The so-called "real" explanation of the $600 hammer doesn't make the story any better. The hammer did indeed cost $435. If the government wanted to buy another one, the contractor would have charged them an extra $435. Just because the extra $420 was "R&D expense" for something else, doesn't make the hammer any cheaper. Even in the most charitable explanation, this makes it impossible to know the real cost of anythin…
There's a guy, who is a contractor (not an employee), who was hired to do work for the defense department. They hire and fire thousands per day. There needs to be a basic policy that guarantees a certain level of training and skill level, before you work on Defense for crying out loud. No one is going to spend days trying to figure out what you know and don't. Here's the training - some is easy, some you know, some is new to you. Get through it, then you start work.
This is the same with private companies. Whenever I switch the major vendor I work for, I have to get some certs, get some training, and most of the stuff I already know. Last time this happened a couple of years ago, I spent at least a month, just watching training videos and taking little quizzes at the end. This guarantees that before they send me to a customer, I have the base training for my role.
I already knew 95% of the stuff. I put the 2 hour videos on play muted, read the pdf a couple of times a day apart (30min of my real time), and passed the quiz at the end.
Your friend didn't have to watch useless watered down videos, and was just given the manuals. I wish I had those PDFs I read printed for me, but I didn't want to waste a whole tree worth of paper.
Yes, the training needed to get your baseline is part of your job. That's why people don't like it when they hire you and leave after a few months - because they have to pay you to certify your baseline skills those months.
No, you don't get paid less or more, depending on the type of work you are doing. If I have to come out to a DC and debug raw fiber channel dumps, or sit on the toilet at home and draw a visio - I get paid the same. You get paid per hour, not per type of task. That is literally every job that exists.
The $600 hammer is theft and billing fraud. Getting paid the same rate while the company certs you with training for your job, as you get paid for the rest of the job, is called employment.