[jeffbr13]

"18F is a Financial Disaster" is not the title of the article and is explicit editorialising.

On a lighter note, seems like a fun place to work! And the kind of attitudes on display here seem to be the kind you'd expect from a group of people who have the VC-funded mindset, but the cost-pressures of the US's government budget.

[int_handler]

Agreed. Many of the "unbillable" work items listed in the article seem to be establishing important procedures and tools to improve productivity and a positive work environment, which most tech companies do as well.

Makes you wonder whether the author and the poster are affiliated with one of those old-school government consulting or contractor companies that would gladly see 18F disappear so that the government would outsource the work instead.

[toomuchtodo]

> Agreed. Many of the "unbillable" work items listed in the article seem to be establishing important procedures and tools to improve productivity and a positive work environment, which most tech companies do as well.

I have nothing but disdain for someone spending $4,000 of public money writing a Slackbot to politely encourage you to not use the words "guys" or "dudes" [1] [2]. If that's important to you, go burn up VC dollars doing that, not tax money that is desperately needed for real work. This opinion is not about having an agenda; that's common sense.

I'm off to craft a FOIA request for the historical Slack logs for 18F.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12792768

[2] https://18f.gsa.gov/2016/01/12/hacking-inclusion-by-customiz...

[int_handler]

While I completely agree with you that spending $4,000 on these slack bots is a waste of time, that is still a minute fraction of the cost of "unbillable" items listed by this article. Why not submit an FOIA request on one of the other items instead, such as the $140k spend on "developing the brand" and find out what actually involved? [0]

If you really want to be outraged by a waste of taxpayer dollars, I would recommend that you take a look at how much state governments are overspending on prisons vs education [1], wasteful spending in defense [2], and the $8.5 trillion in unaccounted taxpayer dollars spent on defense [3].

[0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=12793035

[1] http://money.cnn.com/2015/10/01/pf/college/higher-education-...

[2] http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2015/10/29/where-did-us-taxp...

[3] http://www.thefiscaltimes.com/2015/03/19/85-Trillion-Unaccou...

[mangeletti]

I'm the OP, and I've never done any work for any government, ever.

As for the title... to sum up +$140k of tax dollars spent on a pointless logo as anything less than a completely fucking ludicrous financial disaster would be almost as idiotic.

Also, I would hate to see how this almost treasonous waste of money could possibly be bested. In one year's time, I myself with no outside help could produce everything this entire shit organization has ever produced, and it would be higher quality. As for the logo, you could get better at 99 Designs for 80 bucks.