Readers share their takes on government's behavior in GSA Jim Williams' nomination.
Regarding "Editorial: Encouraging mediocrity":Finally, doing your job. There are lots of reasons why Williams ought not to be administrator, but I agree with you that Sun Microsystems isn't one and [Sen.] Grassley is being a bully and should, as you have done here, not quite strongly enough, be called on it. This editorial becomes you.
Anonymous
Regarding "Editorial: Encouraging mediocrity": Mr. Dorobek fails to appreciate the importance of avoiding an appearance of conflict of interest. Maybe [Rear Adm.] Hight is capable of representing the best interests of the public in spite of her husband's position as a major player with a defense contractor, but others haven't been able to.
Anonymous
Regarding "DHS keeps mum on cybersecurity contract work": I don't understand why [the Homeland Security Department] wants to increase the size of the federal workforce in this area. This has been a pattern at DHS with large increases in infrastructure inspectors and other areas where outsourcing would provide cheaper and better support. Cybersecurity is an area where the government salary levels would not be competitive to obtain and keep top-level experts.
Ed Badolato
Regarding "TSA suspends Registered Traveler enrollments": Simply astonishing!
So, there is this company doing sensitive work for the Transportation Security Administration and what do they do?
They don't encrypt their laptops that contains all the identity data of some 33,000 folks...
I am speechless...well, almost: To bring an end to this apparently hopeless situation I wish that the affected individuals will get together and launch a massive lawsuit.
Andreas Kuhn
Regarding "Editorial: Encouraging mediocrity": I completely and totally agree with this editorial particularly when it come to Rear Adm. Hight. She has displayed brilliant leadership and insight in her tenure at DISA. She really gets what has to happen to truly transform DOD IT. It could be that congress really isn't interested in making correct changes. It seems as though they enjoy setting standards and then making it impossible to achieve them.
They really blew it when it came to this nomination.
Charles Russell
Regarding "Editorial: Encouraging mediocrity": What you have written in this article is absolutely true. I have found that the government is deathly afraid of hiring anyone that can indeed make a decision and get the job done. If you look at any grade level above GS-12 you will find that the ones hired typically do not have the backgrounds for the job but are the low risk candidate in terms of following orders. Original thinking is not a requirement for government careers and this rule becomes more important the higher level the job is.
Anonymous
Regarding "Editorial: Encouraging mediocrity":Well at least their jobs are not on a Marine Corps base like Quantico. If so, their qualifications would not matter. The only thing that would matter is if they were retired Lieutenant Colonels; they get hired for the big jobs here. The lower GS jobs are not funded or rated properly to save space for the higher GS jobs given to [Lieutenant Colonels].
Here it looks like once the wait restriction of hiring retired officers was lifted they saved the best jobs for themselves.
Anonymous
What do you think? Paste a comment in the box below (registration required), or send your comment to letters@fcw.com (subject line: Blog comment) and we'll post it.
NEXT STORY: NARA offers guidance on e-mail archiving