You're right of course. They could have found someone to do the same thing for half the money. But they won't even try.

It has been my experience in the federal government that certain agencies are holding pens for people either too lazy, too stupid or too mentally ill to hold down a real job, mixed in with a lot of upper echelon affirmative action hires who are there to make the demographics look good.

DOD is the least bad in my personal experience because most of the bosses are military or ex military. )This is the only department I have ever seen fire anyone. It is rare but it does happen.

But places like the Department of the Interior, EPA, Treasury, and Education are rife with it. Mostly these are giant circle jerks with everone attempting to rat out their fellow employees, to climb the career ladder, and bosses who spend most of their time writing up people for infractions of arcane rules which have little or nothing to do with actual job performance or mission requirements.

If we can't help having EPA bureaucrats, I'd rather have them wanking than writing more evil regulations to take away more of our necessary energy supply. It's not as though the environment were in any danger. It never has been.

Honestly, I would rather they did that than try to do something in the real world, real people get hurt when their masturbation turns outward.

You vote for a politician and this is what you get. You vote for a business man and it will be changed.

President Donald J. Trump is my vote. Anti-Trump voters will do all they can to keep the status quo (including Crid and Amy).

Isab's comment brings me back to my days in the Army. I held a Top Secret clearance, with SCI nomination. I worked in the S2 for the HHQ in my battalion.

And I dealt with civilian employees with clearances like mine, and the quota hires were absolutely awful.

I hate to have to say this, but I understand why these quota hires were so godawful incompetent. Do you have any idea just how hard it is to find a black person who can actually qualify for a Top Secret clearance? Not only can you not have a criminal record (beyond a couple of parking tickets) and no history of drug use, but you must have good credit and a decent standard of living. You have to show not only ethics but nothing that suggests you could be enticed by bribes. So if you're poor, you're out. Done anything harder than marijuana, you're gone.

The background checks cost over 100K when I was in the Army ('90-'94). I can only imagine what the investigation must cost now.

The report includes the notorious case of an EPA employee in the Office of Air and Radiation who, while earning a $120,000 salary, watched porn between two and six hours every day, masturbated at work, and received bonuses.

He must have been good at it, then.

Isab is pretty much spot on. We had someone retire in our office after 42 years at the VA. I worked with him almost 9 years. He did no actual work in that time. At least he didn't watch porn, have a crappy attitude or cause trouble. He was just a worthless employee that was too much trouble to fire.

"DOD is the least bad in my personal experience because most of the bosses are military or ex military."

I've done a lot of government work, but nearly all of it has been with the DoD and NASA, and reading stuff like this makes me realize how different they are from most of the government agencies. The DoD has a strict policy about porn, and I've known of people who got fired for it. Of course, it's also true that the DoD has a lot more contractors than most agencies, and contractor employees are a lot easier to fire. NASA can be balkanized and awkward, but a friend of mine who did some work with NOAA says that they make NASA look like a day at the beach, and I've heard the same about the Energy Department.

The firing order at Savannah River Site is like this, sorted by speed:

1) Put knuckles on Centerra, the security force. Added risk: being killed.
2) Put knuckles on a supervisor. Workplace violence is a zero-tolerance issue. Added risk: supervisor fights back, you might lose, and badly.
3) Do something stupid with computer. Added risk: none. By far the easiest way to be fired, because the IT people log everything and only act when they get a complaint. By then, logs are extensive; they'll put them in a box with your pink slip as you are escorted out the door.
This happens about twice a year despite widespread knowledge it's a fatal offense.