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Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

cnn.com

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Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#351

Post by Izkata »

alabastervlog wrote: post #288
red020 wrote: post #255

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[dead]

I'm not seeing that in either the deportation/removal rates, nor the encounters rate. Which time period 2021-2024 should I be looking at to see this? I'm looking only at annual rates, not month by month.

It wouldn't show up in deportation rates because they're not talking about deportation, they're talking about people illegally entering the country. That administration was enabling it through the CBP One app, up to some limit per day (which I remember being 2000 but am not sure that's right).

https://homeland.house.gov/2024/10/24/startling-stats-factsh...

> However, the end result is the same—tens of thousands of inadmissible aliens being released into the interior every month. This is evident through the number of appointments scheduled through the CBP One mass-parole program, which skyrocketed to more than 852,000 since January 2023.

Also there is a massive spike in encounters during those years: https://ohss.dhs.gov/khsm/cbp-encounters

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#352

Post by therealdrag0 »

_aavaa_ wrote: post #7
sjsdaiuasgdia wrote: post #2

The disruption is (part of) the point. Degrading the ability of government employees to do their jobs leads to greater inefficiency and more failure, which can then be pointed at to validate assertions that government isn't efficient and produces bad outcomes.

It is the whole point: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oBH9TmeJN_M

That’s Depressing

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#353

Post by AzzieElbab »

mexicocitinluez wrote: post #153
AzzieElbab wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is anyone even remotely curious why do government offices with no desks exist?

Do you know what a lease is? I can explain if you need. This is like asking "Why does my car that I leased for 3 years still exist after 1?" Idk man.

I hope your leased car has a driver's seat and can be driven. Also, I hope you leased the car with your own money

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#354

Post by AzzieElbab »

mikeryan wrote: post #168
AzzieElbab wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is anyone even remotely curious why do government offices with no desks exist?

It's GSO-owned real estate. Most cities have seen a precipitous drop in office utilization post-COVID, and it's a weak market for selling commercial office space. It's likely tax-exempt from property taxes, upkeep is likely minimal, and even empty office space is an appreciating asset. I'd be more surprised if it didn't exist.

Appreciation of the asset doesn't matter if you are leasing it. Neither does tax exemptions if you are the government.

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#355

Post by ModernMech »

hedora wrote: post #226
inetknght wrote: post #183

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> checks and balances part no longer exists It honestly hasn't existed for decades.

States rights might save us. If I was a governor of a blue state, I’d be strongly encouraging laid off government workers to work for my state. I’d also be working to eliminate the trade deficit (including federal taxes and spending) with rest of the US. Why subsidize this crap if it’s not going to lead to economic prosperity, security, or even pretending the constitution still exists?

I think California is doing exactly this.

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#356

Post by alabastervlog »

Izkata wrote: post #351
alabastervlog wrote: post #288

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not seeing that in either the deportation/removal rates, nor the encounters rate. Which time period 2021-2024 should I be looking at to see this? I'm looking only at annual rates, not month by month.

It wouldn't show up in deportation rates because they're not talking about deportation, they're talking about people illegally entering the country. That administration was enabling it through the CBP One app, up to some limit per day (which I remember being 2000 but am not sure that's right). https://homeland.house.gov/2024/10/24/startling-stats-factsh... > However, the end result is the same—tens of thousands of in…

Spike in encounters, and spike in deportations, no? I’d expect to see both drop, but certainly deportations, if what was claimed had happened, but I’m not seeing it.

[edit] if the stopped-doing-their-job thing had happened, not CBP One, I’m aware of that.

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#357

Post by [deleted] »

Freedom2 wrote: post #345
hedora wrote: post #258

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The federal government is generally pretty efficient. They probably sold off surplus equipment. They definitely have been consolidating office space. It could be that the remaining leases were cheaper to keep than buy out, or that selling the buildings didn’t make sense. Regardless, there’s no reason for them to hire facilities people to maintain vacant space. Leaving furniture in those places would attract vermin, r…

> The federal government is generally pretty efficient. Then either Musk and Trump are lying about needing to focus on government efficiency, or some of the brightest and most brilliant minds that the American people willingly voted for are wrong.

[deleted]

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#358

Post by consteval »

matthewaveryusa wrote: post #127
dataangel wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This what a huge chunk of HN wanted! HN was all aboard the Trump train for years and the mods admonished anyone being too critical of other users for it, it's when I wrote off most of the people here as morons.

That's a bit harsh. Maybe a bunch of political juniors thinking the system needed a rewrite by a bunch of folks foreign to the system. Don't write it off, it could work. Probably not though

It's in an inexperienced engineers blood to demand a full rewrite. I mean, it's just so tempting. Learn from our mistakes, a build a system that solves them! Then, we don't have to wade through the crud on top of crud on top of crud to get simple things done!

But, anyone who has ever been through such a rewrite knows they're usually more trouble than they're worth, and no matter what, you will lose A LOT. Doesn't matter how thorough you are or how many requirements you capture. Most are lost to the ether, never again to be seen... until the exact moment you need them.

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#359

Post by consteval »

onlyrealcuzzo wrote: post #281
stvltvs wrote: post #232

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same experience. The "government = inefficient" propaganda has been repeated ad infinitum for decades so that now it feels like a law of nature to people. My experience is however that every large org is inefficient in its own unique way, no matter which sector.

It's parroted by people who see the government as "inefficient" at generating profit, not as inefficient at providing a service. Why should plebs be entitled to clean water without an 80% margin?

Profit in it of itself is an inefficiency. It's a bandaid for the fundamental problems of the private sector. The fact the public sector isn't burdened by a requirement to make profit isn't a downside, it's a super power.

Re: Federal workers ordered to return to offices without desks, Wi-Fi and lights

#360

Post by consteval »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #221
danaris wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's insane that anyone actually believes that it's being done for efficiency. It's not, and never was. It's being done a) to drive people to quit, so they don't have to lay them off, and b) to restore the power dynamic to the status quo ante , where your manager could just look over at your cubicle and see you in your seat, and know that whether or not you were working , you were still there to bow to them. (And man…

> many of them genuinely have zero metric for gauging "how much is Aurornis working?" besides measuring the amount of time a butt is in a seat This is a legitimate problem though. Obviously making people do all their work from a centralized office location is a horribly inefficient solution, but it is a solution, and if there really is widespread slacking happening it might still be more efficient than doing nothing.

It's an unsolvable problem, because any sufficiently complex job will therefore be complex to measure. I mean, if you could measure it, then you could just do it, no? Why spend all this time measuring how good an engineer is?

If you really want to know, you have to look at the code, sit in on the meetings, write the code and see the challenges with integrating with the existing system, submit a PR to see the pushback and... oh wait now you're just an engineer.

If we hire two engineers to act as one then maybe, maybe, we could measure performance. At the cost of the largest inefficiency imaginable.

It's not unlike using generative AI for coding. Writing code is the easy part! Making sure it works is another beast. Honestly, I'd much rather write code than read it. If it takes X time to write code and > X time to read it, which in my book it does, why bother with the reading?

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