Road to 350: What Does the US Navy Do Anyway?

[mmx1]

If the domestic supply chain isn’t capable of producing a commercially competitive product we’re paying a premium for junk, which is what I thought we were trying to avoid.

I’m not saying it’s not worth doing, I’m saying it’s a national industrial decade plus strategy like (in line with) the CHIPS act and not something we’re going to solve with a sweatshop, excuse me, a startup of college students.

 

[Lawman]

If the domestic supply chain isn’t capable of producing a commercially competitive product we’re paying a premium for junk, which is what I thought we were trying to avoid.

I’m not saying it’s not worth doing, I’m saying it’s a national industrial decade plus strategy like (in line with) the CHIPS act and not something we’re going to solve with a sweatshop, excuse me, a startup of college students.

Most of the chip work Taiwan did the building fabrication is/are highly exportable, it’s just one of those things like China where previous sunk cost has people dragging their feet in new investment because venture capital in MDCOA isn't exactly what their investors want to hear. The chips act rightly tried to make some effort on this.

There‘s nothing not understood about EUV chip production. They’ve built a few sites stateside using the same methods so we can build to quality, but quantity needs some “motivation.” Thats part of the argument in moving funds and changing bureaucracy rules.

Arguably at the low end we don’t need that kind of leveling of the playground to make drones unless we really want to squeeze high capability AI into the smallest group 1/2s. We can 3D print a 200 dollar single point of control FPV today in an office or garage environment. Scale is a matter of inputs. The advantage of the extreme high end over other chips is less about the total GPU being made, and more the ability to get that performance for fractional power/weight costs into platforms where grams matter.

 

[Spekkio]

If you actually believe this statement, you're an insane person. FFS.

Um, okay? Thanks for telling me what I have or have not experienced.

I think I'm quite sane. At least, that's what my other personality tells me .

To recap: there are civilian federal employees and contractors who are worth their weight in gold solving tough problems. Usually you see this at the GS-14 and above level.

And there are guys who spend 6 hours a day watching YouTube / FoxNews / CNN and hem and haw when you need them to do their job, and there's no accountability for that. There's more of these than GS-14+.

So why aren’t they attacking that problem? They follow rules Congress and Trump makes.

Most likely because 'attacking that problem' requires a change in statute, and Trump is at least smart enough to know that nothing he wants to do will get bi-partisan support. He's already had his EOs on this issue blocked by federal courts.

But also... our system is set up by design to be slow at changing things. You come in as a bright-eyed, bushy-tailed post-CO, major commander, or GOFO and have grand ideas and the civilian deputy who's been there for 10-20 years is just thinking 'yea, we're just gonna table all this chaff' because it's not on their personal priority lists. Then slowly, you realize that you're just a figure-head to meet some legal authorities requirement and the civilians actually run things. ADM Houston is the director of naval reactors... but Chuck Taylor runs the show.

But the reason for acting like a bull in a China shop is that it takes like a year to accomplish what you can get done in a day in an operational command. And also, that civilian is more often than not operating on priorities and guidance that is outdated, because that's how long the life cycle of completing tasking is.

The leadership challenge is turning these people into storm troopers with jedi mind tricks, because that's the only way to get them to march out.

It's worth noting that there's stray voltage in the communication lines. Similar to how USAF went high-and-right to delete the Tuskagee Airmen when Trump signed the DEI memo - and since re-instated because that wasn't the intent - federal agencies are being given discretion on who to fire.

But the messaging is so poor that quality employees are resigning / retiring instead.

In all reality, I think it's an interesting leadership case study, insofar as the objective and on-paper process is well-reasoned, but the communication and messaging has everyone in an uproar.

The old adage is sailors hate 2 things: the way things are and change. This kind of demonstrates that it's just a human factor, and not a Navy culture thing.

But hey, you could run on "Hope and Change" and then basically be a carbon copy of your predecessor with a different letter next to his name.

 

[Brett327]

what I have or have not experienced.

You can't even grasp the nature of my criticism. I have no doubt that you do actually think what you've said is objective reality. I think your long history of posting bizarre, sociopathic takes on this site is well understood by most of us. I'm not sure what's wrong with you... maybe you're neuro-divergent, maybe you really are just a sociopath, but nobody on this site with experience, decency, or simply a basic understanding of human behavior takes anything you say seriously.

 

[BigRed389]

I’ve worked with a lot of government civilians at this point through various levels and types of commands.

In no way would I agree that the majority don’t earn their paychecks.

Are there low performers ones? Yup.
I’d say not all that different from active duty where you typically have your usual rough 10/80/10 split or superstars/solid acceptable middle with a normal distribution of performance/problem children.

Is it a pain to get rid of them? Yup. But also not impossible.

At this point, through DRP “encouragements” I’ve shed literally all my bottom 10-15%. My main worry now is keeping the remaining ones (b/c we were understaffed to start) from burning out and quitting because they’re done with this shit.

I was already pushing all my low performers out because I had my civilian leaders actually do their jobs and hammer the ones who were doing terrible. All it took was them stepping up and actually holding them accountable on paper (which literally also hits their wallets - docks their annual bonuses) to get them to quit.

At least in DOD, if we had actually been serious about the personnel cuts being about force shaping low performers, we would have granted more authority to commands/commanders to hire/fire.

What makes us hesitant to ADSEP a sailor for just underperforming? At least one factor is because you have no guarantee you will get a backfill fast. So a CoC has to really see a major problem to invest the time and documentation to punt a sailor. Not that different for civilians…

if the objective is to remove bureaucracy, on the acquisition side, there are massive organizations that do nothing but compliance checking, that I would have razed to the ground from Day 1 and restart from scratch. DOT&E was one. But there are many many more to go…but most of them sit within OSD/DOD control, not the services, and I don’t see DOD applying much of the squeeze to “purple” staffs.

 

[Spekkio]

You can't even grasp the nature of my criticism. I have no doubt that you do actually think what you've said is objective reality. I think your long history of posting bizarre, sociopathic takes on this site is well understood by most of us. I'm not sure what's wrong with you... maybe you're neuro-divergent, maybe you really are just a sociopath, but nobody on this site with experience, decency, or simply a basic understanding of human behavior takes anything you say seriously.

Brett... I understand your criticism. I'm simply telling you that you're full of shit on this issue.

You have a propensity to resort to personal attacks on this board when anyone on this site disagrees with you. And I got it - you're a retired O-6 who thinks that anyone junior than you lacks the perspective to have a legitimate opinion. Your mentality is go back to the kiddy table.

If you think I'm psychotic because I think we can get by with fewer DOD civilians than we currently have... ok... I won't lose sleep over that. But I also listened to an SES say that he would reduce his workforce by 40% if he could. Apparently you think that makes me a sociopath.

It is a widely acknowledged problem that we are paying too many people to do too few things.

 

[Brett327]

Brett... I understand your criticism. I'm simply telling you that you're full of shit on this issue.

You have a propensity to resort to personal attacks on this board when anyone on this site disagrees with you. And I got it - you're a retired O-6 who thinks that anyone junior than you lacks the perspective to have a legitimate opinion. Your mentality is go back to the kiddy table.

If you think I'm psychotic because I think we can get by with fewer DOD civilians than we currently have... ok... I won't lose sleep over that. But I also listened to an SES say that he would reduce his workforce by 40% if he could. Apparently you think that makes me a sociopath.

It is a widely acknowledged problem that we are paying too many people to do too few things.

Quiet down, crazy person.

 

[Faded Float Coat]

It is a widely acknowledged problem that we are paying too many people to do too few things.

I think you'll need to better define "widely," but more importantly, if you (within your sphere of influence) really have underperforming employees (be they CTR or GS), I'd point you to @BigRed389's post and exercise some of the leadership skills described therein....

 

[Brett327]

It is a widely acknowledged problem that we are paying too many people to do too few things.

I'm going to anchor down on this little gem... because it demonstrates just how completely disconnected Spekkio is from anything resembling reality. I'll draw on my experience leading an organization comprised of 90% civilians. The inverse of Spekkio's statement was actually true. We had too few people assigned for the required tasking. Between managing our assigned end strength numbers, and many long term vacancies (welcome to Kauai), we had to triage what tasking the organization could do, and take on additional risk across the organization. Fleet units not trained, and critical DoD capabilities not tested because of our limited capacity.

Reality check from one small Ech III Command:
Admin Department - 3 out of 5 positions vacant. Explosive Safety Officer - vacant. Safety Officer - gapped 24 months. Installation Training Officer - gapped 14 months. Launch Control Officers - gapped 2 of 3 positions. T&E Program Managers - 2 of 5 positions vacant. This also tends to burn out the people you do have, who are doing the jobs of 2-3 other people. It sure as fuck isn't paying too many people to do too few things. This is all before DRP and all the other fantastic programs OPM dreamed up.

This is common across the Shore Enterprise. This is why your bases are slow to fix your facilities. This is why there's a long line at the gate. This is why the MWR and CDC programs that support your Sailors struggle to meet need.

Those are the facts, folks... and it's one more reason that nobody should listen seriously to anything Spekkio says.

 

[Griz882]

Between managing our assigned end strength numbers, and many long term vacancies (welcome to Kauai)

Interesting point. Not enough people in places like Kauai and too many flooding toward DC. A few years back I was hiring two GS-12’s that, while not a technically focused position it did require a specific skill set - I got close to 75 “qualified” applicants out of 200 plus applications. At the same time, our group was hiring for the same job in western Oklahoma and they got three applications! There is clearly a skills gap out there and I’m sure that in the more technical fields it is even harder to fill some positions.

 

[taxi1]

hiring for the same job in western Oklahoma

Western Oklahoma? Where do I send my resume?

 

[Griz882]

Western Oklahoma? Where do I send my resume?

View attachment 43008

You have to crane your neck to the left a bit…then you’ll see it.

 

[sevenhelmet]

At the same time, our group was hiring for the same job in western Oklahoma and they got three applications!

Even as a proud Kansas native, this one, I understand. If there are insufficient qualified applicants applying to go to Kauai, I'd be a little more confused. @Brett327 , any insight there?

What I've seen more often than not in hiring (both .gov and corporate) is that vacancies exist and nobody is willing or able to negotiate the bureaucracy to generate a hiring requisition and list the job. Or worse, a job req is generated that is complete garbage, leading to the best candidates being filtered out of the running by HR and monthslong delays while things get corrected, and candidates go elsewhere. I'm not even a hiring manager and I still find it frustrating to watch.

Our cultural hiring practices absolutely suck, and I mean that broadly. HR simply isn't there for our benefit, no matter how much they might say otherwise.

 

[Brett327]

If there are insufficient qualified applicants applying to go to Kauai, I'd be a little more confused. @Brett327 , any insight there?

Most people can't afford to live on Kauai on a GS-12 salary, assuming they can even find a house for their family there. That's even after we max out all the various incentives. We had lots of qualified folks apply for and get a TJO for some of the jobs I listed. Some of them even showed up to house hunt, only to give up after not finding housing.

More broadly across the shore enterprise, billets are limited for both the military and civilian positions, and a lot of people would rather work in the private sector and not have to deal with all the red tape of a GS position while doing the work/collaterals of vacant positions. This idea that people just want to get government jobs so they can kick back and chill all day while drawing a paycheck is a GOP fever dream.