Tag Archives: bureaucracy

Lipstick on a pig…

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In the fine tradition of bureaucracies everywhere, I was reminded again this morning how vitally important it is that we say exactly what we mean, especially when using email. I mean we all know how temperamental and difficult to use that can be, right? I’ll be the first to tell you that I’m a simple foot soldier in this corner of this operation, but regardless of whether I title an email “Miami Trip Meeting” or the officially preferred “South Florida Assistance Visit,” everyone in the building knows the big dogs are going to Miami in February while the rest of us freeze our hoohaas off back here at the home office. Hey, it’s ok. We all know that age and seniority bring their privileges. But for God’s sake, when the instructions sent out include not scheduling any meetings before 10:00 or after 2:30, let’s not insult anyone’s intelligence by pretending this is anything other than a good old fashioned boondoggle.

Thanks, and enjoy your South Florida Assistance Visit.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

My generation…

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One of the most shocking moments of my early career was realizing the level of discomfort most of my fellow employees felt when dealing with issues of technology. On the outside, I made the (unfortunate) assumption that government was full of code breakers, supercomputers sending men to the moon, and software that could track anyone, anywhere. I suppose those tasty bits of tech may exist somewhere, but the most advanced piece of hardware that anyone in my agency has is their Blackberry (already two or three generations out of date). It’s fair to say I was shocked and appalled at the number of people in government who just don’t get the role technology is going to play over the coming decades.

We’re in the leading edge of that future now. Utilities like Facebook and Twitter may have a toy-like simplicity – I’ve heard my own leaders dismiss them as “for the kids” and nothing more than a drain on productivity – but as more traffic is driven to the web, as electronic communication in its many forms continues its rise, the fact is that this is going to largely be the way people communicate in the future. Don’t believe me? When was the last time you received an actual letter from someone under 40?

The age of instant communication and access to the sum total of all human knowledge is going to level the bureaucracy, whether the bureaucracy accepts it or not. It’s happening already – those with a little bit of savvy are using basic tools like Dropbox, Google Chat, or SharePoint to circumvent the cumbersome “authorized” communications channels that stovepipe information to “collaborate in a matrixed environment.” Instead of sending a request for information up the chain-of-command and waiting for the answer to come back down from on high, we’re reaching out directly to the person with the information we need. That person may sit a few desks away or not even be on the same continent. The beauty of the age is that location doesn’t matter. The future is going to look like the cloud, not like a hierarchical org chart.

There’s more information stored electronically than we could ever hope to archive in the biggest file room. Electrons and knowing how to use them are what’s going to be left when we as an organization realize that the old forms are no longer viable. Information has always been power. Managing and controlling the flow of electronic information is going to be the “institutional knowledge” of our time. I don’t think command-and-control model of management will ever go away, this is government after all, but we few, we happy few who know how to make the electrons hum are going to be the voices of power behind that throne… if only because the king doesn’t know how to turn on his computer.

Editorial Note: This part of a continuing series of posts previously available on a now defunct website. They are appearing on http://www.jeffreytharp.com for the first time. This post has been time stamped to correspond to its original publication date.

Terms…

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It’s possible that I’m starting to come to terms with living in a state of perpetual uncertainty. Maybe there’s a two week maximum on anxiety of this sort. After taking counsel in a dear friend last night, I’m reminded that getting things done the Army way can take much, much longer than should be reasonably expected. It’s not so much that I don’t care as it is that I’ve seemed to move beyond the point where fretting about it is worth the effort. It’s really an occasion where all there is to be done is lie back and think of England. The alternative is to pick up the phone and start ranting like a lunatic at the guy I’m hoping to work for at some point in the near future. That would probably be the operative definition of a situation other than good at this point. So, until further notice, I wait… and wait… and wait. At some point even the bureaucracy has to grind its way into an actual decision, right?

48 Cents…

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As a taxpayer, I’m absolutely appalled at the seemingly out of control spending we’ve seen from this government over the last 18 months. It’s beyond irresponsible and boarders on criminal. On the other hand, as one cog in the two million strong federal civilian workforce, all I can really say about the minuscule savings (yes, $5B is minuscule in terms of the federal budget) realized by freezing federal raises for two years is, WTF? That’s like using a bandaid to treat a sucking chest wound. It’s a structural problem and not one brought about by my picking up an extra 1.4% next year.

Want to fix the real problem you have with payroll being too high? Build an HR system that works. There are some real all-stars on the roster in every agency, but the reality is 80% of the work is being done by 20% of the workforce. Cull the dead wood. Decimate the workforce. Literally. Take the bottom 10% of performers and show them the door and then you’ll be off to a good start on payroll savings. Do it again the next year and you’ll be starting to talk about real money. Take the programs and projects that aren’t showing a return, those that just aren’t working and put them on the chopping block. You could eliminate whole damned departments and agencies that way.

If you want big savings, you’ve got to go big. Taking $1000 out of my pocket isn’t going to do it for ya, so stop pretending that you’ve done anything with this “freeze.” Your spin-masters are telling me that I should feel sorry for wanting my raise this year, but let me tell you for the record, I don’t. I know what kind of jacked up things I fix on a daily basis. I know that it’s my skill and talent, and that of a handful of others that makes incompetents look good. We’re practically miracle workers. And I know what that’s worth – A hell of a lot more than an extra $.48 an hour.

So, until the Congress and the administration are ready to get serious about putting things somewhere close to back on track, I’m tired of being the whipping boy for everything a generation of politicians has done wrong. I want my raise. I know I’ve earned it.

For those who think federal workers are over paid, feel free to visit http://www.usajobs.com and build your resume. Uncle Sam is still hiring. I think you’ll find the view from the inside a little different.

PowerPoint Service Announcement…

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I get it. I’m a PowerPoint Ranger. I’ve got my 5000 hour tab. I can rock the old school black on white or jam it with 100 megs of media content. We can do those things. We *can* destroy the network with the sheer size of our files. We have the technology – Thought technically, I suppose I have the technology. I wouldn’t use my POS employer-issued Dell to build such a piece of work, but I digress.

Friends, my point is that if you’re not on your guard, PowerPoint will slip in and destroy you in the night. You’ll start off with version one and two. A few days later, you’ll find yourself at version 8. Out of nowhere, version 16 rises from the early morning mist… surely version 17 is only a day away. I can only warn you that no good ever came from double digit versions. Down that path lies only ruin. It’s too late for me, but you, you can save yourselves.

I urge all of you – just say no to multi-version PowerPoints. No good can come from them. Be proud of your tabs – but only use your skills for good. The path to PowerPoint glory will tempt you, but never, ever forget that with those tabs, comes great responsibility. Use them wisely.

No confidence…

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After the British loss at Yorktown, the government led by Lord North collapsed in a Parliamentary vote of no confidence. The sitting members of Parliament communicated to King George III that they no longer had faith in the Prime Minister to effectively set policy. In representative government, the mandate to lead comes, directly or indirectly, from the led. I’ve been thinking lately that it’s a pity we don’t see the application of no confidence motions in more places. If we learned anything from the unfortunate case of Lord North (and from Braveheart), it’s that men don’t follow titles. Sure, they’ll go along for a while – as long as things are going well or as long as they don’t have options. But the moment they lose confidence or when a better opportunity presents itself, their support for your mandate to lead will fade away like a mist. You’ll look around one day and find yourself alone with your bad decisions, resented for your presumption of unearned loyalty, and ultimately made as irrelevant as the rock the water in a stream simply flows around.

In the movies…

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As a kid, I loved old movies… Westerns, war movies, dramas… I ate them up. That probably had something to do with spending almost every Sunday afternoon at my grandparent’s house, where the Sunday afternoon nap and movie were a staple of the week. That’s how I remember it at least. Some of my favorite movies were the 50s vintage comedies set during World War II. In fact they’re still some of my favorites – guaranteed to stop my channel surfing in its tracks every time.

Mr. Roberts is the story of a blowhard skipper commanding an unimportant supply ship at the far end of the Pacific war. Actually, it’s the story of the malcontent first officer and long-suffering crew of this unimportant supply ship at the far end of the Pacific war and the hijinks that ensue when they conspire to make life aboard ship a little less onerous despite the captain’s best efforts to make them all miserable. The main subplot revolves around Mr. Roberts ongoing effort to get a transfer and “get into the war” before the fighting is over. In the end, and with the help of crew, Roberts gets his transfer only to be killed by a kamikaze while fixing a cup of coffee. Make of that what you will.

A guy could learn alot about leadership and psychology from Mr. Roberts – from the skipper who values his bucket-planted palm tree above all other things, to the exec who finds in necessary to occasionally bend the rules, to the junior officer who rises to the challenge of telling truth to power, and the dangers of getting what you want most. There’s a message there somewhere in that 55 year old bit of cinematography.

I’ve been thinking alot about Mr. Roberts lately. In fact, some days I’d almost swear I was in the movie. If only the old man had a palm tree…

Closing time…

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I think it’s safe to say that I’m serious about being ready to move on to the next job, but in the same breath, I’m probably more concerned about geography than I am by pay at this point. That’s been a bit of an interesting point of self discovery I made over the last year or two. If the desire for more money was the driving factor that brought me to Memphis, it’s the desire for the right geography that has sent me out on the search for the next great thing and, surprisingly for me at least, pay has taken a back seat this time around. That’s not to say that I wouldn’t consider something out beyond MD-VA-DC, but it would call for a pretty exceptional set of circumstances.

The job announcement for the first of two jobs I’m applying for in Cumberland closes in a few hours. In the parlance of the federal job seeker, that basically means that at some point in the next few weeks someone in an HR department is going to put together a “best qualified” list and send it along to whoever is doing the hiring. Then the person doing the hiring will take a week or two to rack and stack the list and make a decision about who gets an interview and who doesn’t. And then someone will take another week to schedule interviews. After the interviews, hopefully, there will be a decision made about which of the applicants to select and then the name of the selectee will be sent back to HR to make a formal offer. At any point up until the offer is made by HR, the entire process can be cancelled for almost any reason. That’s a roundabout way of saying that closing time is really just the beginning and as an applicant, it’s the only time in the process when you know there’s a hard and fast date when something is going to happen. After closing time, it’s all about waiting, and wondering, and playing what if, especially if your resume is deemed “good enough” to make the first cut and be sent to the person doing the hiring.

Waiting for things to happen, as we all know, isn’t my strong point. But it’s what I’m going to do. While I doing my level best to keep my head down. And avoid any unnecessary contact between me those who seem bent on driving me round the bend at every possibly opportunity… But I digress. Or more precisely, I wait – and you wait with me. Part of me wonders if I should be blogging this at all. Will you still respect me in the morning if I can’t figure out a way to make this happen? In a blog that focuses largely on what has annoyed me on any given day, this whole discussion feels a little extra personal, I guess. The only promise I’ve ever made here is to always write about whatever happens to be in my head… and as you can see, this is occupying alot of time on the old brainpan these days.

As much as I want to be hopeful that this will come together, I’m trying to mentally prepare and protect myself from how much I’ll hate it if this gets jacked up at the last minute… or if it doesn’t even make it to the last minute. As much as I’m trying not to let myself go down the road of “what if” it’s proving to be more of a challenge than I anticipated. Even after ten years on the road and half a dozen cities, I guess it’s easy to see yourself home when the opportunity is tantalizingly close.

And the plot thickens…

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If pondering a voluntary reduction in grade in order to make an escape plan work might be described as an academic exercise, finding a position that would allow you to laterally transfer to the desired geographic location without loss of grade or pay could be described as mana from heaven. Of course the gulf between finding and actually being hired for said job is something akin to believing there’s a Loch Ness Monster and actually catching it with a fly rod. Sure, it’s theoretically possible, but pretty damned unlikely.

I know I’m beyond qualified, but I also know that doesn’t necessarily mean much in the selection process. And as much as I like to think I should be able to walk into this as a gimmie, I feel like I’m in the fight of my life… for a job I didn’t even know I wanted until I saw it announced. The kicker now is to try not getting too invested in the process; to treat it like any other resume I’ve got floating around out there. It’s easy to walk away from most notices that “you were not referred because you were not among the most qualified applicants.” Like it or not, I’m invested in this one and missing out on it would be a heartbreaker.

So now we wait…

Not all bad…

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It’s obvious by now that I do a fair amount of complaining here and that alot of that complaining is about my job in one way or another. Maybe it’s not the most productive use of time, but It’s a good way from keeping me from going ’round the bend and actually giving voice to these thoughts in the office. Who knows, maybe in a virtual world the difference between what I say here and what I say there doesn’t matter all that much. In fairness I have to admit, though, that despite the complaints, the job does have it’s perks. The fact that federal holidays are all actual holidays is a definite plus. The fact that between annual leave and several varieties of comp time, I’ve got what some would consider a disturbing amount of time off I need to schedule between now and the first week of January is another one. It means that sometimes on a Thursday afternoon before a three-day weekend, I can decide that a four-day weekend would be better. Sure, you’re technically supposed to schedule leave two weeks in advance, but since Uncle operates with a skeleton crew on such Fridays, as long as at least one person is sticking around to answer the phone, most spur of the moment requests are approved as a matter of course.

So now I’m off to start my newly extended weekend… by crawling into bed at 9:30 just like it was any other Thursday. Just call me Mr. Excitement.