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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

This is an excellent article and spot on. One of the things we have yet to achieve in "the west," as it were, is to create a viable feedback mechanism that improves the functioning or efficiency of a bureaucracy rather than optimizing for tenure.

I ran into it early on when I was trying to pry costs out of the San Jose light rail agency. It is so frustrating.

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Early in my career, I worked for a company that was run by the British. The CEO was a fairly classic "toff." Erudite, aloof, sarcastic and remote.

The management was terrible.

At that time, TQM was a new buzzwürd du jour, and the company decided to do a TQM exercise that involved the CEO, sitting down for "frank and open" conversations with employees.

This was a data processing company. The product was engineering. I was a [fairly junior] software engineer.

During our "fireside chat," he asked us to mention the problems that we saw with the way management was working.

Most gave mealy-mouthed drivel that amounted to "Everything you're doing is fine. No need to change."

Then it got to me. I mentioned that, from where I sat, engineers were treated as "second-class citizens," despite being the bread and butter of the company. Managers were treated as exalted, flawless beings (I was probably a bit -but not much- more polite. It was a long time ago). I indicated that all we really needed was a tiny bit of respect.

What I do remember, is him, taking off his glasses, which was always considered an awful sign, and admitting that he did, indeed think of engineers as "second-class citizens." Absolutely not a word, indicating he considered that a problem.

The TQM exercise didn't survive much longer, after that, and quelle surprize, nothing changed.

I tend towards cynicism, here.

> and admitting that he did, indeed think of engineers as "second-class citizens."

Lol that's classic. TBH though I think I prefer an old school British manager that will tell you the truth instead of an American one bullsh*tting you. Maybe he revised his view or took some of your ideas on.

Probably not, but at least he didn't pretend to care. I speak from experience - that's worse.

Not ICL was it?

In the US, our bureaucracies seem to attract some of the least intelligent people who have no interest in improving their institutions, just in riding the gravy train forever. I think that this is an outcome of how we treat all bureaucrats as equal. There are no entrance exams, or university -level courses for being a bureaucrat. There's no national standard. There's no pride or recognition in being a good bureaucrat, and few if any consequences of being a mediocre one. IMO it seems like a problem with what the US views is the acceptable structure of government, with many overlapping state and federal agencies and endless finger-pointing. There's rarely a "the buck stops here" moment, and so no need to ever improve. If you're familiar with the bozo theory, basically the entire bureaucracy is already full of bozos and thus irredeemable.

Being a bureaucrat in the US doesn’t pay especially well, probably because US taxpayers are price conscious in a sort of penny-wise-pound-foolish way. (In most states the highest paid public official is the coach of the football team of the flagship public university.) Unfortunately this gets (partially) offset by job security and a pension. So there’s a very strong incentive to not rock the boat. And to let your buddies’ misfeasance or malfeasance slide because they’re only a few years away from retirement. Ideally we would trade of higher pay for more accountability and reward some degree of risk taking. Instead what happens is some kind of inevitable high-profile failure happens, a bunch of rules are put in place, and funding is reduced. I don’t know that there are any easy ways to get from where we are now to a better-functioning system. It seems like at some point we have to penalize opportunity costs of not taking risks or learning from other organizations.

Direct pay may be so-so, but indirect pay is stellar. Look at how most everyone in Congress & Senate become significantly richer during their tenure, how frequently bureaucrats get hired as high level management in the industries they were overseeing, etc

This is really not a thing for your average civil servant, only for department leaders in highly visible agencies.

Those are elected officials, not bureaucrats. Bureaucrats are the people in non-political jobs who don't get replaced after elections.

There is an exam for some positions [1], and others have many months of training (think 3 letter agencies) and extremely competitive application processes.

Other positions receive a ton of applicants because they are a "gravy train" (e.g. they have great benefits, great work-life balance, and a stable pension). So they are competitive. That said, it is very hard to get fired, but is is part of the draw that attracts a lot of applicants.

The competition has driven an increase in education in the public sector, with many people getting Master's and PhDs for positions that might not need them as a differentiator among the pool of applicants. So no, while there isn't some broad standard exam if you want to work for the US Gov't, it's not a free for all of knuckle draggers.

[1] https://careers.state.gov/work/foreign-service/officer/test-...

Ignoring the west. Has what you described ever existed?

I think maybe Lean techniques as practiced by car builders. But even there, change is slow.

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