[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...