For example, before my team can build a simple app, we need to produce hundreds of pages of documentation (which may never be read) about the why, how, and where. We’re incentivized to do this—we get rewarded and promoted for adhering precisely to these complex procedures, no matter the outcome. If we bypass any of the hundreds of achingly slow, overly burdensome steps, we risk our careers.
Almost every fed resents this way of working, and many actively fight against it every day. But more often than not, it’s set in stone, written in regulations we don’t have the power to change. If the process makes it impossible for the government to actually deliver useful software and services to the people of the United States, then so be it. The people will suffer.
This is a failure of bureaucracy, a government for the process, not for the people.
When DOGE arrived, I was hopeful… But DOGE hasn’t gone after the processes that slow me down, and they haven’t gone after the institutions and incentives that force federal workers to stick to these processes no matter the outcomes.
They seem to believe that the more workers they fire, the more agencies they shutter, the more programs they defund, the better—never mind if Americans depend on these programs, or their safety is protected by those agencies, or if their local economies are powered by these workforces.
If that disruption makes it impossible for the government to actually deliver useful software and services to the people of the United States, then so be it. The people will suffer. Sound familiar? I