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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

#261

Post by tremendoussss »

daghamm wrote: post #210
scarab92 wrote: post #202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

You are wrong on two accounts. There are plenty of ways for getting rid of underperformers in a goverment organisation. I've seen entire teams being sacked, and also some of the hardest working people I know work for goverment organisations. Also, you cannot run the goverment like an startup that is always running on the edge. A majority of startups fail and that's fine, but one goverment organisation failing could c…

You're right it's not a startup. It's an organization in a town that voted 90%+ in favor of keeping their jobs, not being prosecuted, or some kind of "threat to democracy".

You can't run an organization if the ground troops are resistant to executing the vision of leadership

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

#262

Post by someothherguyy »

roenxi wrote: post #233
someothherguyy wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How is firing large amounts of people on a whim going to solve the problem of people not caring about their work? From what it sounds like (w.r.t. Agenda 47 / Project 2025) DOGE is fund seeking for massive planned programs, not returning money to the citizenry or restructuring for efficiency. It sounds like they are illegally looting agencies and programs that congress already funded, so they can fund the admin's pro…

It doesn't look like DOGE is trying to fund anything; at this stage my guess is they're trying to hack off the propaganda arm of the CIA/NSA and the web of NGOs on the theory that it is funding anti-Trump messaging. Otherwise targeting USAID for savings early is a bit pointless; what is $50 billion a year to the US government? They're $36 trillion in debt with no plausible path out of the hole. Annual deficit is arou…

There are some hints toward this, like with recent reporting :

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/congress/house-gop-panel-ap...

> Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, R-N.Y., said she has expressed “concerns” to leaders about the prospect of steep spending cuts and told reporters that, before she agrees to vote for the budget resolution, she wants “better clarity” about the next stage — especially when it comes to cuts. “$4.5 trillion doesn’t leave a lot of room for the president’s priorities,” Malliotakis said

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Also, why else would you directly reclaim funds as the executive? As a party, if you wanted to correct spending, you would do it in a budget. As the executive, if you wanted to get money without congressional approval, you would reclaim money that has already been appropriated. There are other ways (emergency orders), but they might not be popular with the party or a target voting base (in this case, more net spending).

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

#263

Post by shkkmo »

jhbadger wrote: post #185
everdrive wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't have a strong opinion here, but I am curious. What don't you like about the term progressive right?

Because it's contradictory. By definition, the Left is progressive -- they want society to progress and see a future where the problems of the past and present are solved by moving forward. The Right is regressive by definition -- they believe that modern society is inferior to some past "Golden Age" that needs to be returned to to make things great again -- the 1950s, the 19th century, or even the 18th century.

So the crypto currency people who support Trump aren't progressive or does it only count as the progress is in a direction you like? If this is an unprecedented constitutional crisis as so many keep claiming, how is that 'conservative'?

The 'left' isn't a rigorously defined term, so it is pretty hard to make a tautological argument like you are implying.

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

#264

Post by akudha »

jeltz wrote: post #216
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very similar to the story about the Supercharger network. Apparently the boss of the team was told to make layoffs, she did some but not enough to please Musk, so Musk in a face to face meeting demanded she make more. She said they couldn't without affecting delivery. Musk fired her. Then fired the team. Then hired the team back because she was correct. But not before lots of ongoing projects got stalled because cont…

Such a fragile ego. A mature manger should be able to handle a subordinate disobeying without throwing a temper tantrum and firing the whole team and damaging the whole company out of spite.

lol, there are “managers” making 40k a year (with 3 people reporting to them) that have huge egos. It isn’t surprising that world’s richest man child has the ego to match his wealth.

Something wrong with society as a whole. People being cruel to each other for no reason, people can’t think/plan beyond the current quarter etc. Everywhere I look, people seem stressed, and they lash out in whatever way they can. Seems like a much bigger problem than Trump/Musk, though they are a big contributor to society’s stress for sure

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

#265

Post by roenxi »

jakelazaroff wrote: post #243
roenxi wrote: post #213

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a difference between cruelty and arbitrariness. It isn't cruelty. They're going up against a world-class bureaucracy; a human powered machine that is excellent at dragging out changes beyond the term of any politician. Something like "Yes, Minister" is a comedy show except a lot of it is fairly true - they aren't going to get anything done without doing something drastic like cutting a lot of functions and s…

It’s not arbitrary, though. He’s attacking CFPB because he wants to launch financial features on Twitter without oversight. He’s attacking USAID because they helped end apartheid in his native South Africa. It’s really all just a bunch of petty vendettas and looting.

> It’s really all just a bunch of petty vendettas and looting.

Yeah. The technical term for that is "arbitrary". It isn't ideologically motivated; it is based on some dude's opinions based on who-knows-what internal dialogue. Although this financial features on Twitter sounds like a pretty good idea and I'd like to see it in the wild.

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

#266

Post by scarab92 »

dralley wrote: post #257
scarab92 wrote: post #208

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Operationally, Twitter is performing better than it did when it had 5x the headcount. According to reports, revenue is down, but that's more due to advertisers objecting to Musk content moderation decisions (plus politics no doubt).

They are objectively in a worse financial position. I wasn't getting advertisements for female sex toys (I'm male) on Twitter before Musk took over. That's a long way to fall.

Neither of us really know Twitter's financial position, given it's now private.

The rumours I'm hearing are that EBITDA is now above pre-acquistion. The fact that debt is trading hands without a haircut suggests that's probably accurate.

There was a lot of waste at Twitter. Given that headcount was cut by 80%, and advertisers are returning, I'd suggest it's doing fine.

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

#267

Post by someothherguyy »

ty6853 wrote: post #259
someothherguyy wrote: post #201

If anything this whole DOGE scenario has illuminated is how confused and overconfident many in this country are. We are stumbling fools without systems and rules (organizations, institutions, laws, regulations, ...) to rely on. I wonder how much behavior like this stems from weak regulation in the US to begin with. It seems like it would reinforce the rise of agents that assume they can ask for forgiveness after acti…

Feds consumed It's hard to take these apocalyptic premonitions about federal government reduction seriously.

I don't think appealing to the gilded age can be taken seriously.

See for instance: https://www.investopedia.com/gilded-age-7692919

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

#268

Post by akudha »

scarab92 wrote: post #202
anon7000 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why people think it’s a good idea to put this wealthy dickwad in charge of one of the most (allegedly) important projects in the current admin is beyond me. Move fast and break things is a stupid policy to apply to public policy.

[flagged]

I can’t say if you’re serious or just trolling. It is beyond stupid to compare government institutions with private sector.

Let’s say (just for discussion purposes) that some government agency (USAID, for example) is wasting 100% of their budget on parties (again, just for discussion purposes). What is the right way to fix it? Step one - you hire an auditor and collect proof of any misconduct or wrongdoing. Step 2 - find out the people who did wrong. Ask for an explanation. Show the public your proof. And so on.

You don’t shut down departments without a shred of evidence, overnight. It is just cruel and stupid. But then, cruelty seems to be the point here.

You don’t set fire to your entire face because you got a pimple on your nose. You just treat the pimple

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

#269

Post by dralley »

jimnotgym wrote: post #94
PaulRobinson wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Did it work? Is Twitter profitable now?

No.
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