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US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

bbc.com

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Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#51

Post by IndrekR »

adtac wrote: post #11
sour-taste wrote: post #2

This is LITERALLY the twitter layoffs playing out again. They fired people who had credentials and other things they needed so had to hire them back. Everything else aside why repeat the same mistakes? Just go a little slower and give agencies time to compile accurate lists of necessary employees

People should read Elon Musk by Walter Issacson. Here's an excerpt from the chapter on his "algorithm": > [Step 2] Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn't delete enough. He thinks this is a feature, not a bug. Is he wrong? I don't think so.

I have seen it before. This is the “Coffee is for closers” scene from Glengarry Glen Ross: https://youtu.be/elrnAl6ygeM

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#52

Post by b112 »

clort wrote: post #35
_Microft wrote: post #4

The headline shown here is: “US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago”

Also, I don't really understand how they delivered letters letting people know that they had been fired but were struggling to rescind the letters because "we do not have a good way to get in touch with those personnel" Did they just hand them a note saying "your fired" and escort them out of the building?

From what I read elsewhere, resignation letters were sent via corporate email. Once "escorted out" of the building, naturally their corporate accounts were cancelled.

This article says:

Attempting to reach the workers, the email, which was sent to current employees, said: "Please work with your supervisors to send this information (once you get it) to people's personal contact emails."

(FYI, your != you are. use you're for this)

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#53

Post by suzzer99 »

adtac wrote: post #11
sour-taste wrote: post #2

This is LITERALLY the twitter layoffs playing out again. They fired people who had credentials and other things they needed so had to hire them back. Everything else aside why repeat the same mistakes? Just go a little slower and give agencies time to compile accurate lists of necessary employees

People should read Elon Musk by Walter Issacson. Here's an excerpt from the chapter on his "algorithm": > [Step 2] Delete any part or process you can. You may have to add them back later. In fact, if you do not end up adding back at least 10% of them, then you didn't delete enough. He thinks this is a feature, not a bug. Is he wrong? I don't think so.

If we fired 25% of the federal govt workforce, it would save 1% from the federal budget.

This has nothing to do with trimming waste and everything to do with replacing the government with loyalists from top to bottom. What comes after that isn't going to be pretty.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#54

Post by diputsmonro »

TZubiri wrote: post #19

What's the biggest difference between a startup and a country? Aside from the obvious distinction, Musk has no experience running existing corporations with lots on the line to lose, he comes from move fast break things, great for a social media app, who gives a shit, great for literal moonshots, go big or go home. However when you manage something big, any upside from improving is weighed against its risk of degrada…

I think you hit the nail on the head.

The president is a con man who larps as the richest person on the planet and his biggest accomplishment last term was a giant tax cut for the rich. The "actual" president is the richest man on earth and has a vested interest in destroying anything that can tax him or hold him / his businessess accountable in any way.

Awfully convenient that the richest people in the world think that the proper way to balance the budget isn't by raising taxes, but by burning the whole government to the ground. They have the resources to live in a walled garden for the rest of their lives and they don't care who else gets hurt.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#55

Post by adtac »

sour-taste wrote: post #45
adtac wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Had they decided to move on Why didn't they?

H1B

All key personnel were immigrants? Why did the others come back? Also, since the H1B were key to operations and therefore smart, couldn't at least some of them have found a new employer? 61% of the H1B population switched jobs that year, so why did all key H1B come back?

I think key personnel came back because they wanted to. It's the simplest explanation.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#56

Post by lelandfe »

michaelscott wrote: post #48
TZubiri wrote: post #19

What's the biggest difference between a startup and a country? Aside from the obvious distinction, Musk has no experience running existing corporations with lots on the line to lose, he comes from move fast break things, great for a social media app, who gives a shit, great for literal moonshots, go big or go home. However when you manage something big, any upside from improving is weighed against its risk of degrada…

The American right has (always?) been anti-government overreach traditionally. I don't actually think Trump or Musk are particularly conservative or right wing (they'll say and do what gets them the support) but on this topic they are actually very much in line with political tradition. I think they're overshooting here and will need to correct, but I get the impression as an outsider that the American people who vot…

Grover Norquist, 2001:

> I don’t want to abolish government. I simply want to reduce it to the size where I can drag it into the bathroom and drown it in the bathtub.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#57

Post by operationcwal »

adtac wrote: post #43
_fizz_buzz_ wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think there is a tiny difference if Twitter is not working or if the nuclear arsenal is malfunctioning.

Yes, so it's a good thing the first step is: > [Step 1] Question every requirement. Each should come with the name of the person who made it. You should never accept that a requirement came from a department, such as from "the legal department" or "the safety department." You need to know the name of the real person who made that requirement. Then you should question it, no matter how smart that person is. Requiremen…

[flagged]

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#58

Post by XorNot »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #42
almog wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we take Twitter/X as an example of this process, my personal experience has been that it has been degraded to a spams and bot hell shortly after Musk took over. But my personal experience isn't quantifiable, what is quantifiable is X valuation which, according to Fidelity, has been depreciating and back in Oct. 2024 was estimated at nearly 20% of the original acquisition price.

The Fidelity valuation is old news. All the most recent debt sales were either just below or just above 100% of the original price. Example article: https://www.afr.com/technology/banks-offload-8-8b-in-debt-li...

Ah yes, sold Feb 15 2025[1]...right as the CEO took over running the US government and raided the US treasury department.

I'm sure this is a completely above board sale that definitely does not represent a legal-if-you-don't-look-at-it way to bribe the de facto head of the US government / the expectation of massive corruption (ala: Tesla's stock price rising on the news Elon Musk was running DOGE - weird right? The CEO is apparently going to be too busy to run the company because he's now running the government so the stock price goes up...to be fair, technically that's not a bad bet)

Because we know the new administration definitely wouldn't take bribes in the form of financial instruments[2]. Definitely no history of it[3].

[1] https://www.reuters.com/business/finance/banks-sell-down-mor...

[2] https://www.reuters.com/markets/currencies/trumps-meme-coin-...

[3] https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/2024/08/02/tru...

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#59

Post by almog »

blackeyeblitzar wrote: post #42
almog wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we take Twitter/X as an example of this process, my personal experience has been that it has been degraded to a spams and bot hell shortly after Musk took over. But my personal experience isn't quantifiable, what is quantifiable is X valuation which, according to Fidelity, has been depreciating and back in Oct. 2024 was estimated at nearly 20% of the original acquisition price.

The Fidelity valuation is old news. All the most recent debt sales were either just below or just above 100% of the original price. Example article: https://www.afr.com/technology/banks-offload-8-8b-in-debt-li...

While it shows investors aren't concerned about X ability to pay back its loan term, it isn't a proxy for valuation. Banks usually sell issued debt to investors soon after the debt is issued. In this case it took 2 years.

Re: US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

#60

Post by tossandthrow »

PaulRobinson wrote: post #7
sour-taste wrote: post #2

This is LITERALLY the twitter layoffs playing out again. They fired people who had credentials and other things they needed so had to hire them back. Everything else aside why repeat the same mistakes? Just go a little slower and give agencies time to compile accurate lists of necessary employees

Problem is, it’s not backfired - the example you cited “worked”, because it rapidly identified key personnel without weeks or months of subjective analysis and political posturing by workers and their supervisors. I think in federal government the risks are much higher, and Musk is being an idiot by exposing the America public to those risks, but the feedback loop for him on these previous experiments has been positi…

It only works because you allow yourself to sorely disrespect human beings, their livelihood and their feeling of safety.

A strategy that seems to be hot in the US, but is an utter ethical abomination and shameful.

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