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so if you are an American you've
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undoubtedly heard about the department
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of government efficiency AKA Doge so for
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the non-americans watching this
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department of government efficiency was
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formed by Elon Musk and with the goal of
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rooting out fraud waste and abuse in the
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US government and trying to save
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taxpayers some money now regardless of
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how you feel about the politics it
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really doesn't matter it's not super
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relevant to the video the reason I'm
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making this video is I held a position
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in the federal government about 13 years
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ago and I wanted to tell a story about
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it because it very much relates to
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government efficiency everything I'm
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about to tell you in this story is a
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true and honest account of the facts
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surrounding my employment at this
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location and for my American friends you
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are probably going to have feelings of
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anger and annoyance about what I'm about
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to tell you and my non-american friends
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will probably just laugh at the whole
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thing because they don't have to deal
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with it I have two additional goals with
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this Story one is to dissuade any
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potential developers who want to work in
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the public sector from doing so
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definitely stick to the private sector
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and also people on the fence about
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whether the work of the Department of
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government efficiency is good or not
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maybe don't feel too bad about what
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they're doing this story is about a
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position as a developer that I held I
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was working at a place called the naval
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surface Warfare Center in Panama City of
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Florida now I know that may sound like a
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cool name but it's really not as cool as
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it sounds for those of you who may not
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know I'm a United States Air Force
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veteran and so this was one of the first
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development jobs that I held coming out
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of the Air Force and after teaching for
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a little bit as a a contract instructor
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so this was a job I took mostly just to
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get back to the swing of things because
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prior to that a lot of my development
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experience was just side stuff and stuff
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that I did while I was in the Air Force
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and so I was I was looking for positions
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and I reached out to a defense
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contractor I I won't mention the name of
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the company because I'm not really
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relevant but they had some positions
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open for uh developers and also one for
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a web master so the job that was for
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webm was closer to my house than the
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other ones so I applied for that one and
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I got a response and they wanted to set
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up an interview which is great so I say
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it up so the person I set the interview
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up with we'll just call him Bob I spoke
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with Bob on the phone and Bob mentioned
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that they had this position and that
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they'd like to interview me for it now
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Bob was a project manager for the
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company his his whole role was just to
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get people people in these positions
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that way they could start building the
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government because that's that's just
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how the defense Contracting structure
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works so I I went down for the interview
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and I I sat down with Bob and it was
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just Bob in the room nobody else so I
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sat down with Bob and Bob mentioned that
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this job involved working on internet
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applications for this this navy base and
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the I I wasn't really sure if Bob was a
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programmer or not I knew he was a
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project manager but I thought maybe he
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was also Al programmer since he was the
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only one in the interview and uh this
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interview consisted of a total of three
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questions that he asked me the first
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question was do you know JavaScript you
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to which I replied yes of course I do
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second question was do you know
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HTML and of course I replied yes the
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third question and this was perhaps the
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best one is do you know how to work with
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programming languages was his third
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question and that was I was a little
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puzzled by that question but you know I
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answered yes and uh that was it for the
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interview I got the job now throughout
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this video You're going to hear a lot of
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accounting about ridiculous things that
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happened and as you're listening to this
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just remember that I'm making a video
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about the department of government
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efficiency and why it's probably not so
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bad because right off the bat they hired
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a guy who just answered yes to three
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questions and had to provide nothing
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else no interview with any other
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developers uh no nothing at all so I I
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could have
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been I could been anyone so that was it
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they set my first day on the job and I
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showed up Monday morning to my brand new
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office and by brand new office what I
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really mean is an Old World War II era
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brick building with two feet of concrete
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and small windows that looked like a
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straight up mental Asylum uh is where I
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started my job so I I met with Bob
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outside the building and Bob walked me
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up to the uh development office I walked
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into this office it was it was quiet
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uh dark cold barely any light and there
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was a a couple a couple stations set up
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with computers just one computer with
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one not so big Monitor and he said uh
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you know just just sit wherever you want
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so I was like all right well I'll sit by
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the window you know cuz it's super dark
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I sat down and I was immediately told
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that uh that particular station was
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reserved for a federal employee and that
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I was not allowed to sit near the window
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so I had to pick a different place the
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office I was working in consisted of
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five people and it was four contractors
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and one Federal guy it was two
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developers and then one uh DBA who was
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actually really sharp probably the
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smartest guy I think I've ever met on
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databases and then the federal guy who I
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sat down with who introduced me to the
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uh stuff that was being worked on this
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guy spent more time talking about
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himself and how awesome he was and he
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made it sound like he was the uh Dennis
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Richie of uh of of programming and but
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it it became clear later after I started
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looking at what was being built in this
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office that absolutely nobody aside from
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the DBA had any clue what was going on
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so I sat down at my workstation they got
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me set up with everything and I got
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logged in and all that and they gave me
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access to the the shared drive that they
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have that they had all the software on
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it and one of the first things I noticed
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is that they had Absolut abely no Source
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control of any kind and now this was
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2012 which means that you know git was
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just getting off the ground there was a
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competing product called Mercurial that
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was just getting off the ground and so I
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didn't really expect them to have any
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distributed system but they could have
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definitely had SVN or CVS or or
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something like that uh but but they had
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nothing I I would later find out that
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the reason they didn't have any of that
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is because it takes years and years for
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for the security office to review this
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software to make sure that it doesn't
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pose any kind of security risk even
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something as simple as Source control
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and since they couldn't verify any of
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it we just weren't allowed to use any of
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that at all this was also around the
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time that I realized the the job that
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Bob interviewed me for was not actually
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the job that I was going to be doing
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which was amazing because I I asked them
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what I was going to work on you know I
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said I was the new Web Master for the
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the internet you know and that I'm I'm a
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JavaScript guy in HTML and CSS and they
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said oh we we do do net here and I was
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like okay um you mean I I do net CU I
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don't really know net or or you do net
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and they said well well we're doing net
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but you're going to have to do that as
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well you could also use classic ASP I
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said well I don't know that either
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that's isn't that end of life you know
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it's 2012 so long story short I did very
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little little JavaScript and I had to
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learn net on the job as I was going now
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I I wasn't a net developer at the time I
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was a PHP developer I I didn't know a
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great deal about JavaScript but there
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there wasn't a ton of that to do so I I
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got assigned my first project it was for
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something called the peer Rewards
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program and in in in this folder so
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actually first of all so the the folder
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that had all the projects this office
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maintained about 80 internet
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applications and every single
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application was its own folder and it
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was just a a duplicate of a previous
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folder there was absolutely no reuse uh
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most of the stuff was built in classic
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ASP very few of the projects were built
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in net mostly because only one of the
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other guys new net and the other guy
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just did classic ASP they had a uh a
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really complex and really
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weird home brewed JavaScript framework
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that was it was it was kind of like a
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really bad version of
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jQuery and you had to build your
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entire you had to build your I'm just
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I'm just cringing having to repeat all
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this you know you you had to build your
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entire like HTML structure by using
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JavaScript functions so you would you
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you would type like addore div a
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JavaScript function and somebody at some
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point thought this was good and they
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they built all this software
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based on this this kind of setup and it
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it became pretty clear to me later that
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the reason they were doing this was you
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know if you're the only one that knows a
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piece of software how can they ever get
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rid of you well the answer is they can't
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you know you are now the permanent
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maintainer of that software and you can
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never lose your job the irony of course
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is the person that built all this end up
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quitting anyway and stuck the entire
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office with this so this office was
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completely devoid of any standards of
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any kind and it really showed but anyway
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the project I was working on was the
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peer Rewards program and this I I didn't
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know what it was at the time but this
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this really became the downfall for me
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and the reason that I wanted to not work
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here anymore so the the way that
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software got built in this office is
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just random people from random
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departments would just meet with you
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directly and just say I want this this
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this and this you know there was no real
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formalized plan it was it it was really
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a bunch of just ad hoc development and
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so I got sent down to the perer awards
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program office to you know gather what
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the requirements were for the software
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so I could go back and build it and this
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is this is when I discovered the the
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biggest waste of money that I think I've
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ever seen in my life so what the peer
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Rewards program ended up being I I
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walked into this office it was probably
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a a 5,000 ft office and it was really
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just like a merch store okay and it was
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it was like hats and pens and and
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lanyards and uh you know soccer ball and
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and you know just a bunch of stupid
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stuff just just tons and tons of of
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stupid
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garbage and so I I I sat down with these
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two people the two people that
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administered this
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program just to try to understand what
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it did and she said oh well the way this
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program works is you know federal
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employees get a certain amount of of
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points you know they get a certain
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amount of points per month and then what
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they can do is they can go up to
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somebody and they can say you know uh
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hey John you know you're doing a
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terrific job have 300 points and then
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what that person can do is they can take
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these magic 300 points down to the peer
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rewards store and they can get free
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merch with it and the person that gave
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the points they don't have to pay
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anything it's just it's it's
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basically federal
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employees giving each other free stuff
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and the US taxpayer pays for it and I
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was hired to build that application okay
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I'm making a good amount of money
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there's two federal employees in there
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who I would later learn were making
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$992,000 a piece plus all the merch plus
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this big office just to give each other
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free stuff I I have to imagine hundreds
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of thousands of dollars being spent on
00:12:00
this uh per per year and you know how
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many other bases are doing the exact
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same thing probably all of them so I had
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all my notes went back to the office and
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I started to work on this and I I I just
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kind of did my job I I I was really not
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liking it there it was just it was
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absolutely miserable the whole job was
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soul sucking and it just it wasn't good
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work I wasn't proud of any of it it was
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it just it wasn't the way I work it's
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not what I did uh and fortunately in a
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few days it wouldn't matter anyway so we
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left for I started this job in uh I
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think like August or something like that
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and we left for Thanksgiving
00:12:42
weekend and in in this office like if
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you walked out of my office and turned
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left and walked like 20 seconds you'd be
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at double doors and Beyond those double
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doors were the uh that was the data
00:12:54
center for for the base and um I was in
00:12:59
there just a couple times to speak with
00:13:01
someone about
00:13:02
something and these machines were just
00:13:05
ancient they're just old and that's
00:13:08
that's going to be important later so
00:13:11
Thanksgiving weekend everybody went home
00:13:13
for the weekend and apparently In This
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World War II building that hasn't been
00:13:20
retrofit or upgraded in like you know 80
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years um the AC to the data center
00:13:26
turned off and because these systems
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were so an anent and they didn't have
00:13:30
proper controls it got extremely hot in
00:13:33
there and it started melting down
00:13:34
hardware and one of the pieces of
00:13:36
Hardware that destroyed was the main
00:13:38
database so I had nothing to do with
00:13:40
that okay cuz I didn't control a
00:13:42
database I didn't work in the data
00:13:43
center nothing it's just a programmer SL
00:13:46
webmaster slash
00:13:48
whatever and so we went in there Monday
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morning and they got the doors open you
00:13:53
know they got like fans blown in there
00:13:55
and uh you know it was like
00:13:59
the best way I can describe it is uh is
00:14:02
this it was the Spider-Man meme you know
00:14:04
you had the you had like the federal
00:14:06
employer responsible for the data center
00:14:08
he was pointing over there he's like the
00:14:10
contractor should have been you know
00:14:12
watching it the contractor was like I
00:14:14
wasn't even here man this is your fault
00:14:17
and uh and yeah the whole the whole
00:14:19
thing melted down and as it turned out
00:14:23
absolutely nobody got fired um probably
00:14:26
not even reprimanded probably nothing at
00:14:28
all
00:14:30
and our database was gone as well as
00:14:32
some of our code and
00:14:36
so I just kind of sat around and did
00:14:39
absolutely nothing because that's what
00:14:40
they told me to do they're like well we
00:14:41
have to get everything fixed and uh I I
00:14:44
I sat around for like two weeks like
00:14:47
literally two weeks I showed up for work
00:14:48
for eight hours I sat in a chair I I I
00:14:51
did like nothing at all for an entire
00:14:53
two weeks and towards the end of that
00:14:56
time my company had actually lost the
00:14:59
contract that was being renewed for this
00:15:02
project and I'm I'm just kind of
00:15:04
Expediting the rest of the story because
00:15:06
the rest of the story doesn't really
00:15:07
matter it the the end state was that I I
00:15:11
got a call from the new company saying
00:15:13
yeah we'll offer you your same position
00:15:14
at onethird the
00:15:16
pay uh and obviously I said you know no
00:15:21
and then I left and I never came back so
00:15:24
anyway that that's really the end of the
00:15:25
story that that's how the whole thing
00:15:27
went and so I I guess I just told you
00:15:29
that whole story just to say that it
00:15:31
really wouldn't be the worst thing in
00:15:33
the world to make the US government a
00:15:35
little more efficient if I had my way I
00:15:38
would have deleted that office and any
00:15:41
offices like it and fired anyone that
00:15:44
was even Associated to something similar
00:15:47
because that particular program served
00:15:50
absolutely no purpose whatsoever and and
00:15:55
was without question in the 39 years
00:15:58
I've been alive
00:15:59
the biggest waste of money that I've
00:16:01
ever seen so the moral of the story I
00:16:04
guess is maybe just let Doge cook a
00:16:06
little bit and and figure stuff out it's
00:16:09
not going to be so bad but I hope you
00:16:11
liked my story I I hate that it sounds
00:16:15
so made up but I promise you it's not
00:16:19
and of course if you've ever had a
00:16:21
ridiculously dumb job let me know Below
00:16:23
in the comments have a great day or
00:16:25
night and take care
