Letter: Coburn's report barely scratches the surface

Regarding "Senator: Fed workers miss millions of hours": This report is only the tip of the iceberg.

The federal government is an environment in which performance is rarely measured in any meaningful way and employees cannot be fired. No one should feign surprise at this report. Beyond the topic of the report, there are things that are not captured in any agency's data. I know many federal employees who routinely report to work at 10 and are home by 3:30. I used to work with some of these people. While "at work," they run errands all day on the clock. This is not all feds, but it is also not unusual.

I have noticed that feds I travel with routinely take a day before travel and a day after away from the office but do not charge it to vacation. Frankly, they travel too much and do little while on the road. So how do we fix this? More telecommuting? That will directly result in an even less productive fed workforce. What the fed needs are meaningful measures of workforce productivity and value returned to the taxpayer.  

Anonymous


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