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Comment by everdrive | Hacker News Reader

I used to work in the government, and we actually didn’t have this problem. A senior might ask for something, but —

- We seldom got imprecise questions.

- When we did get imprecise questions, we would ask a series of follow-up and clarifying questions until the task was correctly scoped.

It was only after leaving the government for the private sector that anyone was treating their superiors like infallible god-emperors. No one seems to think they can question a directive, even when the purpose of that question is to better fulfill the directive. It’s as bewildering as it is sycophantic. And worse, I don’t seem to be able to explain how crazy this is to anyone who has been in the private sector for a long time.

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Your comparison is interesting. I've only worked in government (US military, but also with many federal civilians), where we've all internalized the notion that we're incompetent in every way compared to the private sector. But I could see your observation being a function of:

1. More managers and senior leaders "coming up through the ranks." A lot of people in government have been in the same agency or office for decades, so there's a lot of institutional knowledge that I suspect doesn't (even can't) exist in private companies. At least in the US DoD, it seems very rare to bring in people "off the street" through lateral entry for management jobs. People need clearances and institutional knowledge that they can only get by spending time working their way up.

2. Many things are pretty well specified in laws, policies, doctrine, etc. There's a way to do them, and the people directing and doing them both know what it entails.

The downside of these things is the institutional inertia and bureaucracy for which we're famous.

>where we've all internalized the notion that we're incompetent in every way compared to the private sector.

We might have worked for the same government. It was a pretty big shock to me when I transitioned to the private sector, and found that many and most things had been done better in the government.

That said, the government is a large place, and is not uniform. Same with private businesses, which are arguably even more varied.

I imagine part of it is that it's far easier to lose your job disagreeing with your superiors in the private sector ("Not a culture fit", "Not a team player"). It's better to just go along with stuff sometimes because most of the time systemic failure takes years to manifest.

I think you're right. Within the DoD, you see a dichotomy between uniformed military service members and federal civilians. The people in uniform (especially officers, especially between years 5 to 15 of their careers) exist in a brutal up-or-out promotion system. The civilians, on the other hand, are known to be impossible to fire and can remain in their positions for life (it's hyperbole, but there's some truth to it). In general, I think you can see it in the degree to which they "[treat] their superiors like infallible god-emperors."

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