For the seersucker contracting set:
Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama moved to claim the mantle of fiscal responsibility in a roiling economy, vowing on Monday to slash federal spending on contractors by 10 percent and saving $40 billion.
Actually, I feel strongly both ways. We spend an awful lot of money on folks like me, in part because Al Gore “re-invented government” to the extent that people like me didn’t have any more secure government jobs. Leaving Residual Wise Government Servants increasingly tasked with things that guys like me used to do. Which many of them are utterly unqualified for and, as it turns out, constitutionally disinterested in.
Systems Engineering, for example. Front end stuff being particularly important. CONOPS. Requirement definitions. That sort of thing.
Which initiative from our former Vice President – and this is a generalization – might have actually been a good idea in the long run. Because guys like me now have to justify our existence from year to year and appropriation to appropriation rather than comfortably hammocking in some civil servant sinecure.
Which, be that as it may, farewell Virginia.
I’ve already resigned myself that if he gets in, I’ll lose my job. All at my company have. I’m a subcontractor to a mega contractor and I’ll be the first on the chopping block when the mega contractor gets the cut.
Needless to say, it irritates the ever living stew out of me (to put it nicely) when I hear some of the guys I work with saying they are voting for Obama. Of course they are retired and they do our current job because a) they don’t know what to do with themselves or b) they can’t stand the thought of being home with their wives. Essentially their jobs are golf and drinking money.
The animosity at my place of work between those folks and those of us who actually ‘need’ our jobs (those with families) is growing as this election year proceeds. There are days it is exceedingly uncomfortable.
I would submit that when all is said and done-the level of contractors will remain about the same, regardless of who wins the election. It has a momentum of its own and an inertia of its own. Plus the federal system can’t hire fast enough and if anything-there will be greater pressure to cut federal jobs.
I’d be more worried about Flag officers and SES’s who want to cut SETA’s just to show they are “on board”.
Problem is we have outsourced our intellectual capital at above market prices. We could take any contractor that has worked in a Navy staff office for longer than a year and hire them as civilians to get a huge savings – and gain productivity. Another option is to just say to the beltway bandits, we’re not going to pay $300,000 per man year for O-5/O-6 staff work. Hire them back as GS-13/14 (errr, YA-3) for half of that.
Obama – Change You Will Regret.
Funny – I used the same image on some Obama-related humor yesterday.
Levity is the spice of life folks. It may be all we have left come November 5.
Don’t fret yet – the debates begin friday.
It’s not much to hang your hat one, but I predict a very large difference between what either of the candidates says he’s going to do, and what he will be able to do. Congress has a say, and between their bitter partisanship and innate incompetence, not much of anything useful will get done. Many, of course, will see that as a good thing.
midwatchcowboy, there really aren’t that many $300k/year contractors out there. We pay ours pretty much the same as our govt. guys get (with a few notable exceptions – the retired SEAL gets a crazy amount of money – but specialized experience gets you that).
As a former contractor and current rube “comfortably hammocking in some civil servant sinecure,” I can attest that a lot of the contractors would rather be government – the pay is equivalent and the benefits much better.
Oh, and CAPT, a good number of us are concerned with Systems Engineering, CONOPS, and requirement definitions, as we used to be the guys who depended on the government developing decent systems. A lot of us get it, really. The lumps who mostly push acquisition paper, though, tend to be the most visible.
hey, Midwatchcowboy — you can count on one hand the number of SETA contractors that cost $300K, even in the DC area. If they cost that, it is because they were a by-name hire, at the customer’s insistence. Based on a sample of about a $250M operation, our average is around $125K on an 1880 hour year. And study after study will show, that once you figure in benefits, GS employees almost always cost more. The mythical $300K contractor is usually just that.
Scott: “And study after study will show, that once you figure in benefits, GS employees almost always cost more.”
That’s because we are oh-so much more trustworthy than dirty contractors
Of course he does. If he can hire a bunch of lower GS’s who are represented by the federal union he gains voters! Nobama-logic.
I know what I’m doing. The government can’t do it without me (IMO) and for nearly 300K a year (11 years direct and 10 years mil test/acquisition experience) I’m still cheaper than a GS-15 at that price…I already have Tricare and I don’t need TSP, FERs, etc. (don’t let your eyes pop w/envy I only get a % of that). In the long run I’m still a lot cheaper as are you Lex.
Bottom-line is I’m “value” and so are you Lex. The only thing is, we can be considered sorta portable, but if’n you’re the incumbent and haven’t had a competitor through 4 cycles of contracts the work is pretty safe…human capital on the hoof.
Thanks Al. you’re good for something.
b2
I will validate Scott’s figures and underscore the “we do CONOPS and requirements definitions” part as well, at least that’s but a part of my taskings (in addition to coordinating with the Services, JS and OSD as well as manning and running an operations center that surges to 24/7 ops for certain ‘special events’). The team that accomplishes this is heavily SETA contractor and made up mostly of former O-5′s and O-6′s who individually are doing 3-4 times the work they were doing when in uniform as AO’s, Branch Chiefs and Deputies. The difference though, is that the final decision to do/not do a particular COA rests comlpetely with the govt – uniform or civilian.
Which imparts its own – challenges. (Skippy knows whereof I speak…)
- SJS
“vowing on Monday to slash federal spending on contractors by 10 percent and saving $40 billion.”
I’m all for slashing federal spending on contractors so long as the jobs they perform can be performed more efficiently in some other manner. Working for a large systems company that does some consulting for government agencies, I can tell you we sometimes marvel at the waste (of course, many times that waste is to our financial benefit…but still).
What I DO want to see is what Obama will do with that 40 billion AFTER he cuts those jobs. I think there are quite a number of entitlement programs that can be cut first – you know, it’s all about priorities.
Just keep some cash in your bank account and you’ll get through ok. We all have downturns that we must face. Just be glad you are not with some commuter making 35k and living out of a suite-case.
I make the distinction – perhaps unfairly – between those who leave the service, contract for a bit and then jump back over the hedge on the GS side and those who seem to rise from within that organization to positions of bovine immobility. I see too much of that these days, and behind each one of those paid GS’s stands a contractor doing their work for them. Which I believe is what the government thought they were paying for in the GS position.
Hence, my ambivalence: I feel one way as a taxpayer, and an entirely different way as a paid contractor.
Lex-
Not all that unfair a distinction. Those lumps of whom I spoke fit your description rather well. They seem to maintain, or even prosper, by putting into pretty powerpoints what contractors or useful GS’ers actually accomplish. I have seen that both at the Navy Yard in DC and at the field activities.
I suppose having glorified PR guys is somewhat useful – if the program office won’t talk up their accomplishments, who will? However, I don’t see why most of the middle and upper management seem to make that their primary tasking – which, after that becomes the norm, translates into PR skills becoming the primary qualifier for advancing, rather than engineering, requirements management, or systems development.
So yes – there is waste. More than the commercial world? Almost definitely, once you consider how hard it is to fire a tenured GS. Fixable? I hate to drop a problem and not offer a solution, but I don’t have one as of yet.
As a lazy Civil Servant, I feel compelled to point out that here at Pax River, contractors usually cost 25-50% more than CS personnel. I could comfortably go contractor and get a $30K/year pay raise – not to mention the added overhead costs.
The big problem is the sheer volume of useless paperwork that has te be filled out to get anything done. Cut THAT, and you can buy a hell of a lot more hardware for the procurement dollar.
And yep, we’ve got our share of useless self-promoters. Who desperately need to be press-ganged into useful jobs. I’ve got some 2200-0800 weekend shifts that need to be manned….
Just asking… am I supposed to feel some measure of sympathy … for a gaggle of double dipping, underworked and overpaid GS/Contractor types kvetching about useless co-workers or job security ?…Please advise. Best
Snake,
Coming from a lawyer, “underworked and overpaid” has a special sense of irony.
Did you hear about the lawyer that took Viagra?
His neck got stiff…
Listen Barry, Don’t make this about me …I work solo…the meter stops when I stop … f**king the duck ( thats slacking off or what passes for productive activity GS/Govt.Contractor style , Lex Babes) earns me nada, niente…bupkis. I get paid for what I do and nothing more…no fat contract or tenured service to back me up … no complaints…and I like it that way and yes some Lawyers are overpaid but precious few, if any, are underworked. Best
PS, Hey…did you hear the one about the dim witted Sailor who walked into a bar with a frog on his head…?
I’ve got Change you can believe in.
Here’s a New Hope for you:
http://www.ironicsans.com/2008/09/in_a_political_campaign_far_far_away.html
Or this new Hope:
http://www.21stcenturyfilth.com/uploaded_images/HOPE_02-723742.jpg
Did you hear of the guy who mixed iron supplements and viagara? He spun around uncontrollably and finally stopped, pointing at magnetic north.
Snake- You seem disraught! And I suppose you’re just like the lawyers on TV, right! My brother does that litigating for a job…boooooring…the crap he gets excited about makes me wince. Nose has more fun every couple days than any lawyer has in a decade bouncing that heavy on the runway and he gets paid to do it! The rest of us not still flying ain’t in a bad way contracting, neither. We work with military folks most of the time and there ain’t a lot of Dems among ‘em so we feel less irritated than the general population…
“Tenure?…ahhhh, we ain’t got no stiiiinking tenure”. LOL
b2
PS- what happened to dat frog? Was the frog Army green?
B2 – Bouncing? You’ve seen me land before!
BTW – I’d trade the ready room for the heavy metal any day.
Nose,
You meant that the other way around, dontcha?
Greasing a 737 or similar on deck after reaching mins and not spilling anyone’s drink gotta be rewarding and FUN in a quiet professional sorta way. I know I appreciate it when I’m riding in the tube (which is all the time now)! To be fair, I am also certain that abrasive “canary-in-a-coal mine” litigator called SnakeEater is a legal Robin Hood who wears a t-shirt under his oxford pinpoint with a big red, white and blue “S”!
Look. BWI musta been at 300 ovc solid to 10K last night with gusts and medium rain, when that, nameless to me, pilot did it. Surely, an ex-”cockpit snake”-killing, Hummer carrier pilot has also reached the top of the pyramid of Maslov H. of N. as an airline Captain!
b2
b2 -
“Greasing a 737 or similar on deck after reaching mins and not spilling anyone’s drink gotta be rewarding and FUN in a quiet professional sorta way.”
I’ll let you know if I ever do that!!!
It is satisfying, but not in the ways that flying used to be. You know?
But hey, I got to see Baker, Ranier, Adams, St. Helens, Jefferson, and the sisters on a beautiful day today- so it ain’t all bad.
Best
I know that sight- a beauty! Hell. Just seeing it out the winders from the tube is an inspiration!
On my first tour I once flew from SD to Whidbey closely watching the Skipper of our CVN (Spad/sewer pipe pilot) fly the jet peering over them black bifocals. As those sites you mentioned came into view, inverse, he said, “lets cancel and go VFR, we don’t need no stinking chart with these landmarks”. ‘Course, me being a JG I didn’t argue much and O-6′s are always right! He was. Mount St Helens Plus was still one of ‘em. too!
In my mind flying..even an airliner, beats not flying. Trust me- once you close that door it’s a helluva lot better’n being in a cube doing telcons and deleting emails! You keep on pressing on. The rest of us opted outta because we didn’t want to take a pay cut at first..plebians we are.
b2