Government computer systems are notorious for being designed by techhies and administered by morons.
In the Summer of 2000 while I was still working as a union steward one of my guys brought me two memos. One I had already seen, from the district director ruling that the government issued lap tops had to be secured inside of locked cabinets at the end of the day. The other memo, literally hot off the printer, was from the Head of the IT Regional Office demanding that all lap tops be left connected to the system over night so that updates could be installed. We looked at each other, laughed, and I took them to one of the more rational managers with a simple request which went roughly:
"Look, Tony, I don't give a flying fuck which way you guys go with this but these two orders are mutually exclusive. The lap tops cannot be locked up and left connected at the same time."
He hadn't seen the second memo yet but as he read it he got that gut-shot look on his face and just shook his head and then said he would call his boss.
I reminded him that the idiot in the regional office also did not seem to understand that half of the employees would be taking their lap tops into the field on any given day and would still not be in place to have them "upgraded" because they could not connect at home. He just laughed and nodded.
The director relented but there was a follow-up. A week later the same boss asked me to come to his office to tell me that the IT asshole had tried to insist that everyone who was out for the day had to return to the office to hook up their computers. He said the Division Chief told him he was out of his mind and that there would be no such order. They weren't going to pay extra mileage for people to drive all the way back to the office and, if they got stuck in traffic ( a common occurrence in NY) they would have to pay overtime if employees were delayed past their normal quitting time as they were not budgeted for that at all. We both had a good laugh over that one.
A year later, by the early Summer of 2001, they finally had all the kinks worked out of the system and the IRS' Collection Division in NY was officially "online."
Two months later on 9-11 WTC #7 fell onto the phone company building at 140 West St and that is when we all found out that the data line/switch for the entire system was located at 140 West St. They were completely out of business for months and when they finally jury-rigged something to replace the original it barely worked.
Fun times.
In the Summer of 2000 while I was still working as a union steward one of my guys brought me two memos. One I had already seen, from the district director ruling that the government issued lap tops had to be secured inside of locked cabinets at the end of the day. The other memo, literally hot off the printer, was from the Head of the IT Regional Office demanding that all lap tops be left connected to the system over night so that updates could be installed. We looked at each other, laughed, and I took them to one of the more rational managers with a simple request which went roughly:
"Look, Tony, I don't give a flying fuck which way you guys go with this but these two orders are mutually exclusive. The lap tops cannot be locked up and left connected at the same time."
He hadn't seen the second memo yet but as he read it he got that gut-shot look on his face and just shook his head and then said he would call his boss.
I reminded him that the idiot in the regional office also did not seem to understand that half of the employees would be taking their lap tops into the field on any given day and would still not be in place to have them "upgraded" because they could not connect at home. He just laughed and nodded.
The director relented but there was a follow-up. A week later the same boss asked me to come to his office to tell me that the IT asshole had tried to insist that everyone who was out for the day had to return to the office to hook up their computers. He said the Division Chief told him he was out of his mind and that there would be no such order. They weren't going to pay extra mileage for people to drive all the way back to the office and, if they got stuck in traffic ( a common occurrence in NY) they would have to pay overtime if employees were delayed past their normal quitting time as they were not budgeted for that at all. We both had a good laugh over that one.
A year later, by the early Summer of 2001, they finally had all the kinks worked out of the system and the IRS' Collection Division in NY was officially "online."
Two months later on 9-11 WTC #7 fell onto the phone company building at 140 West St and that is when we all found out that the data line/switch for the entire system was located at 140 West St. They were completely out of business for months and when they finally jury-rigged something to replace the original it barely worked.
Fun times.
