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by asmithmd1 4707 days ago
MA has so many make-work jobs who do absolutely nothing at least they could leave those of us trying to do something alone. I was talking to a guy who used to be a product designer for Brookstone, Polaroid and GM. He has an idea to create 100 simple products all manufactured within 100 miles of Boston.

http://www.onehundred.co

He thought he would reach out to some MA economic development organization and let them know what he was doing. They got back to him right away, I forget which exact agency, to let him know they would not be able to provide any help. He was kind of miffed because he hadn't asked for anything - but now he knew they would not be able to help no matter what he might need.

I tried to look up the agency he contacted and I found these agencies:

Commonwealth Corporation

MassDevelopment

Mass. Office of Housing and Economic Development

Mass. Office of Business Development

Mass. Business Development Center

Mass. Small Business Development Center

Mass. Export Center

Mass. Office of International Trade & Investment

MassVentures

Mass. Growth Capital Corporation

Mass. Technology Collaborative

Mass. Technology Transfer Center

Mass. Clean Energy Center

Mass. Life Sciences Center

Commonwealth Marketing Office

Don't worry about any waste or duplication - the Mass. Office of Performance Management & Oversight was created with the job of making sure all these groups are working together.

Each of these places has dozens if not hundreds of employees with titles I can't even parody:

Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director

Program Assistant to the Director

Director of Cluster Development

http://www.masstech.org/meet-masstech/our-team/meet-our-staf...

All of these people standing by ready to fire back an email that they really can't be of any help

2 comments

Well, I'd assume "Executive Assistant to the Deputy Director" is the secretary for the no. 2 at the MTC, which doesn't seem all that unreasonable. The "Program Assistant to the Director" is probably a project manager. The "Director of Cluster Development" is probably in charge of whoever is developing clusters, whatever those are. The titles are slightly overblown, but little more than I'd expect at any government department or large corporation.
It sounds like you aren't familiar with the depths of corruption in Massachusetts state government. Let's put it this way: the last three previous Speakers of the House are all Federal felons.
What do you think the broadband community outreach coordinator does?
Don't even get me started! For other examples of how the MA state government loves to put their money anywhere BUT their mouth, come check out the number of "Additional Vice Provost" positions in the state university (UMass) system.

They laid off people who were doing actual work to make room for people whose only job responsibility is to collect a paycheck.

It amazes me no end!