- The contractor had no budget. Our servers were out of date and we were running out of date OSes and software. We were all paid below standard and overworked.
- We had a tiny budget at the agency to buy things at the very end of the year. We ran up to date software and OSes, except for a few large complicated systems that were setup with grant money. We were all paid well below standard. I was no longer on call at all times of the day and night.
Contract awards go to the lowest bidder.
Where I live that's exactly what we have. We have a number of privately owned tag agencies that handle most requests which don't require an in-person visit to the DMV (like a new photo id).
This is fast and takes far less time than visiting the DMV. The various DMVs are bloated beasts with too-large budgets, yet they can't seem to staff people at all their windows.
When you only have to handle the simple stuff, it's much easier to make it a great experience. AAA is basically the EZPass lane for the DMV.
That's not to say that a full-service DMVs shouldn't be significantly better in most cases, though.
See also: bans on common-sense measures like including sales tax in price tags, making it easier to pay income taxes.
Yes. The strategy is known as "starve the beast" [1] and it is pursued with ferocious determination by its proponents. The goal is to create some kind of minimal government libertarian paradise.
Yes you can see, the beast has been horribly starved.
Spending on services that are multipliers of productivity is very different than spending on the military, for example. Spending on public services that improves citizens' life like healthcare, parks, schools, culture, easiness of bureaucracy (e.g.: permits for construction, licencing of activities, etc.) is a completely different beast than spending on politicians benefits, military drills, and so on.
Don't really understand your deflection and tone, it was completely uncalled for and doesn't at all address the point of my comment. Please, don't do that here on HN, I come here to foster intelligent and interesting discussions, not to read mindless hot takes and deflections.
If you don't understand something, you admit what you say below is a lie.
> it was completely uncalled for and doesn't at all address the point of my comment
Here is a learning opportunity. If you don't understand something, do not just shortcut to believing it was uncalled for. The fact you don't understand makes it clear you don't know whether it addresses your point.
Do you not have driving tests in Sweden? Does Sweden allow residents to submit any random picture of their choice for their drivers license?
As an American, the only times I have to go to the DMV are when I have renew my license (every 4-5 year), and that seems mainly to take a (simple) vision test and get my photo taken. They also give tests to new drivers and people moving in from out of state.
It's very, very easy.
The last time I personally did license renewal, I waited approximately that long without an appointment, and the place had a line out the door.
Theoretically yes, but practically it's moot. Were I live I don't think I've ever had to wait in line more than 10-15 minutes, even at what seemed to be "busy times." If the wait times are that short, it's more trouble to make an appointment and still wait about that long.
That's nice for you. Every time I've gone to my local DMV I've waited at least 45 minutes, even with an appointment. Luckily I work remotely so I could work from the waiting area, but most people don't have that luxury and are forced to take an indefinite time off of work to go to the DMV.
That's not something you can generalize about in the US. Here, driver licensing is a state-level function, it's done >50 different ways. It's not even official done by the "DMV" everywhere, but that's what they call in in California, so that's what they call it on TV. Even in my state it's hard to generalize, since they allow contractors to perform almost all the common functions in their businesses.
For example marking employees by how quickly they “process” someone (aka Handle Time) actually incentivizes employees to not listen, to tell people the wrong information, and to push them to be somebody else’s problem. The customer who might have taken 10min now takes 5 here, 10 there, 20 over there, 20 min of a supervisor’s time, and countless minutes taking up space in the various lines waiting to be told something else.
If a system runs like that it almost doesn’t matter how much staff they have because all those staff feel overworked and overskilled.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/claim...
Woe to you people off the golden path.
I AM convinced it's a major problem. Maybe not for white-collar people on Hacker News who have paid sick leave, random leave times and no expectations of certain hours, and high pay. But for many working class people in the US dealing with bureaucratic nonsense IS a big deal.
Isn't there a US law on this? The Paperwork Reduction Act?
I know the time required to fill out an NSF proposal is "how long is a piece of string" but parts of it (some of the financial portions) are as boilerplate as an IRS tax form.
Ideally people would have a single universal identifier and then I'd never need to put my date of birth or tax number on another form again.
In the more general case of data collection I believe people collect data simply because they can. I strongly believe that the PII collected by advertisers and others is mostly never used. A liability they take on with no benefit.
Without externalizing the cost of all the time wasted, it's just too easy to push time-costs on to the consumers/citizens. It's already a huge problem, and I suspect a major cause of loss of productivity in the western world.