21–30 of 176 posts
Good post. Lots of realness here about the nature of employees and the employed... Also confirms some of my negative beliefs about the government so I love it for validating my biases!
> When you are in a work situation where you are respected and admired, that is often its own reward. If you don’t have that, the components of your job that give you a sense of value and satisfaction are all connected directly to the career ladder. What is your title? What is the prestige value of your projects?
My current official job title is "Code Contributor". I was quite proud of coming up with something that would be evergreen even if as my projects changed, yet emphasized what I consider key.
But it seems to confuse people that it doesn't have "Senior", "Lead", "Chair", or "Manager" in it. Maybe I should just stick all those at the end? :)
>The end result of this is that it often feels like everyone at the top is maliciously incompetent. What's really going on is that a torrent of digital change is being unleashed on the world. That change is significantly changing the skills needed by leaders. I'm not sure if the flood of wildly successful leaders having a technical background is correlation or causation, but I am looking forward to knowing someday.
Fucking amazing. This was sitting right under my nose my entire life and I sensed it but didn't understand it. Now somebody finally wrote it down. I consider myself pretty courageous or at least indifferent to consequences (which may or may not be the same thing), but yeah that always seems to be the missing or limiting ingredient in every situation. Not that I'm biased or anything! Anyway this is going to be one of…
Sorry, the story totally lost me after she was describing the interaction with the FBI. I did not easily take away some conclusion about what she had done wrong or what deep pile of shit she had just created for herself, or what on 2 paths she had just chosen incorrectly, or daringly? (The paragraph ending, "I trusted the FBI to be good at their jobs." The next paragraph jumps right to generalizations, and I didn't c…
I'm not sure if it's a good essay, but what I loved was the way she described connecting people as "just" doing her job. She didn't see it as brave. I'm not sure what degree I would need to take, or what job title I would have to have, to see "making connections" as my job.
Sorry, the story totally lost me after she was describing the interaction with the FBI. I did not easily take away some conclusion about what she had done wrong or what deep pile of shit she had just created for herself, or what on 2 paths she had just chosen incorrectly, or daringly? (The paragraph ending, "I trusted the FBI to be good at their jobs." The next paragraph jumps right to generalizations, and I didn't c…
Sorry, the story totally lost me after she was describing the interaction with the FBI. I did not easily take away some conclusion about what she had done wrong or what deep pile of shit she had just created for herself, or what on 2 paths she had just chosen incorrectly, or daringly? (The paragraph ending, "I trusted the FBI to be good at their jobs." The next paragraph jumps right to generalizations, and I didn't c…
Sorry, the story totally lost me after she was describing the interaction with the FBI. I did not easily take away some conclusion about what she had done wrong or what deep pile of shit she had just created for herself, or what on 2 paths she had just chosen incorrectly, or daringly? (The paragraph ending, "I trusted the FBI to be good at their jobs." The next paragraph jumps right to generalizations, and I didn't c…
Sorry, the story totally lost me after she was describing the interaction with the FBI. I did not easily take away some conclusion about what she had done wrong or what deep pile of shit she had just created for herself, or what on 2 paths she had just chosen incorrectly, or daringly? (The paragraph ending, "I trusted the FBI to be good at their jobs." The next paragraph jumps right to generalizations, and I didn't c…
I assume it takes working for the government to fully understand. Risk averse people pile into cushy government jobs. After they shoehorn themselves into that career, they become even more risk averse. Then every few years they see people take risks and get fired for it. The aggregate effect of this is that not only might they be dismissive towards those whom they perceive as risk-takers, they might be actively hostile towards them. This is for two reasons. One is that the "risks" might pay off in a visible way (more on that later), making the other bureaucrats who are vying for a promotion look bad. The other is that they fear the risk will affect them in some way, and they want no part of it. They imagine either more work on their plate (God forbid) or adverse consequences because of this "naive troublemaker who just doesn't get it." To make it even worse, it’s way easier to just promote the people you like in government. Guess who risk averse people will tend to promote? Guess what type of work is made more visible to senior management? So hard work is not rewarded as well as at corporations, unless it’s a very narrow kind of hard work that adheres to the most literal interpretation of one’s job responsibilities. Those are my 2 cents, I could be way off about the author’s intent there.
I am all for leaders taking risks but talking to law enforcement without a lawyer or without contacting HR first (for professional matters) would probably be outside my limits.
US Digital Service (whom this person worked for) is under/within the Executive Office if the President. USDS folks have latitude others do not (this is from coffee with those who had a tour of duty and from interviews for a role within).