I am completely apolitical, so I have not done much hand wringing about the government shutdown. However, I just read that the furloughs at the Veterans Affairs Department means stopping software development.
That sounds sort of harmless, but what is under the radar here is that the processing of veterans' claims will be affected. And then what? The VA Office of Information and Technology sent 2,754 employees home. That's the size of an impressive corporation.
During the many years I've been working, I've experienced several layoffs. Once it was because the financial meltdown five years ago caused a company I worked for to lay off 20 percent of its personnel six months later. At other times, the contracts I had expired and the end client wanted someone cheaper. At many companies, the thinking is flawed. You need all hands on deck in certain departments. You need toll collectors, even though many drivers have transponders. It's like the Emergency Department of a hospital. You need doctors and nurses, a phlebotomist to draw blood, a technician to perform CT scans and MRIs, and a radiologist to read the results -- 24/7. Just because the CEO may not be prone to getting kidney stones doesn't mean that others may not suffer attacks and need medical care urgently.
Trying to save money by cutting personnel, either with furloughs or permanently, is a temporary stop gap measure. It's like taking out an uninfected appendix in order to lose a few ounces. The decision makers at the top need to see in the future and realize that there may be consequences down the road. You don't need a crystal ball for that. You can be sure that the VA is going to have a huge backlog because a few politicians can't decide on the budget.
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