Two Very Different Responses to FatCratz (1 of 2)

Here's one spirited response I received to the FatCratz discussion (my comments are interspersed):

My last visit to the DMV was online, took 3 minutes start to finish, and was incredibly convenient and efficient, yet the media are unable to learn that the cliche is no longer true.

I'm thrilled government is finally adopting online technology. But in my experience, government has been very slow to this game, and often lags current e-commerce technology by 5 - 10 years. And I wonder if migrating customers to the web has allowed them to reduce staff? My most recent experience was an online purchase of an EZPass, and I was only told on the final step of a lengthy process that the system was down. Of course, I'll be back, because they have a monopoly.

Taking swipes at bureaucrats is low-hanging fruit for the lazy journalist, but it is the stereotype that offer no insight as to why inefficiencies exist - much less how to correct them. If your website does that it may have some use.

FatCratz doesn't want to perpetuate a false stereotype, but shine a light on the concrete reality, and in doing so diagnose the problem and propose solutions.  

The vast majority of our public servants are dedicated professionals working long hours and earning 1/2 to 1/3 of what they would in the private sector, while receiving little credit (and some inane webiste attacks) for their efforts on our behalf.

I perfectly agree that the majority of public employees are dedicated professionals. But the system in which they work has such poor incentive structure that it not only tolerates, but fosters, rampant waste and abuse. It's time the dedicated professionals started doing more to uproot the waste and abuse committed by both career and political employees.

A friend of mine is a cardiothoracic surgeon, who was happy making boatloads of money, saving lives and doing heart transplants. He accepted an invitation to serve and ended up taking an 80% paycut, driving 5 hours each way from his family each week, and renting an apartment in Baltimore - all to help improve the quality of health care delivered to Americans. I bet you never hear this or the thousands of stories like it on "FatCratz.com"

There are plenty of altruistic folks who work in government, and I applaud them. But ultimately you can't count on altruism for the well-being of a large, complex organization. And I'm happy to highlight the heroes of government employment as well. They fight long odds.

That and the perpetuation of the false stereotype are why I'll likely never see or hear of that site again.

The stereotypes aren't false. They don't apply to everyone, as no stereotype does, but they aren't baseless. I've seen them exceeded again and again in real life.

Obviously, FatCratz isn't for everyone, but it also isn't about running down the hardworking government employees that are out there. It's about recognizing that the public sector is seriously limited in its competencies, that it's bureaucratic systems tolerate and encourage waste and abuse, and slowing the growth of government's expansion into more areas of our life and commerce.