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In Atlanta, an electrical problem in a "Buss Duct" has caused the Sam Nunn Atlanta Federal Center to be closed for at least a week. 5,000 federal employees work at the center.
While many might view this as another example of The Infrastructure Crisis in the USA, it may also be another example of mismanagement at the General Service Administration (GSA), landlord for the complex.
The GSA has had many scandals and has been the subject of several Congressional Hearings, including an August 1, 2012 hearing titled "GSA: A Review of Agency Mismanagement and Wasteful Spending - Part 2". That hearing followed an $823,000 GSA employee conference in Las Vegas and a one-day-long $250,000 GSA employee conference in Crystal City, Virginia.
The closed Atlanta complex is named for Samuel Augustus "Sam" Nunn, Jr., who served for 24 years as a United States Senator from Georgia and whose daughter is the current Democratic Party nominee for a Georgia Senate seat.
(Score: 4, Insightful) by frojack on Monday July 28 2014, @09:00PM
This kind of reaching is usually reserved for Republicans, its a surprise to see it posted here, where liberals can do no wrong.
A problem with the electrical system that shut down air conditioning in mid summer in Atlanta hardly needs to be tagged with who the building was named after, and who is running for that person's seat and every other remotely attached scandal or incident of notoriety of an agency that handles property for the government nation wide.
You handle more buildings than any other entity in the US, you are bound to have some problems in some of them from time to time.
The only way this story makes it into SN is by trying desperately to make it a political issue. Shame on the submitter. Shame on the editor. Come on people, we're better than this.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 1) by Arik on Monday July 28 2014, @10:01PM
If laughter is the best medicine, who are the best doctors?
(Score: 2) by frojack on Monday July 28 2014, @10:13PM
Yes. Same thing.
Buss is the preferred spelling used by journalism majors (and nobody else).
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Monday July 28 2014, @11:38PM
To harp on a specific point: The $1 million or so in frivolous GSA spending from 2 years ago (by someone who was fired shortly after the story came out about said frivolous spending). Actually, I'm not even fully convinced it was completely frivolous - I could imagine an agency-wide get-together might be beneficial for sharing knowledge and building better working relationships between employees who don't regularly see each other. And I've worked for corporations who felt the same way and would pay for similar sorts of retreats and meetings. And if I were trying to get thousands of people together for a conference, I'd at least consider Vegas, since it has plenty of nice hotel facilities at low prices.
To put that in perspective, the total amount of cash put into the GSA from 2012 to 2014 is approximately 75,000 times the amount spent on Vegas parties. So yes, that $1 million is a problem, but it also represents 0.001% of the amount of money we're talking about here, and it's pretty likely that the remaining 99.998% of the money is going to what the GSA is supposed to be doing (if there was a bigger problem, you can be reasonably certain that Fox News would be talking about it for weeks with whatever evidence they could get their hands on).
I think what screws people up about federal agencies is simply how mind-bogglingly huge the numbers all are. For example, let's say I surveyed everyone who is a beneficiary of Social Security and asked them if they had any kind of problem with the program, and got 100,000 people with legitimate complaints. That sounds like a huge number and a really massive problem, until you realize that it represents approximately 0.2% of 55 million Social Security beneficiaries, which means that 99.8% of the time they get it right, a better track record than most organizations.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 2) by scruffybeard on Tuesday July 29 2014, @12:56PM
I understand your point about the mind-boggling numbers in the Federal government, however the Las Vegas convention scandal was not about the fact that they held a convention, but that the contracts for the hotel, food, and entertainment were not properly bid, and were in clear violation of Federal rules for events of this nature. The cost for their annual convention had quadrupled in a span of a few years, and by all accounts, excessive for what needed to be accomplished. So while the overall percentage spent may not be that high, it is still important that this kind of behavior is dealt with so that others don't think that this the way that the business of the government should be conducted.
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 29 2014, @01:12PM
Don't get me wrong: When somebody screws up big time or is getting corrupt in government, I firmly agree that people should be disciplined, demoted, and fired if needed. And indeed that happened in this case.
My point is that just because you've proven 10 people in an agency are corrupt doesn't say anything at all about the other ~65,000 people who work for it, and that when you look at the overall track record it is quite good. And if you want to see a track record that's not good, compare any US federal agency you like with an equivalent agency in, say, Greece or Italy.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday July 29 2014, @01:40PM
Let me put this into different terms. Lets say I make boxes. I sell 100million boxes the size of a car. (yeah me!). I sell them for 500 dollars. It costs me 50 bucks to deal with 1 return. Now I have a 1% return rate. Thats not bad at all. Lets even say it is 4% bellow industry average. I still have LARGE problem. What do I do with 1 million boxes and the 50 million dollar writedown in profits? Dont think so? MS did this with the 360. They had a 30% fail rate. They had warehouses full of the things.
You are playing with numbers and you know it. Doing the way you are doing it lets others get away with other things. Because its 'not as bad'. Do you really want a gov that is 'not as bad as'?
(Score: 2) by Thexalon on Tuesday July 29 2014, @04:14PM
Yes, it's a problem. Yes, you should address it. But it's also true that your company is doing pretty well, with $50,000 million coming in the door with which to pay the $50 million in returns and plenty left over to pay for dealing with the returned boxes, so concluding that your company sucks at its job would be very incorrect.
I of course strive for perfection in government, as in everything else. I also know that we're all human, screw-ups happen, and that really really good is what is nearly always achievable in a human system. For example, the closest thing the world has to a perfect software shop [fastcompany.com] still has only 99.99% bug-free code.
The only thing that stops a bad guy with a compiler is a good guy with a compiler.