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Comment by gnarbarian | Hacker News Reader

As a federal/state contractor myself. That's what happened to me. My job has driven me to a libertarian viewpoint over a period of years after seeing inefficiency and wastefulness of the organizations I deal with. This is across many state and federal departments.

And I do make an effort to push them toward more cost effective technologies and processes but the sad truth is they don't want to hear it because they prefer to waste money on oracle licenses and aligning text on reports nobody will ever read, than have their budget reduced.

There really ought to be incentives/bonuses built in for employees in govt who can successfully cut their budget and perform the same job at the same level of quality. We would instantly see a drastic reduction in the cost of our government.

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The thing is... you'd likely see inefficiency and wastefulness in most private sector jobs as well. Almost guaranteed.

There are some types of services, like crucial infrastructure, where failure is not an option, hence government, hence sacrificing efficiency in favor of dependability.

Except that I also work in the private sector as well. I have both private and public clients. It's MUCH MUCH worse in government. Also if you're seen as wasteful at a large company you're more likely to be shown the door.

The larger the organization the more room there is for waste within its ranks. No organizations are larger than the government.

Speaking as a government employee, not a contractor, we are actually more efficient than my previous private sector jobs. But then again, we have a "build it don't buy it" culture here with a lot of love for open source throughout our services and really only use consultants on ultra specific jobs, due to head count caps from our legislature. Sure there's some union cruft here and there but I've seen similar dead weight in the private sector.

Perhaps you should consider consulting for less well-funded segments of the Government? The constraints make for ingenious solutions.

your department sounds pretty awesome. I've never seen anything like that. Unfortunately I don't have the option of choosing our clients. I am but a humble developer for an 8a contractor.

If you don't mind me asking. What state/department do you work for?

Minnesota education. There is obviously years of cruft to deal with, but there is a desire here to constantly do things better. Honestly, the tech attracted me to the job. They're using some cool stuff. I was pretty surprised when I interviewed. Went from seeing the interview as practice to really wanting the job.

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