than start another topic, because it has nothing to do with federal paychecks.

Yeah. It's different. But y'all really believe too much in the "two people gotta approve a timesheet so it's impossible anyone is overlooking stuff or committing fraud" line.

It's plenty logical that if there's mismanagement and/or fraud in one area of sending out money that it exists in others. It's worth checking. People obviously feel that way, so insulting them with words like "ludicrous" is a bad look.

Especially when it's just not that important for exempt employees. I'm sure 80+% of all the supervisors and timekeepers are diligent and look over everything and are just totally outstanding stand up workers. But 20% of people tend to be responsible for 80% of any problem, and reputation would suggest it's reasonable to think some number are lazy, incompetent, or fraudulent.

It's not unreasonable for anyone to have that stance and check. It sucks the way they're doing it so haphazardly and aggressively that great people, like I'm sure every federal FBG is, are getting caught up, stressed out, and having to deal with this.

Just like any aggressive turnaround situation run by people who aren't turnaround experts at the top, it's going to be really challenging. It'll go a lot better in real life and on here if people take a step back, breathe, and be more kind to others.

 

[Max Power]

I'm not concerned about DoD cuts from the perspective of my command. We already took a pretty large manpower reduction that started in 2022 and continues to 2026. Capabilities have already been cut to the point where we have to say "no" at times during crisis response.

Additional manpower cuts would severely limit our global response and I can't imagine any administration wanting that on their watch.

We have a lot of room to tighten up our innovation budget though. We have countless projects that never make it into operations and projects that are basically duplicate capabilities to what other sections of the DoD is already doing.

 

[dgreen]

Was he referring to pension checks going to dead people?

No. This is what he said/typed

The reason this matters is that a significant number of people who are supposed to be working for the government are doing so little work that they are not checking their email at all!In some cases, we believe non-existent people or the identities of dead people are being used to collect paychecks. In other words, there is outright fraud.

What’s the context of this? Is this the justification for the latest email?

 

[SayWhat?]

This is a matter if low hanging fruit. As in, "Let's see who doesn't respond at all and start there."

The inherent flaw in this is that the more significant/important my USG job, the less likely I am to respond to this nonsense that Musk sent out. So no, you’re not tackling the low hanging fruit. You’re not weeding out anything. There’s zero that can be accomplished by this email other than waste people’s time and/or terminate jobs indiscriminately.

 

[-OZ-]

Fwiw https://www.foxnews.com/politics/do...ignore-elon-musks-request-report-productivity

The Department of Defense (DOD) told its civilian workforce to ignore billionaire and head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk’s request to report their productivity.

In a letter to DOD personnel, Darin S. Selnick, who is performing the duties of the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, provided guidance on how to handle Musk’s demand through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

"DoD personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information. The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures," Selnick wrote. "When and if required, the Department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM. For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled, ‘What did you do last week.’"

 

[3C's]

Considering my occasional tendency to be a malcontent, I'd probably reply as such:

What did I accomplish last week?

I found Waldo
Determined that the egg came before the chicken
Confirmed that right Twix and left Twix are the same
Discovered that you can not wake up dead
Came to the conclusion that you really can't take or do everything in moderation

 

[AAABatteries]

Fwiw https://www.foxnews.com/politics/do...ignore-elon-musks-request-report-productivity

The Department of Defense (DOD) told its civilian workforce to ignore billionaire and head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk’s request to report their productivity.

In a letter to DOD personnel, Darin S. Selnick, who is performing the duties of the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, provided guidance on how to handle Musk’s demand through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

"DoD personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information. The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures," Selnick wrote. "When and if required, the Department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM. For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled, ‘What did you do last week.’"

It's still totally unfathomable to me that this was supposed to be some coherent plan to make government more efficient. As others have said, if I received an email with that as the title, I'm probably deleting it without even reading the body because in the rational world that's a spam email 99/100.

 

[the moops]

But y'all really believe too much in the "two people gotta approve a timesheet so it's impossible anyone is overlooking stuff or committing fraud" line.

Stuff absolutely can get overlooked. I don't work in government, but approve timesheets for 12 people and I honestly can say I don't look at the hours super close. But you know what I would notice? I would notice if someone who didn't work for me was submitting hours. Or I would notice if someone who recently passed away was still submitting hours

 

[Max Power]

Fwiw https://www.foxnews.com/politics/do...ignore-elon-musks-request-report-productivity

The Department of Defense (DOD) told its civilian workforce to ignore billionaire and head of the Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) Elon Musk’s request to report their productivity.

In a letter to DOD personnel, Darin S. Selnick, who is performing the duties of the undersecretary of defense for personnel and readiness, provided guidance on how to handle Musk’s demand through the Office of Personnel Management (OPM).

"DoD personnel may have received an email from OPM requesting information. The Department of Defense is responsible for reviewing the performance of its personnel and it will conduct any review in accordance with its own procedures," Selnick wrote. "When and if required, the Department will coordinate responses to the email you have received from OPM. For now, please pause any response to the OPM email titled, ‘What did you do last week.’"

We're going to push the same generic reply for all unit members. This seems to have received the go ahead from the commanding general.

I still think DoD wasn't the "target" of this email.

 

[Ministry of Pain]

You could make an argument that this is a coincidence of sorts. I don't want to discuss it politically here, but the reputation of the parties is certainly small govt conservatism vs big government spending - so of course if you're just tracking waste, you'd look at all the stuff you think is wasteful first, which would likely be anything that extends beyond the "small govt" ideology.

I think it would be difficult to untangle the two because, for example, one persons idea of waste could be "not achieving the agency's mission in the most efficient possible manner" while another could be "anything in support of a mission that in itself is wasteful".

The FFA probably isn't the place for debating what is or isn't a wasteful mission, but I don't think it's remotely ground breaking, surprising, or sinister that things might line up that way quickly in execution of a huge waste reduction initiative.

Thank you.

I agree with you this doesn't seem groundbreaking it would line up this way.

And please, let's drop it there and keep this to the topic of non partisan information and helping people affected by this navigate. The "what is wasteful spending" or "look at how dumb these people are" stuff is political forum talk.

Please let's keep this thread alive if possible and avoid taking it there.

I'm glad you popped in here because I want to ask a couple tough questions and you are the guy to set the narrative or keep us on track

-#1 I've seen it with people from ALL walks of life on the TV, ALL Networks...with these potential mass layoffs, many of us have family members that we do not associate with a particular political party. They are just regular people like the rest of us. And some of these people are being shown the door or walked out or asked to voluntarily resign.

How do you accept that innocent folks are having their entire lives turned upside down?
It feels very unsettling, my brother has worked for Veterans Affairs for years and I'm afraid that time is coming to an end. He is in IT-CyberSecurity so I have no doubt he will land on his feet but that choice should not have been forced on him IMHO. He sacrifices a lot of potential paycheck by working as a government employee and part of that his dedication to other Veterans that have put their lives on the line so we can all enjoy the freedoms of this country. My brother was a Navy Corpsman

#2 Is it natural to support some of these cuts in government while at the same time also feeling disturbed by some of the folks that are being forced out of their careers?

I believe that is as far as I can really take it. I just want others out there going thru this either themselves or family members, you're not alone.
I am concerned many of these folks are likely living paycheck to paycheck, people with families/children could lose their homes as this unfolds.

Thanks JB

It’s interesting to watch how this is being viewed when this happens in the private sector every day. It’s accepted because, “Capitalism”, but we expect more from government. And maybe that is the discussion - should government be run like a for-profit organization? I suppose you can then have a discussion around the morality of Capitalism.

I can only speak for myself but I have a huge problem with how many companies have almost no loyalty to their employees. If that’s a byproduct of capitalism then I’m fine with saying capitalism can **** right off. Greed is ruining our country and the world in general - although, same as day 1.

Well said

 

[Ministry of Pain]

You could make an argument that this is a coincidence of sorts. I don't want to discuss it politically here, but the reputation of the parties is certainly small govt conservatism vs big government spending - so of course if you're just tracking waste, you'd look at all the stuff you think is wasteful first, which would likely be anything that extends beyond the "small govt" ideology.

I think it would be difficult to untangle the two because, for example, one persons idea of waste could be "not achieving the agency's mission in the most efficient possible manner" while another could be "anything in support of a mission that in itself is wasteful".

The FFA probably isn't the place for debating what is or isn't a wasteful mission, but I don't think it's remotely ground breaking, surprising, or sinister that things might line up that way quickly in execution of a huge waste reduction initiative.

Thank you.

I agree with you this doesn't seem groundbreaking it would line up this way.

And please, let's drop it there and keep this to the topic of non partisan information and helping people affected by this navigate. The "what is wasteful spending" or "look at how dumb these people are" stuff is political forum talk.

Please let's keep this thread alive if possible and avoid taking it there.

I'm glad you popped in here because I want to ask a couple tough questions and you are the guy to set the narrative or keep us on track

-#1 I've seen it with people from ALL walks of life on the TV, ALL Networks...with these potential mass layoffs, many of us have family members that we do not associate with a particular political party. They are just regular people like the rest of us. And some of these people are being shown the door or walked out or asked to voluntarily resign.

How do you accept that innocent folks are having their entire lives turned upside down?
It feels very unsettling, my brother has worked for Veterans Affairs for years and I'm afraid that time is coming to an end. He is in IT-CyberSecurity so I have no doubt he will land on his feet but that choice should not have been forced on him IMHO. He sacrifices a lot of potential paycheck by working as a government employee and part of that his dedication to other Veterans that have put their lives on the line so we can all enjoy the freedoms of this country. My brother was a Navy Corpsman

#2 Is it natural to support some of these cuts in government while at the same time also feeling disturbed by some of the folks that are being forced out of their careers?

I believe that is as far as I can really take it. I just want others out there going thru this either themselves or family members, you're not alone.
I am concerned many of these folks are likely living paycheck to paycheck, people with families/children could lose their homes as this unfolds.

Thanks JB

It’s interesting to watch how this is being viewed when this happens in the private sector every day. It’s accepted because, “Capitalism”, but we expect more from government. And maybe that is the discussion - should government be run like a for-profit organization? I suppose you can then have a discussion around the morality of Capitalism.

I think it should largely be. Large layoffs have been happening in the private sector for a couple years now with no notice or recourse and like you said nobody cared. Is it the process or the layoffs themselves in government that are causing people to be up in arms?

That is the core fundamental difference. IMO we can't treat them the same. Not everything can be looked at through the lens of profit and efficiency, especially when we are talking about basic needs for people or protections for the citizens.

I can't speak for others, but what makes me angry about the situation is to me it is clear it is not about efficiency or getting more bang for the buck for the taxpayers. Very few of the steps taken seem to point to that being the case from my POV. I am all about cutting corruption and waste, but that is not what seems to be going on.

Except that all businesses, priority one is making money and keeping the lights on
You think differently then drift into the non profit field as I have over the years, my wife has always been in that field, took me a while to join her
I don't begrudge or try and reshape WallStreet, their rules and the basic Rule of 72 as a guide in non profit still helps run these foundations across the country that help a lot of people

-I understand you're talking safety for large masses of the population, but the primary focus of any business in order to survive are profits

 

[Cricket]

Considering my occasional tendency to be a malcontent, I'd probably reply as such:

What did I accomplish last week?

I found Waldo
Determined that the egg came before the chicken
Confirmed that right Twix and left Twix are the same
Discovered that you can not wake up dead
Came to the conclusion that you really can't take or do everything in moderation

I’ve seen it recommended that all Americans (and future Americans - looking at you, Canadians!) drop a note to HR@opm.gov to get clarification on whether this ruling will be expanded to the rest of us. Of course, this might back up their systems a little bit, but it’d be good to know. I might stop by the library later and use one of their computers to send a message.

Public servants are not allowed to participate in DDOS attacks, unless told to do so by your command. Plus, this only overwhelms the IT administrator who is already stressed.

 

[Oracle]

We have a lot of room to tighten up our innovation budget though. We have countless projects that never make it into operations and projects that are basically duplicate capabilities to what other sections of the DoD is already doing.

During our audit, the high-performance computing group at Department of Energy was asked why Department of Defense contracts us to create (design and build) their super computers when they have their own high-performance computing group. They are noticing the duplication.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

You could make an argument that this is a coincidence of sorts. I don't want to discuss it politically here, but the reputation of the parties is certainly small govt conservatism vs big government spending - so of course if you're just tracking waste, you'd look at all the stuff you think is wasteful first, which would likely be anything that extends beyond the "small govt" ideology.

I think it would be difficult to untangle the two because, for example, one persons idea of waste could be "not achieving the agency's mission in the most efficient possible manner" while another could be "anything in support of a mission that in itself is wasteful".

The FFA probably isn't the place for debating what is or isn't a wasteful mission, but I don't think it's remotely ground breaking, surprising, or sinister that things might line up that way quickly in execution of a huge waste reduction initiative.

Thank you.

I agree with you this doesn't seem groundbreaking it would line up this way.

And please, let's drop it there and keep this to the topic of non partisan information and helping people affected by this navigate. The "what is wasteful spending" or "look at how dumb these people are" stuff is political forum talk.

Please let's keep this thread alive if possible and avoid taking it there.

I'm glad you popped in here because I want to ask a couple tough questions and you are the guy to set the narrative or keep us on track

-#1 I've seen it with people from ALL walks of life on the TV, ALL Networks...with these potential mass layoffs, many of us have family members that we do not associate with a particular political party. They are just regular people like the rest of us. And some of these people are being shown the door or walked out or asked to voluntarily resign.

How do you accept that innocent folks are having their entire lives turned upside down?
It feels very unsettling, my brother has worked for Veterans Affairs for years and I'm afraid that time is coming to an end. He is in IT-CyberSecurity so I have no doubt he will land on his feet but that choice should not have been forced on him IMHO. He sacrifices a lot of potential paycheck by working as a government employee and part of that his dedication to other Veterans that have put their lives on the line so we can all enjoy the freedoms of this country. My brother was a Navy Corpsman

#2 Is it natural to support some of these cuts in government while at the same time also feeling disturbed by some of the folks that are being forced out of their careers?

I believe that is as far as I can really take it. I just want others out there going thru this either themselves or family members, you're not alone.
I am concerned many of these folks are likely living paycheck to paycheck, people with families/children could lose their homes as this unfolds.

Thanks JB

It’s interesting to watch how this is being viewed when this happens in the private sector every day. It’s accepted because, “Capitalism”, but we expect more from government. And maybe that is the discussion - should government be run like a for-profit organization? I suppose you can then have a discussion around the morality of Capitalism.

I can only speak for myself but I have a huge problem with how many companies have almost no loyalty to their employees. If that’s a byproduct of capitalism then I’m fine with saying capitalism can **** right off. Greed is ruining our country and the world in general - although, same as day 1.

What do you mean by loyalty? The job position should be maintained just because someone needs it even if the company doesn't?

I've been downsized/outsourced in 4 of the last 5 full time jobs I've had (I left the 5th because it sucked) so I have some experience at having the rug pulled out. But that's just how it goes when you're an employee IMO.

 

[AAABatteries]

You could make an argument that this is a coincidence of sorts. I don't want to discuss it politically here, but the reputation of the parties is certainly small govt conservatism vs big government spending - so of course if you're just tracking waste, you'd look at all the stuff you think is wasteful first, which would likely be anything that extends beyond the "small govt" ideology.

I think it would be difficult to untangle the two because, for example, one persons idea of waste could be "not achieving the agency's mission in the most efficient possible manner" while another could be "anything in support of a mission that in itself is wasteful".

The FFA probably isn't the place for debating what is or isn't a wasteful mission, but I don't think it's remotely ground breaking, surprising, or sinister that things might line up that way quickly in execution of a huge waste reduction initiative.

Thank you.

I agree with you this doesn't seem groundbreaking it would line up this way.

And please, let's drop it there and keep this to the topic of non partisan information and helping people affected by this navigate. The "what is wasteful spending" or "look at how dumb these people are" stuff is political forum talk.

Please let's keep this thread alive if possible and avoid taking it there.

I'm glad you popped in here because I want to ask a couple tough questions and you are the guy to set the narrative or keep us on track

-#1 I've seen it with people from ALL walks of life on the TV, ALL Networks...with these potential mass layoffs, many of us have family members that we do not associate with a particular political party. They are just regular people like the rest of us. And some of these people are being shown the door or walked out or asked to voluntarily resign.

How do you accept that innocent folks are having their entire lives turned upside down?
It feels very unsettling, my brother has worked for Veterans Affairs for years and I'm afraid that time is coming to an end. He is in IT-CyberSecurity so I have no doubt he will land on his feet but that choice should not have been forced on him IMHO. He sacrifices a lot of potential paycheck by working as a government employee and part of that his dedication to other Veterans that have put their lives on the line so we can all enjoy the freedoms of this country. My brother was a Navy Corpsman

#2 Is it natural to support some of these cuts in government while at the same time also feeling disturbed by some of the folks that are being forced out of their careers?

I believe that is as far as I can really take it. I just want others out there going thru this either themselves or family members, you're not alone.
I am concerned many of these folks are likely living paycheck to paycheck, people with families/children could lose their homes as this unfolds.

Thanks JB

It’s interesting to watch how this is being viewed when this happens in the private sector every day. It’s accepted because, “Capitalism”, but we expect more from government. And maybe that is the discussion - should government be run like a for-profit organization? I suppose you can then have a discussion around the morality of Capitalism.

I can only speak for myself but I have a huge problem with how many companies have almost no loyalty to their employees. If that’s a byproduct of capitalism then I’m fine with saying capitalism can **** right off. Greed is ruining our country and the world in general - although, same as day 1.

What do you mean by loyalty? The job position should be maintained just because someone needs it even if the company doesn't?

I've been downsized/outsourced in 4 of the last 5 full time jobs I've had (I left the 5th because it sucked) so I have some experience at having the rug pulled out. But that's just how it goes when you're an employee IMO.

As I said, this isn’t a new phenomenon but I find it hard to believe that you don’t know what I mean by loyalty. Companies making record profits and paying their executives insane salaries and bonuses while laying folks off. It’s unseemly and I’m well aware it’s just the way things are but often given the numbers in play it doesn’t have to be that way.

Essentially, we can’t trust each other not to be greedy ******** - but I recognize it’s part of the human condition and a tangent for this thread so I’ll stop here.

 

[Andy Dufresne]

You could make an argument that this is a coincidence of sorts. I don't want to discuss it politically here, but the reputation of the parties is certainly small govt conservatism vs big government spending - so of course if you're just tracking waste, you'd look at all the stuff you think is wasteful first, which would likely be anything that extends beyond the "small govt" ideology.

I think it would be difficult to untangle the two because, for example, one persons idea of waste could be "not achieving the agency's mission in the most efficient possible manner" while another could be "anything in support of a mission that in itself is wasteful".

The FFA probably isn't the place for debating what is or isn't a wasteful mission, but I don't think it's remotely ground breaking, surprising, or sinister that things might line up that way quickly in execution of a huge waste reduction initiative.

Thank you.

I agree with you this doesn't seem groundbreaking it would line up this way.

And please, let's drop it there and keep this to the topic of non partisan information and helping people affected by this navigate. The "what is wasteful spending" or "look at how dumb these people are" stuff is political forum talk.

Please let's keep this thread alive if possible and avoid taking it there.

I'm glad you popped in here because I want to ask a couple tough questions and you are the guy to set the narrative or keep us on track

-#1 I've seen it with people from ALL walks of life on the TV, ALL Networks...with these potential mass layoffs, many of us have family members that we do not associate with a particular political party. They are just regular people like the rest of us. And some of these people are being shown the door or walked out or asked to voluntarily resign.

How do you accept that innocent folks are having their entire lives turned upside down?
It feels very unsettling, my brother has worked for Veterans Affairs for years and I'm afraid that time is coming to an end. He is in IT-CyberSecurity so I have no doubt he will land on his feet but that choice should not have been forced on him IMHO. He sacrifices a lot of potential paycheck by working as a government employee and part of that his dedication to other Veterans that have put their lives on the line so we can all enjoy the freedoms of this country. My brother was a Navy Corpsman

#2 Is it natural to support some of these cuts in government while at the same time also feeling disturbed by some of the folks that are being forced out of their careers?

I believe that is as far as I can really take it. I just want others out there going thru this either themselves or family members, you're not alone.
I am concerned many of these folks are likely living paycheck to paycheck, people with families/children could lose their homes as this unfolds.

Thanks JB

It’s interesting to watch how this is being viewed when this happens in the private sector every day. It’s accepted because, “Capitalism”, but we expect more from government. And maybe that is the discussion - should government be run like a for-profit organization? I suppose you can then have a discussion around the morality of Capitalism.

I can only speak for myself but I have a huge problem with how many companies have almost no loyalty to their employees. If that’s a byproduct of capitalism then I’m fine with saying capitalism can **** right off. Greed is ruining our country and the world in general - although, same as day 1.

What do you mean by loyalty? The job position should be maintained just because someone needs it even if the company doesn't?

I've been downsized/outsourced in 4 of the last 5 full time jobs I've had (I left the 5th because it sucked) so I have some experience at having the rug pulled out. But that's just how it goes when you're an employee IMO.

As I said, this isn’t a new phenomenon but I find it hard to believe that you don’t know what I mean by loyalty. Companies making record profits and paying their executives insane salaries and bonuses while laying folks off. It’s unseemly and I’m well aware it’s just the way things are but often given the numbers in play it doesn’t have to be that way.

Essentially, we can’t trust each other not to be greedy ******** - but I recognize it’s part of the human condition and a tangent for this thread so I’ll stop here.

I'd call that something other than loyalty but as long as I know what it means to you then your argument makes more sense.

I'm more on your side than it may seem. I'm no bigger fan of big business than I am big government. Corporate America sucks.

 

[-OZ-]

During our audit, the high-performance computing group at Department of Energy was asked why Department of Defense contracts us to create (design and build) their super computers when they have their own high-performance computing group. They are noticing the duplication.

Obviously I don’t know the specifics there but working collaboratively across departments or even federal to state can be a great way to increase efficiencies. We’ve been doing it for a long time for many areas. It’s one way DOGE could help by increasing these agreements and the ease of creation.

 

[-OZ-]

I still think DoD wasn't the "target" of this email

Sometimes it’s good to be the biggest kid in the playground.

 

[quickhands]

You could make an argument that this is a coincidence of sorts. I don't want to discuss it politically here, but the reputation of the parties is certainly small govt conservatism vs big government spending - so of course if you're just tracking waste, you'd look at all the stuff you think is wasteful first, which would likely be anything that extends beyond the "small govt" ideology.

I think it would be difficult to untangle the two because, for example, one persons idea of waste could be "not achieving the agency's mission in the most efficient possible manner" while another could be "anything in support of a mission that in itself is wasteful".

The FFA probably isn't the place for debating what is or isn't a wasteful mission, but I don't think it's remotely ground breaking, surprising, or sinister that things might line up that way quickly in execution of a huge waste reduction initiative.

Thank you.

I agree with you this doesn't seem groundbreaking it would line up this way.

And please, let's drop it there and keep this to the topic of non partisan information and helping people affected by this navigate. The "what is wasteful spending" or "look at how dumb these people are" stuff is political forum talk.

Please let's keep this thread alive if possible and avoid taking it there.

I'm glad you popped in here because I want to ask a couple tough questions and you are the guy to set the narrative or keep us on track

-#1 I've seen it with people from ALL walks of life on the TV, ALL Networks...with these potential mass layoffs, many of us have family members that we do not associate with a particular political party. They are just regular people like the rest of us. And some of these people are being shown the door or walked out or asked to voluntarily resign.

How do you accept that innocent folks are having their entire lives turned upside down?
It feels very unsettling, my brother has worked for Veterans Affairs for years and I'm afraid that time is coming to an end. He is in IT-CyberSecurity so I have no doubt he will land on his feet but that choice should not have been forced on him IMHO. He sacrifices a lot of potential paycheck by working as a government employee and part of that his dedication to other Veterans that have put their lives on the line so we can all enjoy the freedoms of this country. My brother was a Navy Corpsman

#2 Is it natural to support some of these cuts in government while at the same time also feeling disturbed by some of the folks that are being forced out of their careers?

I believe that is as far as I can really take it. I just want others out there going thru this either themselves or family members, you're not alone.
I am concerned many of these folks are likely living paycheck to paycheck, people with families/children could lose their homes as this unfolds.

Thanks JB

It’s interesting to watch how this is being viewed when this happens in the private sector every day. It’s accepted because, “Capitalism”, but we expect more from government. And maybe that is the discussion - should government be run like a for-profit organization? I suppose you can then have a discussion around the morality of Capitalism.

I can only speak for myself but I have a huge problem with how many companies have almost no loyalty to their employees. If that’s a byproduct of capitalism then I’m fine with saying capitalism can **** right off. Greed is ruining our country and the world in general - although, same as day 1.

What do you mean by loyalty? The job position should be maintained just because someone needs it even if the company doesn't?

I've been downsized/outsourced in 4 of the last 5 full time jobs I've had (I left the 5th because it sucked) so I have some experience at having the rug pulled out. But that's just how it goes when you're an employee IMO.

As I said, this isn’t a new phenomenon but I find it hard to believe that you don’t know what I mean by loyalty. Companies making record profits and paying their executives insane salaries and bonuses while laying folks off. It’s unseemly and I’m well aware it’s just the way things are but often given the numbers in play it doesn’t have to be that way.

Essentially, we can’t trust each other not to be greedy ******** - but I recognize it’s part of the human condition and a tangent for this thread so I’ll stop here.

we could just trust each other to do whats best for themselves.

Im not greedy, the other guys is.

 

[Stoneworker]

Last year when my father passed away, instead of converting my living mother's SS paychecks as surviving spouse to my father's higher amount, the gov't shut down both SS accounts and my mother was left with zero income for six months before it got resolved.

We got social security checks for my 80 year old grandfather for 15 months after his death in spite of us reporting them repeatedly (15 times) and not cashing them. Just kept coming.

Can we please get it straight that receiving Social Security checks is not the same as receiving paychecks from the federal government?
One is "you paid in all your life and now here's your automatic check every month" spit out automatically.
The other is "OK, you say you worked X hours, your supervisor checked and verified this, you're approved to receive your paycheck."

If somebody wants to start a thread on Social Security "fraud" than start another topic, because it has nothing to do with federal paychecks.

Ghost fraud of payroll systems is a well-known type of corporate fraud

The fact that so many gov't workers believe their systems are infallible, and therefore believe it is ludicrous that in some cases this has been happening in gov't systems, probably makes it even more likely

According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) "Occupational Fraud 2022: A Report to the Nations," companies reported losing over $3.6 billion per year due to occupational fraud, with a significant portion attributed to schemes involving "fictitious employees" where fraudulent paychecks were issued to non-existent individuals on the payroll; highlighting the substantial impact of this type of fraud.

https://acfepublic.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2022+Report+to+the+Nations.pdf

 

[Atomic Punk]

Why are you guys even going down this rabbit hole? This exercise obviously has nothing to do with finding fraud.

 

[Max Power]

I still think DoD wasn't the "target" of this email

Sometimes it’s good to be the biggest kid in the playground.

Thats more from the lens of manpower accountability. Speculation seems to be this email was a tool to weed out accounts that don't monitor emails or perform tasks at all. Lower levels of the DoD are pretty decent with accountability.

Plenty of fraud waste and abuse within the DoD once the audits begin.

 

[-OZ-]

I still think DoD wasn't the "target" of this email

Sometimes it’s good to be the biggest kid in the playground.

Thats more from the lens of manpower accountability. Speculation seems to be this email was a tool to weed out accounts that don't monitor emails or perform tasks at all. Lower levels of the DoD are pretty decent with accountability.

Plenty of fraud waste and abuse within the DoD once the audits begin.

Agreed. I think senior DoD officials will have more input is all I’m saying.

 

[TheAristocrat]

Last year when my father passed away, instead of converting my living mother's SS paychecks as surviving spouse to my father's higher amount, the gov't shut down both SS accounts and my mother was left with zero income for six months before it got resolved.

We got social security checks for my 80 year old grandfather for 15 months after his death in spite of us reporting them repeatedly (15 times) and not cashing them. Just kept coming.

Can we please get it straight that receiving Social Security checks is not the same as receiving paychecks from the federal government?
One is "you paid in all your life and now here's your automatic check every month" spit out automatically.
The other is "OK, you say you worked X hours, your supervisor checked and verified this, you're approved to receive your paycheck."

If somebody wants to start a thread on Social Security "fraud" than start another topic, because it has nothing to do with federal paychecks.

Ghost fraud of payroll systems is a well-known type of corporate fraud

The fact that so many gov't workers believe their systems are infallible, and therefore believe it is ludicrous that in some cases this has been happening in gov't systems, probably makes it even more likely

According to the Association of Certified Fraud Examiners (ACFE) "Occupational Fraud 2022: A Report to the Nations," companies reported losing over $3.6 billion per year due to occupational fraud, with a significant portion attributed to schemes involving "fictitious employees" where fraudulent paychecks were issued to non-existent individuals on the payroll; highlighting the substantial impact of this type of fraud.

https://acfepublic.s3.us-west-2.amazonaws.com/2022+Report+to+the+Nations.pdf

625 cases in the US with a median of $120,000 lost per case equals $75M dollars in occupational fraud (most often caused by the owner). In the world wide economy of $85T (2020), they found, as you point out, $3.6B of this kind of fraud.

Am I reading this correctly?

 

[Stoneworker]

625 cases in the US with a median of $120,000 lost per case equals $75M dollars in occupational fraud (most often caused by the owner). In the world wide economy of $85T (2020), they found, as you point out, $3.6B of this kind of fraud.

Am I reading this correctly?

It was a study. The 625 cases in the US were out of 2,110 cases covered by the study. So doesn't extrapolate to either the U.S. or global economy without knowing how many cases occur every year.

The point is that ghost fraud happens

 

[TripItUp]

Agreed. I think senior DoD officials will have more input is all I’m saying.

Agreed. DoD is a different animal.

 

[Sparky Polastri]

Why are you guys even going down this rabbit hole? This exercise obviously has nothing to do with finding fraud.

This is my question too. Its pretty clear that it isn't about fraud. Hiring and firing people doesn't address the fraud claim.