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Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

david.newgas.net

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Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#411

Post by annzabelle »

MyHonestOpinon wrote: post #306
annzabelle wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for a large US bank that has a 10% biannual attrition target at all levels across the company. Twice a year they PIP 10-15% of staff, most of whom take a substantial buyout. Institutional knowledge is constantly being lost and experienced staff are being replaced with fresh cohorts of new grads, who then get replaced themselves right as they start becoming useful. I knew multiple people there who made more i…

Oh, I think I know who is this. The CEO is fantastic (he is very technology oriented) but he is super convinced this is the right way. It has all kinds of perverse consequences. The constant loss of experience shows everywhere. Cliques are formed as means of protection. People focus on being seen, rather than in doing a great job, etc.

It's Capital One, idk why I was so vague in that comment. The CEO has a cult of personality and came out of management consulting and tries to manage software engineering hiring/firing processes like it's McKinsey. It's a very bottom heavy engineering organization, and a lot of teams are staffed by contractors and a rotating cast of junior devs every year or two.

There are good reasons the Founder-CEO has stayed in power as long as he has, he has an amazing business sense and is why Capital One made it through 2008 unscathed, but he tries to manage every org like it's management consulting.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#412

Post by zzrrt »

thaumasiotes wrote: post #384
vintermann wrote: post #166

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The contractor has better take home pay. For them, it's maybe a wash whether they get the extra pay or the better benefits, but what they are paid is only a fraction of what the government pays to the contractor's company. For the government, giving those benefits is definitively a much better deal than using a contractor.

> For the government, giving those benefits is definitively a much better deal than using a contractor. This is not necessarily the case. The large part of the benefits are to be paid in the future, and this makes it possible for the government to spend much more than makes sense on whatever the project is that the employee is assigned to. You can get into situations where the employee doesn't pass a cost-benefit tes…

Are the future benefits locked in by law or bureaucracy? Or some other reason the agency don't just decrease them?

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#413

Post by truemotive »

bandrami wrote: post #131
comrade1234 wrote: post #4

I was on a government project where I found out I was being fraudulently billed on my hours. It was towards the end of the year and my manager was trying to use up the budget of the client. Although this is normal in the private sector I told him from the beginning that you can't do this on a government project. The project was $1M+ which was enough for prison time. He had gone into our billing software and edited my…

That's particularly egregious because there's a time-honored way to do this legally, namely have you shave yaks for 80 hours a week towards the end of the fiscal year (lot of USG contractors are skipping their vacations this summer for that exact reason).

Yeah, this is important to look out for, one way to tell it is probably happening is if the contractor has the word 'Labs' at the end of the LLC name.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#414

Post by truemotive »

talon8635 wrote: post #36
comrade1234 wrote: post #4

I was on a government project where I found out I was being fraudulently billed on my hours. It was towards the end of the year and my manager was trying to use up the budget of the client. Although this is normal in the private sector I told him from the beginning that you can't do this on a government project. The project was $1M+ which was enough for prison time. He had gone into our billing software and edited my…

Okay… do you not feel culpable at some point? Do you feel no obligation to expose these various individuals fleecing the tax payers? Your boss, the academics, and everyone else who participated or knows and remains silent. Obviously, you are now in the later group. Yes I know it’s not all that rare, BECAUSE people can’t be bothered to blow the whistle.

Sure, you go first. Make sure your work is highly visible and regulated for extra challenge mode.

Edit: I'll do you one better, there may be a reason that academics and others up/downstream from you gave an OK. They might even receive fees, and play 100% dumb when you try to blow a whistle! Just spitballing here.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#415

Post by cogman10 »

irishcoffee wrote: post #401
nekusar wrote: post #397

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So you're one of those conspiratorial gain-of-function Wuhan infection wonks. Good to know.

Nah. Occam’s razor is still a real thing.

> Entities must not be multiplied beyond necessity

It seems like occam's razor favors the official explanation of this being a natural mutation. We know that happens.

Adding a government coverup with secret biological weapons testing and accidental lab leak on top of that is "multiplying entities". Particularly since the evidence of this theory is pretty scant.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#416

Post by selcuka »

ako wrote: post #240
annzabelle wrote: post #108

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I worked for a large US bank that has a 10% biannual attrition target at all levels across the company. Twice a year they PIP 10-15% of staff, most of whom take a substantial buyout. Institutional knowledge is constantly being lost and experienced staff are being replaced with fresh cohorts of new grads, who then get replaced themselves right as they start becoming useful. I knew multiple people there who made more i…

I assume management thinks this will lead to better documentation practices and standardized processes so it becomes easier and cheaper to introduce new employees. In practice the opposite happens, employees get scared for their jobs, hire bad new employees so it's the new people that will get PIP-ed.

> I assume management thinks this will lead to better documentation practices and standardized processes

I think employees will also document less, and try not to standardise processes as much as they can as an attempt to improve their job security.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#417

Post by consensus1 »

fakedang wrote: post #371
consensus1 wrote: post #347

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is not that dissimilar to the US. The government either controls directly or is very heavily involved in all those things you listed in the top tier.

The fact that PG&E exists is a clear contradiction to your statement. In most countries, water, electricity, waste management and public transport are government controlled through and through, even if the government might sell shares to the public markets or induce competitive bidding. Except in dysfunctional countries of course.

It's the opposite of a contradiction. PG&E must have its pricing and capital expenditures approved by the government. It is a borderline government entity.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#418

Post by Nevermark »

Xirdus wrote: post #403
Nevermark wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people voting in their own interest. There are some people who care about policy, care about a generally healthy environment. Which has a strong self-interest aspect, as it should, but not narrow. Few people manage to vote for their own narrow interests in a reliable coherent way. Even the rich and powerful reliably foot gun themselves. I believe the vast majority, the vast majority of the time, reliably and enthus…

I think people overwhelmingly voting in line with their group is the effect, not the cause. People start off by being in a group, and their group teaches them what's good and what's bad, as well as how different policies will affect them personally. Mind you, they're most often taught wrong - but uniformly wrong within their group. They're similarly taught about WHO's good and WHO's bad, and how different political p…

> their group teaches them what's good and what's bad

Except the moment their group changes its views, almost everyone in it does to.

That is a different effect from being taught something.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#419

Post by thaumasiotes »

zzrrt wrote: post #412
thaumasiotes wrote: post #384

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> For the government, giving those benefits is definitively a much better deal than using a contractor. This is not necessarily the case. The large part of the benefits are to be paid in the future, and this makes it possible for the government to spend much more than makes sense on whatever the project is that the employee is assigned to. You can get into situations where the employee doesn't pass a cost-benefit tes…

Are the future benefits locked in by law or bureaucracy? Or some other reason the agency don't just decrease them?

In the United States they tend to be locked in by law. I believe in California lowering them requires a (state) constitutional amendment.

Re: Did my old job only exist because of fraud?

#420

Post by Nevermark »

Jensson wrote: post #399
Nevermark wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> people voting in their own interest. There are some people who care about policy, care about a generally healthy environment. Which has a strong self-interest aspect, as it should, but not narrow. Few people manage to vote for their own narrow interests in a reliable coherent way. Even the rich and powerful reliably foot gun themselves. I believe the vast majority, the vast majority of the time, reliably and enthus…

> People vote for brands. Right, so the government should be based on brands rather than people. USA trying to make a people centric system still ended up into a brand centric republican vs democrat, just that now those brands changes dramatically every 4 years just people still vote for the brand even after it changes. Its much more stable when you have stable political party brands like in multi party system, then…

Branding effects are not the core problem, they just make the core problems worse.

CORE PROBLEMS:

A system that continually converges down to only two viable parties, rewards divisive candidates and handicaps broadly-liked third or fourth party candidates.

A system that allows one party to capture all three branches of government. Incentivizing extreme power plays/centralization in and between parties. (Usually starts within a party.)

A system that lets parties integrate at Federal and State levels, suppressing or eliminating the otherwise strong benefits of Federal/State government decentralization. Creates massive incentives for out-of-state capture of state politics.

A permissive system for players to cache out as system-undermining lobbyists after a tour of "service".

CORE SOLUTIONS:

Maximum seat-run limits for parties, forces cross-partisanship and coalitions as some level. Any is better than none.

Separation of parties at Federal and State levels. And/or limits on numbers of states a party can operate in. Use the Federalized system of decentralizing Federal/State government to achieve parallel decentralization of parties.

Take money out of politics. Hard to do perfectly, but any limits make a big difference. Brands operate on pervasive non-rational visibility and repetition, i.e. money.

Voting systems that give wide-appeal candidates an advantage.

Voluntary acceptance of a post-tour lobbying bans, as a requirement for political and policy appointments. Remove that pervasive conflict of interest machine. Disincentivize game players from public "service".

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