Did I do Anything Worthwhile? - Page 8 - Politics and Economics

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Did I do Anything Worthwhile?

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01-07-2019 , 08:18 PM

#176

samdash

adept

Join Date: Feb 2003 Posts: 1,196

Quote:

Originally Posted by jman220

That said, the alternative is worse.

Why?

01-07-2019 , 10:03 PM

#177

fxwacgesvrhdtf

Guest

Posts: n/a

Quote:

Originally Posted by samdash

Why?

Because working conditions before organized labor was a thing were abominable and workers were abused and literally worked to death for pittance wages while robber barons amassed huge sums of wealth?

01-07-2019 , 10:05 PM

#178

lol_at_you

grinder

Join Date: Nov 2013 Posts: 554

Quote:

Originally Posted by jman220

Because working conditions before organized labor was a thing were abominable and workers were abused and literally worked to death for pittance wages while robber barons amassed huge sums of wealth?

Did you not hear about how Mason was forced to work for free?

01-07-2019 , 10:09 PM

#179

fxwacgesvrhdtf

Guest

Posts: n/a

Quote:

Originally Posted by lol_at_you

Did you not hear about how Mason was forced to work for free?

Not sure if serious or leveling, but Mason was almost assuredly an exempt employee not in a union. His story is the exact example of why organized labor is important and how workers are abused when they don’t have unions. Hell my experience as a prosecutor (illegal to unionize in my state) is another example of that, I worked my ass off for very little comparative pay and no overtime when i worked 75 hour weeks.

01-07-2019 , 10:39 PM

#180

SuperUberBob

Not interesting enough

Join Date: Feb 2006 Posts: 48,217

Quote:

Originally Posted by Mason Malmuth

. .................................................. ...............Date: September 24, 1981

.................................................. ................Mason S. Malmuth
.................................................. ................33895 Silver Lantern
.................................................. ................Apt. 8
.................................................. ................Dana Point, CA 92629

Ronald Reagan
President of the United States
Washington, D.C.

Dear President Reagan:

Today I received a letter from you asking for my support. Well, I plan to give that support in two ways. First, by making a small contribution (I will return this in the "1981 GOP Victory Fund" envelope) and second, by writing this letter. In what follows it will probably sound like I am stating facts without always offering proof. I know that this is weakness in my argument, but please suffice it to say that I am quite sincere in what I write.

Perhaps, I should start by telling you about myself. I was born in Florida, almost 30 years ago, attended VPI, where I received a masters degree in mathematics and have been working for the United States Census Bureau for the past six years. I am single, participate in sports, and enjoy life very much.

Currently, I am Chief of the Quality Assurance Section at the Laguna Niguel Processing Office of the U. S. Census Bureau in Southern California, and have had as many as 700 people working for me. Often, I am asked if government is as bad as "everyone says." The answer is a definite yes. Below, I will attempt to describe the problems (as perceived by myself) and suggest possible solutions.

The first problem is Personnel. They are not responsible to anyone except themselves. Consequently, instead of helping when needed, all they do is protect themselves. The easiest way to do this is to do nothing, that way they don't make any mistakes that may come back to haunt them. Let me give some examples. With our large staff (of mostly temporary employees) many problem people are hired (no screening is done). But it is almost impossible to fire these people since they usually threaten grievance procedures and call their congressman. Consequently, we are stuck with many people who are not only incompetent, but quite disruptive. One partial solution that we use is to realize that Personnel will not do anything, i.e., they will not do anything against we, the managers, either. Consequently, I have had several "harassment" sessions in my office. The word "harassment" is used in exaggeration, but we have at times convinced some clerks that they were better off resigning than face the "sure" discipline that would "surely" come (even though it almost always surely does not come).

The other major Personnel problem is that they are on their own time schedule. For example, for a new project, approximately 200 clerks were recruited. But, we had no supervisors for them. Why? Well the supervisors are selected through a different means and our personnel specialist apparently had other things to work on. Consequent;y, we had to make our "lead" clerks "acting" supervisors. After doing this, I was counseled by our Personnel Department for misuse of our staff.

How do you solve this problem? Simple, make the Personnel Departments less independent. In fact, I would make them report to the people they work for. Perhaps this would create another set of problems, but I believe that the current set up is practically unworkable.

The next major problem I want to discuss is personnel quality. The government must have been good at one time, if not, we could not have gone to the moon, etc. However, that is certainly not the case now. I am not sure what brought in the first group of poor people, but what is not realized is how the system feeds on itself.

Let me describe what happens. Eventually, a few of these people rise to a high enough position where they can hire others. Do they hire good people? No, they do not dare! They might get shown up. Often, they are also able to find ambitious people who can not make it on their merits, but do make it by carrying out their bosses whims. Consequently, the job becomes "in office politics." If you are good, one becomes concerned with saving his/her reputation and neglects his/her job. If you are bad, one spends his/her time pointing out everyone else's problems, allies themselves with other people, and if possible, gets in on an "empire" where they can not be touched.

I am not sure how to cure the above problem but I do have two suggestions. First, jobs need to be more narrowly defined to fit the appropriate work. Let me give a specific example. Both my boss and I are "mathematical statisticians" and both have advanced degrees from legitimate schools. We are technically responsible to a branch of "mathematical statisticians" in Washington, D. C. (Headquarters) that contains people, which in my opinion, have only a minimum knowledge of statistics. (To be perfectly honest, I think our jobs were wrongly classified and people with my background are not necessary where I am at.) Consequently, our relations are terrible. Instead of working together, no one is kept informed, information does not change hands, no trust exists between the two sites, and intra-office politics is played with reputations at stake and "back stabbing common."

My other suggestion is to end "dual" grade positions. Again, let me be specific. In our office, a branch chief should be a grade 13. However, one position was filled as a 12/13, i.e., the person was hired as a grade 12 and promoted uncompetitively to a 13 after one year. This allowed one of the assistant program managers to select a very ambitious person at the 12 level who was willing (again in my opinion) to do almost anything to obtain the grade 13. Consequently, life was made miserable for many people, the overall objective of the job was lost, while currying personal favor was held in highest esteem, and other areas took defense against the oncoming steam roller while neglecting their original (and more important) duties. Finally, I have seen this dual/grade system work before. It may give an honest manager wider selection, but is too often abused by the devious manager to raise up their "cronies" at the expense of the "good" people.

The third problem that I would like to discuss concerns management technique. How do you meet a deadline or solve a problem in government? You hire more staff! Not only does this waste money, lose efficiency, and dilute staff quality, but it means that those managing now have more responsibility and often have their jobs reclassified to a higher level.

An interesting variation to the above theme (one in which I have personally experienced) is to keep certain groups, usually those that contain the good people understaffed while the other areas grow. This means that the understaffed area now gets overworked and their quality drops. Then the poor staff now points out how bad the good staff is and in-office politics again takes off.

Mr. President, I think I have written enough. Perhaps, one day I will write again and express my opinions on more general subjects, such as defense, schooling, the economy, etc. In any case, I am glad to see that a new philosophy is now present in Washington, and fully support your program to shift the burden from the public to the private sector.

Sincerely,

Mason S. Malmuth

tldr

01-07-2019 , 11:02 PM

#181

Trolly McTrollson

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 36,730

Quote:

Originally Posted by jman220

Not sure if serious or leveling, but Mason was almost assuredly an exempt employee not in a union.

I'm not sure if you're leveling. You actually believe all of that hogwash?

01-07-2019 , 11:04 PM

#182

fxwacgesvrhdtf

Guest

Posts: n/a

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trolly McTrollson

I'm not sure if you're leveling. You actually believe all of that hogwash?

I do. Why would he make it up? What part of it isn’t believable?

01-07-2019 , 11:10 PM

#183

Clovis8

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Mar 2006 Posts: 16,503

As far as I know, Mason supports Trump. Still. Today.

This renders all his opinions, on every topic, not worthy of any serious consideration.

01-07-2019 , 11:29 PM

#184

Max Cut

Guest

Posts: n/a

Sounds right, and I don't mean that to be a personal insult. It would be dishonest of me to think otherwise for Mr. Malmuth exclusively among Trump supporters. However, I would still be interested in hearing his opinion on what affect, if any, a national state of emergency in the US would have on the poker economy. Now that sarcasm could justifiably be taken as an insult.

01-07-2019 , 11:34 PM

#185

kickabuck

old hand

Join Date: Nov 2005 Posts: 1,267

Legend has it that Ronald Reagan's last coherent utterance was clearly heard to be "Has Mason Malmuth written me again yet?"

01-07-2019 , 11:35 PM

#186

Trolly McTrollson

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 36,730

Quote:

Originally Posted by jman220

What part of it isn’t believable?

Among many other things, the fact that he didn't ***** about his unpaid overtime in his letter to Reagan is a dead giveaway right there. Like, if I'm working 30+ hours of unpaid labor a week the main grievance I'll bring up isn't going to be that I can't fire my employees fast enough.

Quote:

Why would he make it up?

lol

01-07-2019 , 11:40 PM

#187

Trolly McTrollson

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Oct 2010 Posts: 36,730

I guess "*****" gets censored now. That's an interesting change.

01-08-2019 , 12:37 AM

#188

dth123451

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2012 Posts: 15,502

Did Mason really post a form letter response thinking Ronald Reagan wrote him back? Admittedly, I skimmed heavily.

01-08-2019 , 12:47 AM

#189

Mason Malmuth

Former Top Dog

Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 13,014

Quote:

Originally Posted by Man of Means

I don't think anyone would disagree that, holding everything else constant, not being able to fire poor performers would lead to a lower-quality worker pool. But not all else is constant and the overall effect is not predictable.

Greater job stability attracts more high-quality, career-oriented applicants. It would allow the government to pay a lower salary than an equivalent private-sector contractor, as job security compensates for a few more dollars.

And it might also have the effect of the employer (the federal government) exercising more caution in hiring than your average private-sector employer.

Another line of thinking would concern the promotion process (is private sector more likely to promote a person who is incompetent but socially skilled? is the government process too rigid?) rather than just focusing on the threshold for firing.

Why would a top notch employee be that worried about job security? It's generally the poor employee who can't do the job who gets removed, not the person who knows his stuff and does his job well.

This reminds me of a quote from Wild Bill Hickok. He said something along the lines that virtually everyone he killed needed to be killed because they were bad people. He didn't have the need to kill good people.

Mason

01-08-2019 , 12:51 AM

#190

Mason Malmuth

Former Top Dog

Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 13,014

Quote:

Originally Posted by jman220

Because working conditions before organized labor was a thing were abominable and workers were abused and literally worked to death for pittance wages while robber barons amassed huge sums of wealth?

Hi jman:

While what you say was certainly true many years ago, when I worked for Northrop, and I don't know if this is still true, they were the largest non-union company in the world, and no one wanted a union. There are reasons for this.

Mason

01-08-2019 , 12:52 AM

#191

Mason Malmuth

Former Top Dog

Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 13,014

Quote:

Originally Posted by jman220

Yes, I was an exempt employee.

Mason

01-08-2019 , 12:54 AM

#192

dth123451

Carpal \'Tunnel

Join Date: Jul 2012 Posts: 15,502

Great employees get fired all the time by insecure, political bosses.

If NG was so great, why did you quit?

01-08-2019 , 12:57 AM

#193

Mason Malmuth

Former Top Dog

Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 13,014

Quote:

Originally Posted by dth123451

Did Mason really post a form letter response thinking Ronald Reagan wrote him back? Admittedly, I skimmed heavily.

First, the reply was not from Ronald Reagan. Second, while some of the wording in the reply does look standard in a "form response" type way, other parts of the reply letter are clearly addressing exactly what I said.

Mason

01-08-2019 , 12:59 AM

#194

Mason Malmuth

Former Top Dog

Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 13,014

Quote:

Originally Posted by dth123451

Great employees get fired all the time by insecure, political bosses.

If NG was so great, why did you quit?

I left because there were other things I wanted to do.

MM

01-08-2019 , 01:10 AM

#195

David Sklansky

Administrator

Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 17,075

Quote:

Originally Posted by tomdemaine

. Liar, Myopic, Ignorant, Greedy, Fox News Addled.

Liar is in a different category. Do you see why?

01-08-2019 , 01:18 AM

#196

David Sklansky

Administrator

Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 17,075

Quote:

Originally Posted by dth123451

Great employees get fired all the time by insecure, political bosses.

But not nearly as often as bad employees. What that means is that the risk vs reward ratio is different for the highly skilled and diligent compared to the opposite. In other words the superior worker, on average would not accept as big a pay cut for security as the inferior worker because he is less likely to be fired if he took the securityless higher paying job and more likely to be hired elsewhere if he is fired. Thus offering less money in return for security is likely to result in a workforce where the best are underrepresented.

01-08-2019 , 01:42 AM

#197

Mason Malmuth

Former Top Dog

Join Date: Aug 2002 Posts: 13,014

Quote:

Originally Posted by Trolly McTrollson

Trolley:

Shame on you. If you read my 1981 letter to Ronald Reagan you didn't comprehend everything that was in it. The second to the last paragraph says:

Quote:

An interesting variation to the above theme (one in which I have personally experienced) is to keep certain groups, usually those that contain the good people understaffed while the other areas grow. This means that the understaffed area now gets overworked and their quality drops. Then the poor staff now points out how bad the good staff is and in-office politics again takes off.

The bolding was just added by me and there is my reference to the insane number of hours that we worked.

Mason

01-08-2019 , 01:47 AM

#198

chezlaw

Limey Bastard

Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 46,846

Good employees are also usually better able to get another job. That also changes their risk/reward.

This is also true of young employees. The older you get the worse the risk reward gets. Older employees are often in the position of it being their last career job and being let go is a catastrophe.

01-08-2019 , 01:48 AM

#199

chezlaw

Limey Bastard

Join Date: Jan 2004 Posts: 46,846

Mason, I don't know if you can be bothered but if if you can, it would be good to hear your views on trump and his presidency.

01-08-2019 , 02:33 AM

#200

microbet

Solar Powered

Join Date: Jan 2005 Posts: 56,492

Mason,

Where/when did you work with HUD?

Also, as others have said census > poker >>>>>>>Northrop. It doesn't matter what department you were in, you were selling arms. I've got one brother working for Boeing and another in the criminal justice system and I don't hate them or anything like that. It's not like I think everyone serving awful causes really wants to be doing something awful, but they are. Take some responsibility. It's hard to not be complicit to something in some way, though it is pretty easy to not work for a war contractor.

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