Politicaly appointed Government employees

Federal political appointed “managers”

I dealt with four federal government agencies during my career in Engineering Management, Engineering and Business Management Consulting and while running my own businesses.

There are many competent and hard working people working in government service.

My concern is with the political appointees who get appointed to high paying job when there is a turnover in an administration. The “Appointees” are many times people who blew up balloons for the winning candidates.

The worst of the worst are the top “Management” appointees who are in position to spend huge amounts of your money without active oversight. They contribute nothing to the management of their “bureau”, leaving the work to the working troops.

Second worst are the “Administrative Assistants” or “Deputy Assistants”. Every manager seems to have at least one. They provide important functions like getting coffee for the boss, reading newspapers, and running errands.

The permanent hires of inappropriate people without education or experience to perform their job is also a problem. I was an engineering manager for a corporation that designed and manufactured equipment for naval ships. My counterpart at The Bureau of Ships, who was responsible for approving our designs and design changes, was a Political Science Major graduate. He literally didn’t understand nuts, bolts or cotter pins and routinely rejected or disapproved our submittals of drawings and specifications because we had not “adequately explained”. I guess the word “Science” in his Resume (and probable relationship with a politician) qualified him to be an engineering manager. Thankfully, after digging deep into the Bureau, and really ticking off the “manager”, we found real engineers who could assist us. The manager got “Promoted” to get him out of the way.

I think it was Ronald Regan who said, “If you want to see government waste walk into any government office”.

I’m sure he was talking about the political appointees, not the hard working, intelligent, competent, educated, trained souls who sadly will never be “The Boss”.

One last comment:

I was once in the office of an upper level manager in the DOE just after a Presidential election. A new Director had just been appointed.

I asked my contact, “How are you getting along with your new boss?”

He laughed and said, “He hasn’t found his office yet. We hope to keep it that way.”