The Sad State Of Government

I have been the director of IT for high-tech companies in the Silicon Valley.  In my many years of experience, I have heard just about every excuse for people’s poor performance blamed on computers.

There have been sales(wo)men (how’s that for political correctness by combining the two?) that blamed their poor performance on outmoded laptops.  Even though they were provided a new top-of-the-line computer, when the next model came out they complained their “slow” computer prevented them for closing the last three critical sales.

I have had engineers who had $15,000 workstations for their design stations, complain when they only had a top of the line PC to use for browsing the web, email and word processing.  Once, an engineering manager tried to blame a failed new product on the “slow” email that took two seconds to display a 50Meg file.

I have seen company executives order over-priced computers, laptops and other equipment to placate the hi-maintenance squeaky wheels they had mistakenly hired.  It was worse than the music business where you have to deal with divas that demand twenty lime-green colored towels, warmed to a temperature of 102 degrees mind you, and a sushi chef on call with 30 kinds of fish when only two will be ordered.

Through my network of colleagues I have seen companies pay disgusting amounts of money purchasing equipment from a relative when the same exact equipment could be purchased for half the cost.  I have seen companies shut down with the help of both exorbitant spending and poor performance of the divas.

Peter Orszag is President Obama’s Director of the Office of Management and Budget.  He is blaming old computers and technology on the federal government’s inability to perform.  Hmmmmm… where have I heard this before?

I bet all the latest and greatest computers and technology in the world will not solve the government’s problems. Neither will a bigger government.

Here is something you may want to consider: Our federal government is complaining that they cannot run correctly because of bad computers and technology.  Do you want an entity that admits they cannot function correctly in charge of all your health care?

Maybe our government ould be able to rite proper memos and ork just fine if Clinton’s people had not removed that pesky key beteen the “Q” and “E” from all the keyboards before Bush moved in.

Oh, I forgot, OfficeMax had donated 500 “W” keys and 100 keyboards to the government and it didn’t make anything run better.