After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work • Hacker News Board

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#251

Post by AStonesThrow » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

loktarogar wrote: post #176

fastball wrote: post #156

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do we actually want "I just want a stable job" people being a significant part of the federal governments workforce? I generally wouldn't want those people to work for my company, so not sure why I'd want them to work in my government.

> Do we actually want "I just want a stable job" people being a significant part of the federal governments workforce? Yes, if you can't offer someone market rates then you need to offer them other things to fill that void. Stability is one of them, and is actually a good thing in government, when politics is so volatile. If the workforce is fired every time a new party comes into power, you don't have a stable gover…

> If the workforce is fired every time a new party comes into power

What if the workforce is never fired, and government jobs acquire a reputation for ingrained incompetence, promotion from within for the unqualified, and a management so frustrated by their inability to turn over poorly-performing workers that nearly nothing productive gets done anymore?

What if the workforce is full of appointments by the Old-Boy network, and jobs are personal favors or quid pro quo rather than based on qualifications or education?

What about that sort of workforce?

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#252

Post by sirspacey » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 1:40 PM UTC

jmward01 wrote: post #50

The obvious methodology at work here is 'fire everyone then hopefully re-hire only what is blindingly obviously needed'. There are many, many problems with this approach in a business setting but even more from a governmental setting. The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business…

If you haven’t worked in the federal government, this is an unserious take.

Experience and context matters. Especially this one.

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#253

Post by somenameforme » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 1:41 PM UTC

ascorbic wrote: post #141

somenameforme wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look at the comments in this post. People think they were fired, because that's what the article claims. You have people in the top post of this thread social mediaizing each other about how now they'll get to renegotiate their contracts, or maybe not even come back, and all this nonsense. Except none of this is true. Similarly, look at how everybody is interpreting "coding error." As the editor certainly intended, e…

This is semantics though. They were for all intents and purposes fired. Being placed on leave pending termination has been the standard playbook for most of these RIFs, and I would bet is what happened to all of the others that were fired at the same time as these researchers and weren't reinstated.

If people interpret something you say in a wildly different way then what happened, then it's not simply semantics. People are talking about issues and other aspects of this that simply do not exist, because they're being actively misinformed by the article's headline. Obviously people should read entire articles and not just headlines, but of course that's not what happens in practice.

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#254

Post by somenameforme » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 1:51 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #214

somenameforme wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Except it's the same in literally all of these articles. Some relatively minor mistake is taken and blown up into some huge degree of maliciousness or unprecedented incompetence. People then 'social mediaize' it all by taking it at face value, and then getting each other even more riled up - exactly like a mob. It's easy to see where this is coming from because each writer of these sort of articles likely had colleag…

Seems like these idiots are making a lot of ‘minor mistakes’, and people are losing patience.

Basically nobody believes the world is flat. The reason the media, and some people, seem to believe this is because of a simple aspect of large numbers. If 0.01% of people believe the world is flat then in a world of billions that'd be millions of people. It still doesn't change the fact that 0.01% is reasonably called "basically nobody."

In this case they've cut tens of billions of dollars in spending and an immense amount of waste. Even if they were 99.9% accurate by this metric or that, there's going to be many mistakes. And I don't really think people are losing patience. His poll numbers are slightly down but not much more than that and I think that's probably more attributable to his failures to end the Ukraine War, continuing support for Israel, and other such unpopular things.

It's mostly the same people raging. Even the "protests" have been largely farcical rent-a-protest type events.

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#255

Post by somenameforme » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 1:57 PM UTC

monkeydreams wrote: post #164

somenameforme wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article somewhat buries the facts but a couple of important ones: - They were able to get them reinstated within 24 hours. - A presentation seen by Science said the overall NIH RIF (reduction in force) was based on administrative codes and that some “may not have been intentional.”

> but a couple of important ones If this was the first "mistake" made by the new administration and DOGE, then these items would be understandable. Or the second mistake. Or the third, maybe. This is intentional. That is the only conclusion one can draw now. From the terseness of the letters of dismissal to the unreliability of the message ('you're fired! Wait, no you're not!'), one can only assume this is part of th…

This administration has tens of billions of dollars in spending and an immense amount of waste. Even if they were 99.9% accurate by this metric or that, there's going to be many mistakes. And the media is going to work to drag out the worst of the worst mistakes. And those worst of the worst are things like this - a guy being accidentally placed on leave pending dismissal for less than 24 hours?

Obviously everybody would prefer there be 0 mistakes, but I think in general this is, ironically, quite a good indicator!

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#256

Post by const_cast » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 2:25 PM UTC

Terr_ wrote: post #80

jmward01 wrote: post #50

The obvious methodology at work here is 'fire everyone then hopefully re-hire only what is blindingly obviously needed'. There are many, many problems with this approach in a business setting but even more from a governmental setting. The first, and what should be obvious to anyone with an ounce of empathy, is that these are real people who's lives are being toyed with. It isn't like you are trying out a new business…

Also, it's completely destroying an incredibly valuable asset: The reputation of being a stable long-term employer! (This is possibly their corrupt intent.) The immediate "savings" reduced workforce (even assuming the same level of work gets done) can easily be obliterated by the long-term damage of needing to pay more to attract equally-qualified applicants away from the private sector. Some quick napkin-math just t…

Nobody considers long term damage, particularly in a business sense.

If you look at the history of American company that have failed or are currently failing, there is one common denominator: short-term decision making.

As soon as business have even an ounce of success, they immediately give up on and start optimizing for the now, not the tomorrow. Take a look at Tesla. They invested a lot in the early days of their company and it paid off heavily. But as soon as they saw market success, they took a page from GM. Stop innovating immediately, start cutting quality. You’re safe now, no need to be competitive. No need to think about the future, it’s secured.

But it’s not secured, and this ambivalence is their downfall. Smarter, long-term thinking business will run Tesla into the ground, as history has shown with GM.

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#257

Post by const_cast » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 2:36 PM UTC

AStonesThrow wrote: post #251

loktarogar wrote: post #176

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Do we actually want "I just want a stable job" people being a significant part of the federal governments workforce? Yes, if you can't offer someone market rates then you need to offer them other things to fill that void. Stability is one of them, and is actually a good thing in government, when politics is so volatile. If the workforce is fired every time a new party comes into power, you don't have a stable gover…

> If the workforce is fired every time a new party comes into power What if the workforce is never fired, and government jobs acquire a reputation for ingrained incompetence, promotion from within for the unqualified, and a management so frustrated by their inability to turn over poorly-performing workers that nearly nothing productive gets done anymore? What if the workforce is full of appointments by the Old-Boy ne…

[dead]

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#258

Post by const_cast » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 2:42 PM UTC

hnlmorg wrote: post #210

kelnos wrote: post #151

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, this is the GOP playbook in a nutshell. 1. Rail against the idea that any social program can work, or that the government can do a good job administering it. 2. Fight for amendments to bills around it that reduce its funding or scope in key, critical ways. 3. Let the new thing fail, because you crippled the bill that authorized it. 4. Crow about how you were right all along, that government can't do this or that…

5. Then outsource that government work to private firms, preferably ones run by your friends and/or lobbyists, who are both more expensive and yet do a worse job too.

6. (Optional) after decades of the failures of the private sector, re-nationalize the industry and take huge losses. Loop back to step 1 in 5 years.

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#259

Post by const_cast » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 2:49 PM UTC

imgabe wrote: post #204

autoexec wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This makes no sense. It is not a life, it is a job. The person isn't dead People's health insurance is tied to their job. Mass firings by the largest employer in the nation could easily result in several deaths as medical treatments are disrupted and medications missed, delayed, or changed with insurance companies. Not that death is required to screw up your life either. This is not a great time to be out of work.…

> People's health insurance is tied to their job. Mass firings by the largest employer in the nation could easily result in several deaths as medical treatments are disrupted and medications missed, delayed, or changed with insurance companies. No, this could not "easily" happen. People get COBRA to continue their health coverage after losing their job. There is Medicaid and other programs for people who can't afford…

Multiple glaring problems here:

1. Cobra is absurdly expensive. “Healthy” people typically opt for no insurance at all, because they’re now unemployed and poor. Some will die. We cannot ignore obvious human behavior to make your argument more convenient.

2. Medicaid is among the programs on the chopping block. Again, we cannot just ignore that little point because it’s inconvenient. This is ALL part of one conservative strategy for starving the beast.

Re: After 'coding error' triggers firings, top NIH scientists called back to work

#260

Post by fastball » Mon, Apr 07, 2025, 3:04 PM UTC

autoexec wrote: post #232

fastball wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Government workers can take far more pride in being public servants than they would peeing in a bottle for amazon. It's no surprise there is less turnover. See, this is where you're losing me. One the one hand you are arguing that part of what makes working for the government desirable is the job itself / the work being done (which sounds good to me), but then you are immediately conflating that with a reputation f…

> but then you are immediately conflating that with a reputation for being a "stable employer" (read: not firing people when maybe you should), which is not how I want my tax dollars to be used. You're using an incorrect definition for "stable employer". Employers with low turnover rates are stable employers. The usual reason for low turnover rate is employee satisfaction with the job and their work environment, not…

> The usual reason for low turnover rate is employee satisfaction with the job and their work environment

Citation almost certainly needed, especially when the government is being presented as exceptional in this regard.

And I do not know why you have started talking about private companies taking taxpayer money – I was never proposing privatizing anything.