Trump / Musk (other than DOGE)
- Thread starter nycfan
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1moretimeagain
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Tesla’s Board should email their CEO and demand 5 bullet points on what he accomplished last week.
ZenMode
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It really is funny to see adults, employed by the Federal Government of the United States, get so upset over being asked essentially that: "What would you say you do here?".
Anyone who is a)engaged with the details of their role and b) actually executing the responsibilities of their role should be able to respond in minutes.
BTW, the role/performance of any employed person, whether they know it or not, is likely being assessed on a daily basis.
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Very few are upset about the underlying question, which is one they have to answer within their department. With millions of employees, the federal government is certain to have its share of slackers who may resent any additional efforts, sure, but all large employers have those (and most small employers do too). What people are angry about is that most of them have very well defined job descriptions, so this is not about "what do you do here" -- that is prescribed and documented. They mostly also already have to do departmental self-evaluations and get supervisors to provide performance reviews that are in their records.
The five bullet point demand would be lazy circumvention of the existing and available records if that is what Musk is up to. But it is not. He is creating some sort of ad hoc response system, with zero meaningful instruction, that he now claims will be fed to an AI to determine who is worthy of continuing work and who should be fired. Based on five bullet points about a 4-day work week. Musk doesn't actually run DOGE, per DOJ repeated filings and statements in court, so it is not clear how Musk has any authority to make any such demands of anyone who works for the Federal Government.
The process is asinine harassment as a PR stunt and to undermine the morale of federal workers generally. People who support DOGE keep using the "what would you say your do here" consultants from Office Space as a hilarious joke to support DOGE, and that is somewhat accurate but not at all positive for DOGE since those consultants were soulless outsiders brought in to slim down the ranks, not brilliant good guys defending the company's righteous efficiency.
Other than such point failures as the validity of self assessment and the proper interpretation of that assessment by the initial reader, I only see the overall cost and lack of apparent purpose as problems. You can't really cross index this. There's too many jobs with totally different requirements. I mean, what do you do with this?
I think it's just Trump mentally masturbating Musk while they both fantasize about peons jumping at their beck and call
I think it's just Trump mentally masturbating Musk while they both fantasize about peons jumping at their beck and call
ZenMode
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I don't disagree that there's probably a PR aspect to this and DOGE in general. I don't think it's uncommon for administrations, at every level, to publicize their accomplishments or really anything that they believe their constituents would like. It's like the "Your tax money at work" signs I see occassionally around town.
Yes, I'm sure there are slackers. There are probably also slacker supervisors who don't much care to make sure their subordinates are not slacking themselves, which is why I'm not opposed, in principle, to what is being done. I told another poster that I don't trust all of government to "right size" itself or be truly conscientious of waste, whether it be money or people.
If I were being asked the question, I would look at it as an opportunity to tout my performance and showcase my work because I'm sure there are also people who do more than their job description or are picking up the slack of the slackers. Then there are people who are probably so disengaged, that they didn't even see the email.
ZenMode
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There are assumptions that the changes, "destruction" as you call it, have done or are doing damage. I haven't seen any negative results, so far.
Just lots of setting of hair on fire.
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It’s asinine to do a performance review based on less than 2% of the year. Is your job so mundane that your workload is steady state throughout the year?
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“… But now the delivery of therapeutic food assistance to nearly 400,000 severely malnourished children abroad is in doubt due to ongoing firings at USAID, two manufacturers of this product told me in interviews. The raw materials needed to make the product are sitting in warehouses, but the manufacturers say they’re uncertain whether to proceed, because they don’t know if the U.S. government still wants to buy the product—and they can’t be certain it will be shipped.
The product in question is called Ready to Use Therapeutic Food (RUTF), a sterile, bureaucratic name that masks the horrific nature of its life-saving function. It is a sweet paste largely made of peanuts, milk, and vitamins. It’s designed for safe ingestion by young children inflicted with what’s known as “severe wasting,” meaning they’re suffering extreme, acute malnutrition or hovering on the edge of starving to death. It’s packaged in foil packets that don’t need refrigeration, making it suitable for delivery to areas inflicted by extreme deprivation.
“It’s the only treatment that can cure a severely malnourished child,” says Navyn Salem, the founder and CEO of Edesia Nutrition, which manufactures the product in Rhode Island. …”
——
Back on the old IC ZZLP I had encouraged folks to donate to a UNICEF program to provide RUTF to prevent famine from becoming starvation — the stuff has been miraculous at keeping kids in horrific food shortages alive and at least subsisting (rather than literally starving to death).
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“… As it happens, enormous amounts of this life saving paste are manufactured in two American factories: in addition to the Edesia facility in Rhode Island, another organization called Mana pumps out the product in Georgia. USAID has been contracting with the two operations—both nonprofits—to send it to the world’s starving children, mostly in Africa, for over 15 years. Both have current contracts with USAID, signed during the last administration, to treat a total of 1.2 million children for seven weeks between the two companies, which would mean full rehabilitation from severe malnutrition for those children.
But the latest round of cutbacks at USAID has left these operations flummoxed and frustrated. As part of its current contract, Edesia has enough raw ingredients left in its warehouses to manufacture the paste for 160,000 children, Salem says. The company hasn’t decided whether to complete it, because the removals at USAID have put on paid leave the employees who oversee her contracts, Salem notes, and she can’t get clarity from USAID about whether the food will be either paid for or shipped.
… Meanwhile, the Georgia-based nonprofit Mana Nutrition, has enough ingredients to manufacture the product for around 200,000 badly malnourished children, according to its co-founder and CEO, Mark Moore. He cannot figure out who at USAID is now overseeing or processing the contract, or get confirmation that USAID wants it completed.
…This was supposed to be sorted out by now. Earlier this month, when firings first started to hit USAID, both companies were initially given stop-work orders, but then the administration lifted them. With Secretary of State Marco Rubio promising not to hamper the most desperately needed aid, it appeared that the paste would keep being shipped.
This week, however, both companies have discovered that this promise is in question. The firings have largely led to USAID’s system for paying contractors to break down, and have emptied the agency of people who had overseen the contracts, with no indication of who’s supposed to be replacing them, the two CEOs said. …”
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superrific
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This should probably be self-evident but there might be some people confused by this.
Musk Will Use AI to Assess Email Responses
"Responses to the Elon Musk-directed email to government employees about what work they'd accomplished over the past week are expected to be fed into an artificial intelligence system to determine whether those jobs are necessarypoliticalwire.com
“The AI system will determine whether someone’s work is mission-critical or not”
There is no AI system.
ZenMode
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If you can't describe the work you do, in 5 bullets, after two months of work, that would seem to be a problem. Nevermind, that few are literally in their first 2 months of work.
superrific
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1. Your last point undermines everything else.
2. The email asked for "accomplishments." How the fuck would a physician answer that question? My wife saw 84 patients last week. Is that 84 accomplishments? 1 accomplishment? No accomplishments because she's providing ongoing care.
3. To echo nycfan's point, how should, say, a VA doctor feel about this request? Or a DOJ attorney? My thought process would go something like this:
My suitability for federal employment is being determined by someone who either has no idea what I do, or doesn't care in the slightest. He expects me to want to save my job by answering an email that is nonsensical as applied to me. I don't "accomplish things." Last week I read 10,000 pages of testimony, 9 expert reports, and had plea discussions with three defendants, none of which went anywhere. That is my job. [Or fill in if you would like: Last week, I treated 84 patients]. And sometimes that job requires me to go with "anti-accomplishments" -- i.e. when I review the evidence of a case, I realize that we are unlikely to convict so we won't bring charges. Is that an accomplishment? It's what the law requires me to do. If Elon Musk wants to understand my job, there are many, many good ways for him to do that; asking me periodically for a bullshit list isn't that.
I am an educated career professional with an exemplary track record. I don't answer to Elon Musk and I shouldn't have to justify myself to him. This harassment isn't going to stop. I know what happened at twitter. I don't want to work in a place where they draw straws every day and fire whoever gets the short one. I like my coworkers. I don't want to see them fired because Elon Musk doesn't understand what they do. I don't want to work at a place where people are fighting with each other to get the "accomplishment" tasks so they have something to point to. Fuck this.
LeoBloom
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This is an excellent post. Thank you for writing this.
Those who insist writing these bullet points are missing the forest for the trees. Why are already in place evaluations being ignored? Why are trained evaluators being leapfrogged by those who have no training in these areas?
For one, it undermines the importance of the work these people are doing. Secondly, it overvalues the expertise of Elon, his cronies, his AI, etc.
It is belittling to have someone with absolutely no training in your field demand of you to justify your work, especially when there are evaluative methods already in place. And that is part of the point, IMO, to belittle these people and to show their insignificance and that Elon and his cronies are brilliant enough to evaluate the abilities of everyone else. It is an egotistic power trip of one group blatantly trying to flaunt a superiority they do not have. It is one group expressly trying to demean another group. But hey, that's the GOP, I guess.
My wife and I have two good friends who are nurses at the VA. These are two wonderful nurses, highly trained (they both have Masters Degrees). So Elon and his cronies and/or his AI can evaluate the specialized care they give to veterans? Of course they can't, yet that is what is going on here. (And yes, both of these nurses received the email.)
Further, people acting like this is no big deal miss how this is only one step. It is not like Elon is going to stop at this intrusion. Give him an inch and he will take the country.
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Federal technology staffers resign rather than help Musk and DOGE
Federal technology staffers resign rather than help Musk and DOGE
Twenty-one civil service employees have resigned from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they're refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”
apnews.com
"More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them.
The mass resignation of engineers, data scientists and product managers is a temporary setback for Musk and the Republican president’s tech-driven purge of the federal workforce. It comes amid a flurry of court challenges that have sought to stall, stop or unwind their efforts to fire or coerce thousands of government workers out of jobs. ...
...“Anyone who thinks protests, lawsuits, and lawfare will deter President Trump must have been sleeping under a rock for the past several years,” Leavitt said. “President Trump will not be deterred from delivering on the promises he made to make our federal government more efficient and more accountable to the hardworking American taxpayers.”
The staffers who resigned worked for what was once known as the United States Digital Service, an office established during President Barack Obama’s administration after the botched rollout of Healthcare.gov, the web portal that millions of Americans use to sign up for insurance plans through the Democrat’s signature health care law.
All had previously held senior roles at such tech companies as Google and Amazon and wrote in their resignation letter that they joined the government out of a sense of duty to public service.
...According to the staffers, people wearing White House visitors’ badges, some of whom would not give their names, grilled the nonpartisan employees about their qualifications and politics. Some made statements that indicated they had a limited technical understanding. Many were young and seemed guided by ideology and fandom of Musk — not improving government technology.
“Several of these interviewers refused to identify themselves, asked questions about political loyalty, attempted to pit colleagues against each other, and demonstrated limited technical ability,” the staffers wrote in their letter. “This process created significant security risks.”
...Earlier this month, about 40 staffers in the office were laid off. The firings dealt a devastating blow to the government’s ability to administer and safeguard its own technological footprint, they wrote.
“These highly skilled civil servants were working to modernize Social Security, veterans’ services, tax filing, health care, disaster relief, student aid, and other critical services,” the resignation letter states. “Their removal endangers millions of Americans who rely on these services every day. The sudden loss of their technology expertise makes critical systems and American’s data less safe.”
Those who remained, about 65 staffers, were integrated into DOGE’s government-slashing effort. About a third of them quit Tuesday.
“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,” they wrote. “We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.” ..."
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Are you saying it’s a problem if you can’t describe the work you’ve done within the past week in 5 bullet points, or that it’s a problem if you can’t describe the work you’ve done over the course of two months? (Never mind that the email asked for “accomplishments” within a week, whatever that means.)
I might spend an entire week working on an appellate brief. It can be very time consuming. I don’t know how I’d break that down into multiple bullet points. Sometimes I might be in trial for an entire week, where all I do is focus on that trial. I guess I could break that down in bullet points like: (1) I cross examined witness A; (2) I cross examined witness B; (3) I objected to the admission of evidence and presented an argument against its admissibility; (4) I cross examined witness C, etc.
Then you have people whose jobs require them to do the same thing over and over again. And their jobs are important because they serve as one the crucial pieces to making the whole thing run smoothly and efficiently. But when you do the same thing over and over again, how do you break it down into five separate bullet points? At my office, we have a receptionist. She answers the phone and either transfers calls or takes messages, and she greets people who come into our office and contacts the person they are coming to see. Other than making a list of the calls she takes and people she greets, I’m not exactly sure how she would break down the bullet points. But her job is integral to the efficiency of our office.
I understand why these 21 senior staffers resigned.Federal technology staffers resign rather than help Musk and DOGE
Federal technology staffers resign rather than help Musk and DOGE
Twenty-one civil service employees have resigned from Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they're refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”
"More than 20 civil service employees resigned Tuesday from billionaire Trump adviser Elon Musk’s Department of Government Efficiency, saying they were refusing to use their technical expertise to “dismantle critical public services.”
“We swore to serve the American people and uphold our oath to the Constitution across presidential administrations,” the 21 staffers wrote in a joint resignation letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press. “However, it has become clear that we can no longer honor those commitments.”
The employees also warned that many of those enlisted by Musk to help him slash the size of the federal government under President Donald Trump’s administration were political ideologues who did not have the necessary skills or experience for the task ahead of them.
The mass resignation of engineers, data scientists and product managers is a temporary setback for Musk and the Republican president’s tech-driven purge of the federal workforce. It comes amid a flurry of court challenges that have sought to stall, stop or unwind their efforts to fire or coerce thousands of government workers out of jobs. ...
...“Anyone who thinks protests, lawsuits, and lawfare will deter President Trump must have been sleeping under a rock for the past several years,” Leavitt said. “President Trump will not be deterred from delivering on the promises he made to make our federal government more efficient and more accountable to the hardworking American taxpayers.”
The staffers who resigned worked for what was once known as the United States Digital Service, an office established during President Barack Obama’s administration after the botched rollout of Healthcare.gov, the web portal that millions of Americans use to sign up for insurance plans through the Democrat’s signature health care law.
All had previously held senior roles at such tech companies as Google and Amazon and wrote in their resignation letter that they joined the government out of a sense of duty to public service.
...According to the staffers, people wearing White House visitors’ badges, some of whom would not give their names, grilled the nonpartisan employees about their qualifications and politics. Some made statements that indicated they had a limited technical understanding. Many were young and seemed guided by ideology and fandom of Musk — not improving government technology.
“Several of these interviewers refused to identify themselves, asked questions about political loyalty, attempted to pit colleagues against each other, and demonstrated limited technical ability,” the staffers wrote in their letter. “This process created significant security risks.”
...Earlier this month, about 40 staffers in the office were laid off. The firings dealt a devastating blow to the government’s ability to administer and safeguard its own technological footprint, they wrote.
“These highly skilled civil servants were working to modernize Social Security, veterans’ services, tax filing, health care, disaster relief, student aid, and other critical services,” the resignation letter states. “Their removal endangers millions of Americans who rely on these services every day. The sudden loss of their technology expertise makes critical systems and American’s data less safe.”
Those who remained, about 65 staffers, were integrated into DOGE’s government-slashing effort. About a third of them quit Tuesday.
“We will not use our skills as technologists to compromise core government systems, jeopardize Americans’ sensitive data, or dismantle critical public services,” they wrote. “We will not lend our expertise to carry out or legitimize DOGE’s actions.” ..."
Musk, the techbroligarchs, Vought, the Freedom Caucus, etc. probably sees their resignations as a plus.