Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	Trumps plan for civil service reform
Date:	11/21/2016 10:44:22 PM

Read some articles today about what he has planned for federal workers.  A lot of them I like - making it less time consuming and a shorter period to fire poor performers; making the step increases mean something.  Reduction in the federal workforce through attrition.  He says he will reform the performance appraisal system because the current one is overinflated.  I agree it is overinflated, but I lived through about 5 different performance appraisal ideas, but none of them ever stick.  The problem is quantifying what is basically "fully successful" and what is really "outstanding".  I wish him luck with that.  He says they will throw out all the current personnel regulations and make new rules (tried before, good luck with that)  And he plans to get rid of the Education Department and part of the EPA.  I'd consider throwing the Labor Department on the pile too. 

My only real concern:  once they reform the retirement program and get rid of a lot of benefits, how will they attact high quality workers?  There are some things that the government does that are inherently "government" that can't be contracted out.  He might be left with  low quality people doing these jobs.  Now can fraud waste and abuse be done away with  - to some extent yes, but unless he knows where it exists, no body is going to tell him.  People can get pretty creative in justifying their jobs.  We had some obvious overlaps in various areas and they were identified in a number of "official reviews" looking for redundencies, but in the end, nothing happened. 

One other thing or "how empires get built" - let one thing happen that appears "bad" (whether it really is or not).  The Congress gets a hold of it, they work it to a fare thee well, and then demand another oversight group be created to make sure it never happens again.  It's not just the government employees who create the problem.

It will be interesting to me to see how this goes. Also I wonder if Trump is familiar with the "slow roll" i.e, when an organization is given something that they don't judge to be a good idea. It gets the "slow roll" which means it is being worked on, just not too hard.

Name:	Lifer -	Reply
Subject:	Trumps plan for civil service reform
Date:	11/22/2016 7:52:25 AM

I think with his business background he will just do some of these things and let the chips fall where they may. Fight the battle after they are gone and have less if any influence with which to fight. If you fill the right positions with the right people who will fight the good fight to make his decisions stick many may just start to go away seeing no use in the fight. He seems to be picking g his cabinet o  merit as opposed to politics of whose turn it is. I k of politics is playing a role but doesn't seem to be the driving force behind his decisionss.

I talked with my number two sister last night. She is a flight attendant and told me she had two flight outta the north east on Wednesday after the election. They were the two quietest  flights she has ever been on. Almost total silence as everyone seemed to be in shock. Then on Thursday she was Laguardia when a fellow boarded in full Trump regalia.she had opportunity to talk to him a little after telling him she liked his outfit. He told her he was in a management position  on the campaign and that The Donald was probably the most shocked individual in the country as the results were coming in from the Midwest assuring his victory. It seems that he like so many of us felt the voter fraud division of the Dems was so good as to be unable to overcome. Which is why he made the comments he did about accepting results. If the voter fraud was put of the picture the victory would have been much greater. All this happened in an almost  empty  first class. They have to be really careful about showing their politics and anything not totally PC is strictly verboten. I have been surprised this year because of the four #2 has always been apolitical till this year. Trump fired her up and got her excited about politics for the first I've in her life and she turned 65 in October. MAGA.

Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	Trumps plan for civil service reform
Date:	11/22/2016 8:44:05 PM

I think a lot of people were tired of the PC world that had been imposed on us.  Also, anyone paying attention can see that the economy is whimpering.  Trump spoke to a lot of feelings that people had for a while now.  Liberals like to believe that racist bigots were the primary people who voted Trump in; but I don't think that is the truth. Most of us felt that we couldn't survive another 4/8 years of liberal nonsense. 

I think the most eye opening thing for me is what a weak generation is coming behind us. 

Name:	CAT BOAT -	Reply
Subject:	Trumps plan for civil service reform
Date:	11/24/2016 11:48:40 AM

I very much enjoyed yall's post.  What a refreshing exchange of opinions.  Hound, I too am fed up with PC. 

Name:	phil -	Reply
Subject:	Trumps plan for civil service reform
Date:	11/28/2016 4:26:25 PM

What burns my jets is calling a spade a spade and then having to check my attitude because someone else screwed up, and getting in trouble for pointing out that they screwed up.  

We live in reverse world where perversions and corrruption are welcomed as conquering heros and honesty and values are trampled underfoot and proclaimed to be evil or some form of ism.

Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	Trumps plan for civil service reform
Date:	11/29/2016 4:39:40 PM

 I don't surscribe to name calling, but I do have a problem when people refuse to take responsiblility for their screwups, and those that get on the defensive when it is called to their attention. 

In talking about federal employees, they are accountable to the tax payers.  I had a job at one point that involved a lot of interface with Defense industry.  The export of Defense articles is subject to U.S. export control at State, although they rely on Defense to tell them what is okay and what is not.  The Export control system can be long and tedious.  So industry reps like to call and find out the state of their export requests, because they are mostly on a schedule.  State would not take their calls.  So naturally they would call Defense to find out what was going on.  Mostly they were getting pressure from their Marketing people or Senior management - as some of these potential sales were in the upper millions. So I had a boss who decided that if State didn't talk to industry, we shouldn't either.  Totally ridiculous because sometimes a meeting among technical parties on both sides could turn a "no" into a "yes".  He got pretty ticked off with me, because I still talked to industry, arranged meetings, and if need be, flooded State with emails about the need to expedite a request.  I was appalled at the State Department attitude, not only for export control, but in general.  When you work for Defense, you are expected to lean forward and keep from things from becoming problems.  I can't is just not in the vocabulary.  But when I have interfaced with Social Security and the VA as a private citizen, I am shocked at the attitude and total lack of caring.  IRS has become marginally better after they got in trouble a few years ago for not being responsive.  I think some of the agencies must be as bad as SS and VA, and to me, the duty is to serve the public. 

But as an aside, I was in Publix today in Montgomery.  The cashier was BSing with some friend of hers, and after I had unloaded my cart on the belt, I, as a customer had a wait until she finished her personal conversation.  Even the bagger said something about it to her and she just blew him off. 

Name:	MrHodja -	Reply
Subject:	Trumps plan for civil service reform
Date:	11/29/2016 4:49:29 PM (updated 11/29/2016 4:50:21 PM)

The problem with State is they are not accountable to anyone. At Defense, there is a Commander and fighting troops out there demanding  results, not to mention the Combatant Command Commanders going straight to the Joint Chiefs or the Assistant/under Secretary on the OSD staff or SecDef himself.  With "leaders" at State like Clinton and Kerry, who couldn't care less about the minions, there is no pressure to do anything and a full inbox means job security.

Name:	phil -	Reply
Subject:	Trumps plan for civil service reform
Date:	11/29/2016 5:57:26 PM

The spade a spade is not so much as calling a name but  the pointing out of lazy, ignoring the customer type as you referenced.  

Image if you will ( sounds like a twilight zone episode ) you are standing at Publix and wait patiently on the cashier to finish her personal conversation, the bagger goes and indicates to the manger that you have been waiting patiently and the cashier is ignoring his/her job and you as the customer - the bagger is repremanded as being not a team player or some such PC crap.  Bagger is like WTF?  I am attempting to help our customers, the other is not doing the job and the wrong person gets in trouble for it.

Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	Trumps plan for civil service reform
Date:	11/30/2016 8:24:31 PM

Sadly you are right.  Usually the Secretary of State surrounds themselves with their own people and leaves the rest to do whatever. 

LOL, you may appreciate this.  I was talking to a company rep who had been given a hard time by a State Export Control guy.  The contract rep told me that his company president (and it was a big company) was going to make an appointment with the Secretrary of State to complain that their Export control rep wouldn't answer his phone or tell them what was going on with their submission.  I had to laugh, because I had visions of that meeting taking place and the SecState going "WHO? What"  and not even knowing export control exisited. 

People just don't get that in Defense there is no excuse.  For just the reason you say.  And it trains you to approach each "challenge" (cause we didn't use the "P" word in Defense) in a methodical, logical way and have the details. 

Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	Trumps plan for civil service reform
Date:	11/30/2016 8:26:44 PM

I figure that's true.  So many of them don't realize that they have a job because of having customers. 

Name:	GoneFishin -	Reply
Subject:	Customer Service
Date:	11/30/2016 8:45:14 PM

Either start loading your items back in your cart to move to another register or speak up.... excuse me how much longer am I going to have to wait for check out me out? Speak up....be pleasant but their job is to serve YOU.

With all the controls, how did we get the high priced items the Defense Dept has a history of buying?

Name:	Talullahhound -	Reply
Subject:	Customer Service
Date:	12/1/2016 10:03:07 PM

Congressional budget reductions for programs cause reductions in the number of items we planned to buy and then requires a lengthening of the schedule which costs the government money.  In many cases, the govenrment has to pay companies for breaks in production, so they don't have to lay off their highly skilled workers. Sometimes the government changes it's mind about what they want a weapon to do - they add bells and whistles based on the changing needs of the users, and that costs extra.  Sometimes when the production schedule has to be extended over a longer period of time, industry cannot take advantage of economies of scale for the parts.  Changes in technology available  and it has to be redesigned because the old technology is no longer available.  Reworks of software cost $$$.  then sometime people make a bad decision on the program and it ends up costing more money than the industry bid.  Testing costs a lot of money, and then they sometimes find out that things don't work as they should. 

Take JSF.  That is one of the most expensive aircraft ever built, but also one of the most complex.  It has loads of sensors, sensor data is then automatically integrated with other data and then displayed for the pilot.  Additionally, in order to even afford it in the beginning, we took on foreign countries (I think there were 7), who then demanded their industries be allowed to build stuff on it too.  As time went on, the users needed different versions, so that became additional design work.  Congress reduced their budget serveral times, so the Military Services has had to extend the production numerous times.  It all add up.

Then there are the systems that end up just not working or are not needed anymore. DoD tries to cut the program and Congress goes inot the budget and earmarks special funding to keep it going, because they don't want to lose jobs in their district.  So very few systems ever get cancelled.  I work with one that got cancelled by the Army 3 times and Congress restrored the funding 3 times.  On one system, the Army decided to have only one engine manufacturer for a system, then the company whined to Congress and Congress put special legislation in to fund another engine, which no one wanted. 

Congress is as much to blame as anyone for the cost of defense weapons systems.  back in the 1980s, who was the CEO of Martin Marietta and served as the Deputy Secretary for Acquisiton, wrote a book about what was wrong with the acquisiton system.  Don't know if it is still in print anywhere, but most of what he identies as the problems is still true today.