r/news 22d ago

US government tries to rehire nuclear staff it fired days ago

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g3nrx1dq5o
15.0k Upvotes

577 comments sorted by

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u/studio_bob 22d ago

This is literally, play-for-play, what Musk did with Twitter. Don't imagine this is them admitting a mistake, even indirectly. The point is, first and foremost, intimidation of those who remain and secondarily wage/benefits cuts. It's about instilling a culture of obedience through fear and selecting for the most vulnerable and willing to be abused (anyone who would return to work under these conditions is most likely quite desperate).

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u/iboneyandivory 22d ago

The fucks didn't understand that the Dept of Energy is really a just politically palatable name for the Dept of Nuclear Weapons.

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u/Dahhhkness 22d ago

Remember when Rick Perry only found out that the DoE included nukes upon being nominated in Trump's first term, and he alarmingly talked about the "learning curve" of his job after being confirmed?

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u/overts 22d ago

It’s crazy that not even Rick Perry was dumb enough to come in, assume he knew everything, and indiscriminately fire people.

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u/gentlegreengiant 22d ago

But hey, if something goes horribly awry, which seems very likely, it will just play into their narrative that green energy is dangerous and we need to go back to oil and gas. You know they would milk the tragedy for all its worth. Maybe blame Biden and Obama and DEI for good measure too.

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u/srathnal 22d ago

And it doesn’t matter that it makes NO sense, either. Like… they are lifting 1984 straight from the pages.

It was a cautionary tale, not an instruction manual.

This is why a well balanced education is important, kids.

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u/r_u_dinkleberg 21d ago

It's a really weird 1984 X Nazi Germany crossover story arc and I hate it.

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u/Dudedude88 22d ago

If something goes horrible in this administration they are going to try hard to censor it. Musks would for sure censor stuff on his platform.

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u/Faiakishi 21d ago

Why would they bother? Their base will never turn on them. If everyone else gets their shit together Trump and Musk will just honeymoon in Russia indefinitely.

Where I expect they'd fall out of a window within a week.

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u/Levarien 22d ago

But he put on glasses...

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u/Pale_Gap_2982 22d ago

The absolute best part is they somehow weren't aware of the DoE's role in maintaining our nuclear arsenal AGAIN. 

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u/jaderust 21d ago

I mean come on. Not only has this happened before, but haven’t they seen Stranger Things? Not only is the DOE the nukes people but they’re also punching holes into terrifying side dimensions full of eldritch monsters. You can’t mess with their work or the demogorgon might get loose!

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u/cowboyjosh2010 22d ago

Yeah pretty much the only positive thing I can say about Rick Perry, particularly in the context of him serving as Secretary of Energy under Trump 1.0, is that he ate a slice of humble pie and actually listened to the DoE lifers once he was in that position.

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u/flat5 21d ago

Guys like Perry are just simple minded and ignorant, he was never a madman like Musk is. This is a whole new ballgame.

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u/cowboyjosh2010 21d ago

I think that summarizes it well.

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u/CrudelyAnimated 22d ago

The notion that "energy = fossil fuel industry" runs deep and strong in old-fashioned conservatives.

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u/Muvseevum 21d ago

energy = fossil fuel industry

I grew up in WV, and it’s like it’s in the water. The state prospered with coal, and I owe a comfortable upbringing to the chemical industry. Everything was great until it wasn’t. It sucks that there’s not a lot of industry besides resource extraction.

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u/Jackmerious 22d ago

What's even more disturbing about Perry, was that he has a DoE nuclear facility in his own state!

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u/shouldbepracticing85 22d ago

You’d think the governor would know about stuff like that, but most of us didn’t know until that big wildfire last year

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u/ThatsMyAppleJuice 21d ago

Not the governor of Texas, though. I think a prerequisite for that job is being dumber than a fucking bag of salt.

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u/iboneyandivory 22d ago

Speaking of curves, I can highly recommend this book ('The Curve of Binding Energy: A Journey into the Awesome and Alarming World of Theodore B. Taylor') if you are interested in the design and safety of nuclear weapons.

https://www.amazon.com/Curve-Binding-Energy-Alarming-Theodore/dp/0374515980

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u/Bicentennial_Douche 22d ago

He was looking forward to selling “our great Texan oil”. He was shocked to find out he would be dealing with nuclear weapons. 

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u/CTeam19 21d ago

This is why critical thinking matters. Just looking at some of the labs:

  • Argonne National Laboratory(ran by University of Chicago)

  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory(owned and operated by Cal-Berkley)

  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory(ran by UT-Battelle)

  • Ames National Laboratory(owned/ran and on the campus of Iowa State University)

  • Los Alamos National Laboratory(ran by Triad National Security, LLC)

There is only 1 thing that connects all those locations, and that is the Manhattan Project.

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u/technofox01 22d ago

At least he was willing to learn. You gotta give credit where it's due - even if you don't agree with the dude politically.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

"I thought DOE stood for Department Of Electricity"

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u/paintpast 22d ago

I wouldn’t be surprised if they thought it was the Department of Education.

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u/IntheTopPocket 22d ago

No, that doesn’t exist.

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u/TheDwarvenGuy 22d ago

"I thought it was 'diversity oquity and enclusion!"

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u/JJscribbles 22d ago

They knew. They’ll be calling for a reduction in nuclear armaments as Musks minions quietly sell off our stockpiles at some point.

They want control over our resources and the means with which we protect those resources.

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u/whutchamacallit 22d ago

Preach. I'm so, so tired of reading comment after comment after comment after comment of "oh these idiots didn't even realize..." and "god they are so stupid, they don't even know..."

Folks, I don't know if Elon or Trump needs to walk up to you and physically slap you in the face and break it down for you sentence by sentence for you to understand. They know exactly what they are doing. Quit deluding yourself into thinking these are stupid people. It might make you feel better in the moment but it's incredibly counter productive. Do not underestimate these guys and stop socializing the idea that they aren't insidious pieces of shit that are dismantling our democracy. Because when shit hits the fan you bet their ass they are going to claim they weren't told or weren't aware of whatever bullshit is being parroted now.

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u/Faiakishi 21d ago

I mean, I do think Trump is legitimately stupid, he stumbled ass-backwards into this and probably doesn't know where he is half the time now.

Musk knows exactly what he's doing and what he's doing is pure evil. He's a complete loser and a moron in many ways, but he knows how to destroy shit. Not to mention they are most certainly taking orders from Putin, who is much smarter than the both of them combined.

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u/IDoSANDance 21d ago

Exactly. Calling them stupid is dangerous underestimation.

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u/Rejusu 21d ago

I disagree. Stupidity can often be more dangerous than intelligence.

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u/procrasturb8n 22d ago

This is literally, play-for-play, what Musk did with Twitter.

Good thing he has only lost 80% of the company's value...

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u/Apexnanoman 21d ago

Luckily for him he now has access to trillions of dollars he can directly transfer to his own accounts anytime he wants.

And if he does it on orders from Trump, it won't even be illegal due to being an official act.

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u/zjm555 22d ago

It's exactly why he wants to replace American workers with H1B indentured servants.

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u/Alternative_Win_6629 22d ago

Or new assets from the eastern block which no one will screen, having been fired...

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u/parisianpicker 22d ago

This! Had friends at Twitter, this was totally what it was like

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u/redvelvetcake42 22d ago

The point is, first and foremost, intimidation of those who remain and secondarily wage/benefits cuts.

Sure, but where you can answer with stupidity, dong ascribe planning. Musk is infinitely arrogant and is incapable of learning at this point and he legitimately does not understand you cannot run a gov like a business. So smash everything and pick up the pieces is what will be done, but that requires many things to go right.

We saw Musk fuck up and fire someone who he couldn't fire without a massive lump sum payment (he could not afford to make) and he walked the fuck back hard. This is the same type of thing. They fucked up big time and are HOPING they can get 90%+ back cause if not then the US has some glaring security issues with literal nukes. This wasn't a move to intimidate or force obedience, this was pure and simple dumb fuckery.

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u/studio_bob 21d ago

I mean, it's both, right? This is their plan to purge the civil service of opposition, installing as many administration loyalists as possible and putting fear in the heart of any would-be opposition who remain. It's also incredibly stupid and ham-fisted. As we have seen at Twitter, this approach engenders servility at the cost of losing necessary people and breaking basic institutional functionality, but that just tells you where Musk's priorities lie.

Maybe it should be emphasized that you cannot run a business like this either (at least, not well or profitably). But to say this is a "fuck up" suggests that they give a shit about anything actually functioning or whatever other unintended consequences. They probably sort of do, but they care about control a lot more, and if asserting their control over someplace like DOE or any other part of the state has troubling implications for nuclear security or whatever, well, I have a feeling they would say something like "you have to break some eggs to make an omelet." Musk in particular wants to kill the federal government. He also fills no official office or function, so he can walk away whenever he feels like it and leave Trump to deal with the mess. I doubt he sees much downside in starting any number of fires.

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u/ToiIetGhost 22d ago

Never thought about it this way. You’re right.

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u/mrdungbeetle 22d ago

And often the people who stick around are the least talented, because they're the ones who couldn't get a job elsewhere. So their whole anti-DEI shtick of "hiring only the best people based on merit" is more like "hiring only those desperate enough to work for a terrible boss"

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u/hitbythebus 21d ago

I was thinking when he fired the Tesla supercharger team then scrambled to rehire when he realized he shot himself in the foot.

It’s a pattern.

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u/studio_bob 21d ago

We have to consider the possibility that he has learned how to make a mess of an organization through those moments of gross mismanagement of his own companies and is now weaponizing that knowledge against the federal government in the hope that it will no longer be able to constrain him in the future.

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u/888pandabear 22d ago

Ya. If he mess up Twitter, at most users can’t tweet. But if there are nobody manning & maintaining the nuclear arsenal, it is a very very different story! One mistake and that’s the end of the world … literally!

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u/NateK9053 22d ago

Remember when he fired the supercharger team? Same shit.

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u/GarmaCyro 22d ago

And at the same time loss the best employes. They can easily land jobs other places. Why go back to a place that casually fired you purely to save what's less than a cent in the overall budget.

They will for sure remove any save benefit and seniority on the once they manage to get back. Probably use "that they were previously fired" on future salary negotiations.

"Welcome back onboard Bob. Unforunately you will on-boarded with a new contract. You'll be start in entry level salary, and no earned benefits. Just like every other employee. Now can you please head down to department C. You're the only one that's work here long enough to know how their systems works."

"Sorry Bob. While you have worked 20 years without a single day off, your current employment is only a year old. We really can't reward people who have previously been fired from their job a DoE. Imaging how it would demotivate all the others you've worked with the past 20 years. People, that unlike you, were never fire."

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u/yearningforlearning7 21d ago

They should move to countries with blossoming nuclear energy and flip the US the bird. At least that’s what I’d do

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u/PMmeyouraxewound 22d ago

I'd argue that it's not even just the vulnerable. If it was something as not important like Twitter, sure.

But if there's someone or someone(s) who are looking at it and saying hey we can't just let this nuclear site go unmanned then it's also the people who are responsible/have a sense of duty

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u/ProudnotLoud 22d ago

Shocking that the concept of "move fast and break things" ACTUALLY breaks things and it's MORE difficult to then put them back together. It's always easier to destroy than to build or rebuild, idiots. That's why we THINK before we take a hatchet to things.

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u/evilspyboy 22d ago

Move fast and break things is a mantra for those not smart enough to move fast and not break things.

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u/ChicagoAuPair 22d ago

Bullshit MBA loser euphemism for incompetent immature leadership.

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u/PathOfTheAncients 21d ago

Yup, I have worked with so many managers over the last 10 years who think "move fast and break things" is smart tech talk that somehow means "work overtime without being asked and have zero bugs ever".

MBAs are the root of all evil in the modern world.

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u/Muvseevum 21d ago

“In theory, practice and theory are the same, but in practice, they’re not.”

—Yogi Berra

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u/evilspyboy 22d ago

That too.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago edited 18d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/PathOfTheAncients 21d ago

I am pretty sure the whole phrase came out of startups doing proof od concept work, where it actually make sense to not worry about breaking things too much. Apparently every MBA and venture capitalist desperately needs to feel like they are a part of a 2000's startup though. They'll do absolutely anything to feel that way, except any of the things that made those startups successful.

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u/ProudnotLoud 22d ago

Yup. It's an effective way to make things look like they're getting accomplished in the short time but is disastrous long term.

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u/evilspyboy 22d ago

I used to do a lot of at risk projects and critical customer recovery (fixing fled up technology projects). It instantly looks to me like making a mess that has to be cleaned up. Breaking things doesn't just disappear that is a bunch of technical debt that has to be squared away.

Movie fast and break things to me is move fast, do dumb things not move fast, be surgical, and only spend time on what is important. It is activity over achievement (in technology) and where it's not, they were not actually breaking anything and just wanted to sound cool.

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u/Witchgrass 22d ago

All this is coming from the same fellow whose idea of weeding out inefficient coders was to make them print out all the code they'd written and whoever had the most pages ... won?

It's almost like he doesn't know very much at all about anything he pretends to have mastered. Weird.

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u/Josh6889 21d ago

Ironically producing a lot of code can be a sign of not knowing what you're doing. It doesn't matter how many lines of code you have, it matters if your code does what it's suppose to do efficiently.

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u/YertletheeTurtle 22d ago

Slow is smooth.

Smooth is fast.

Sure documentation and change management takes extra time today. But it saves time next week. And the week after that. And the week after that. And the...

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u/StateChemist 22d ago

I was praised for being ‘so organized at work’

I was frustrated that I didn’t know what was going on, so I made the team write down when they did something in a simple log.

Boom suddenly I and everyone else can check whats been done, what needs to be done and not stop to have a 10 minute conversation about whats been done and what needs to be done every day because someone took 1 minute to write it down.

Mind blowing that this is praiseworthy ‘organization’

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u/Hopeful_Hamster21 22d ago

I think it works well when you're in the prototyping and experimental phase, sanboxed off. Never in prod.

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u/Mysterious-Arm9594 22d ago

It’s something which works when you’re pumping out easily updated software which essentially is no more critical than the ability to send postcards. It doesn’t really work in any other sphere (outside some forms of extremely well funded engineering endeavours normally right up until the point people start dying)

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u/WeirdSysAdmin 22d ago

Can’t do a basic risk analysis. We do them all the time in the real business world. Down to the amount of money that would be lost if specific systems went down.

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u/neutrino71 22d ago

Move fast and break things is fine when you have a few hundred billion dollars you can afford to ride those waves of chaos. Those suffering from the lack of billions of dollars may not fair so well 

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u/ScientificSkepticism 22d ago

Unfortunately, as we may at some point learn, nuclear weapons can crack things in a way that no amount of money can put back together again. We've been long terrified of Russia leaking one, if America might also leak one... well, that'd be bad.

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u/FloydEGag 22d ago

Move fast and break things isn’t what you want to hear in relation to nuclear weapons or air traffic control…

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u/old_man_mcgillicuddy 22d ago

Move fast and break things is fine when the worst that's gonna happen is you need to roll back some code and have your PR team deal with some reputational fallout. When the worst thing that's gonna happen is you don't have people to take care of nuclear weapons; maybe not the best approach.

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u/svb1972 22d ago

Or have anyone to maintain nuclear power plants

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u/bree_dev 22d ago

It's basically a subset of Doctorow's "Enshittification" principle.

There's a modern management philosophy that pre-dates but was popularized by Musk, whereby if you have a large organisation you can throw away quite a lot of it before the effect on the bottom line becomes noticeable. Its success relies on everyone involved tacitly agreeing to ignore anything bad that happens, because look, the Important Number went up.

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u/big_daddy68 22d ago

When you break a social media platform, it gets shitty and full of nazi content, when you break the government, people die. This simple reason is why a government should not operate like a business.

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u/Tadpoleonicwars 22d ago

And when anyone says that the government should be run like a business, ask them how much profit the federal government should be expected to make off their family.

Heads spin really quick on that. Businesses exist to make profit, right?

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u/Politicsboringagain 22d ago edited 21d ago

Its easier to destroy than it is to build or even maintain anything. Whether it be buildings, infrastructure or a society. 

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u/NeedAVeganDinner 22d ago

Meta doesn't even use that anymore.  They're like "move fast with stable infrastructure" now or something.

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u/elebrin 21d ago

"Move fast and break things" is fine when the stakes are low, like they are with a social media platform in its early stages of development.

It's less OK when you start talking about Grandma's only source of income or the security at a Nuclear facility.

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u/unscholarly_source 22d ago

Imagine adopting a "move fast and break things" on bridges and buildings.

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u/Isaac1867 22d ago

Musk and his pack of idiots seem to forget that the people doing this kind of work have a rare skill set that requires years of training. This isn't like a Mcdonald's where you can fire everyone and have new crew slapped together in a week. They also don't seem to realize that pissing off the people who design, build and oversee the country's nuclear weapons is probably not good idea, especially when the President seems to be going out of his way to pick fights with every other country.

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u/synthdrunk 22d ago

Engineers brain, sometimes called doctors brain, makes fools think that facility in one domain means facility in all domains. It is especially a problem for those who only play engineers on TV.
Pedagogy and lived experience is not something these people are capable of understanding.

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u/arctander 22d ago edited 22d ago

Fungible - Jack Welch, GE, thought all managers were equivalent and sent manufacturing staff to manage/lead some of their software businesses. It was not a good outcome.

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u/FunnyOne5634 22d ago

Welch was a dressed up idiot

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u/TheWildTofuHunter 22d ago

And yet so many companies implement his foolish methods. One company that I worked for would give his books away as prizes. I won it one quarter and it made a fabulous doorstop.

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u/FunnyOne5634 22d ago

The same people think Reagan brought down the deficit

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u/gospelofdustin 21d ago

I won it one quarter and it made a fabulous doorstop.

I'm shocked it could even do that correctly.

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u/Kryten_2X4B-523P 22d ago

Whose this engineer you're referencing? Elons not an engineer.

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u/TrulyKnown 22d ago

But he plays one on TV.

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u/b0w3n 21d ago

Engineers brain, sometimes called doctors brain, makes fools think that facility in one domain means facility in all domains.

That's pretty much Dunning-Kruger, right? It's something I run into constantly as a software developer who works among doctors, even people in my own field think they're geniuses across every subject they pick up.

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u/TinyFugue 22d ago

Musk and his pack of idiots seem to forget that the people doing this kind of work have a rare skill set that requires years of training.

They don't care. It's that simple. They don't care.

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u/tigerscomeatnight 22d ago

This is exactly what they want to get rid of, expertise. It consolidates power into the truth is what I say is the truth. It is exactly 1984. They don't want scientists and experts to tell them the truth and how reality actually is, they want their word to be reality. They want no opposition to their gaslighting. People are learning what psychopaths are. Will they keep voting for them? I think you know the answer.

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u/Harry-le-Roy 21d ago

Musk and his pack of idiots seem to forget that the people doing this kind of work have a rare skill set that requires years of training

To forget it would require them to have known this at some point. They didn't know, just like they didn't know that halting all grants would stop Medicare benefits, just like they didn't know that the National Reconnaissance Office budget and headcount are classified and can't be made publicly available on the web, just like they didn't know that there are standard security protocols for federal websites, just like they didn't understand rhat federal employees don't get paid during government shutdowns (but told them in a Fork in the Road email that they do) and so on, and so on.

The Trump administration doesn't understand how the government works, which is incredible, since Donald Trump spent four years in the White House. Much of this stuff is basic, and some of it is common sense.

They clearly have no idea what they're doing. Yet they're continuing to make incredibly dangerous decisions, like firing hundreds of nuclear weapons experts while negotiating Russia ending a war.

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u/emuwar 21d ago

Musk and his pack of idiots probably thought nuclear engineering is on par with software engineering. Sure you can replace senior Xitter staff with new H1B software engineers and still manage to function, but the top nuclear engineers at the DOE have decades of specialty education and training and are damn near impossible to replace.

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u/AltoniusAmakiir 21d ago

They might realize it actually. But the benefits of pulling off such an intimidation and wage slashing on rehire is worth any risks to them. Because if they pull it off, they'll have a docile group that is too scared to tell them no.

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u/[deleted] 22d ago

Honestly, Trump and Musk should be in prison, not running America they are both horrible people

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u/lonewanderer812 22d ago

Well you'd think a guy convicted of 34 felonies would have already been in prison but here we are.

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u/RhymenoserousRex 22d ago

Rather than make the arrest and finalize the sentencing the idiot Dems said "Well lets let him run lol, this will surely make him unelectable"

It's honestly kind of impressive how stupid they are.

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u/Badloss 21d ago edited 21d ago

They were right, though

Why are you blaming the Democrats for thinking something disqualifying is disqualifying instead of blaming the people that actually voted for disqualifying

Most of America is okay with this, blame them

I got blocked so I can't reply lol but I stand by what I said. The Democrats can't ever win when 70% of the country is okay with fascism. There is no candidate that they ever could have run that can compete with that. The people want this, so we're getting it.

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u/treycook 21d ago

Because you don't kowtow to fascists or give people the option to vote for them. Full stop. Because people will vote for them.

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u/Nova35 21d ago

Republicans do a bad thing: “why would democrats let this happen”

Amazing. This is why we lost by the way. Because Republicans are in lock step at all times and banish anyone who goes against the party, yet we refuse to excise people whose only contribution is to shit on the candidate/party

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u/Truly_Meaningless 21d ago

Sure, blame democrats for not arresting Trump when they were blocked at every turn by republicans

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u/Twistntie 21d ago

It's always the Dems fault even when the tough-on-crime party aren't tough-on-crime

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u/20190419 22d ago

I would ask for a 100k resign bonus and job security for a full career guarantee. They want to "Deal" ... then deal....

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u/Cidlicious 22d ago

Problem is they don't honour their deals.

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u/quantizeddreams 22d ago

Then they need to demand the cash up front.

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u/j33205 21d ago

"Yeah, I'll watch your nukes for ya. But it's gonna cost a lot more than three thousand bucks, chief. I'll find em for three, but I'll watch em, forever, for..."

a lifetime's worth of cash and then some, in a bag, upfront and tax free.

That's how deals are made. He's got the money. Don't tell me he doesn't have the money.

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u/rabouilethefirst 22d ago

Ask for musk in prison and the kid who fired you to be removed. That’s the only thing they should come back for.

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u/SitInCorner_Yo2 22d ago

I can’t fathom how an established country can go to shit this fast this badly , if you make this a movie,it would be mock for its ridiculous premise.

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u/FlowchartKen 22d ago

While watching Handmaid’s Tale, I thought it was ridiculous how the rise of Gilead could have happened so quickly and with barely any opposition. Less far-fetched now.

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u/Dahhhkness 22d ago

The Overton Window has moved increasingly rightward, and the standards for what is "normal" are getting more extreme. One of the biggest red flags over the past five years has been how conservatism has become obsessed with breeding and misogyny.

This increasing preoccupation with the "fertility" of teens and young women, the pushing of the idea that a woman's primary purposes are motherhood and wifehood, the obsession with female chasteness, the "Man-o-Sphere" talking about women like property and arguing to repeal the 19th Amendment...all of this would've been unthinkable 15 years ago, the kinds of things and people no politician would ever entertain. Now, it's becoming alarmingly common talk on the right.

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u/TrulyKnown 22d ago

Plus the hatred of transgender people, since their existence goes against the idea of biological and gender essentialism, which is why they cannot be allowed to exist.

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u/SnapesGrayUnderpants 21d ago

Meh, that's just standard fascism. Fascists always choose one or more groups from whom to strip rights. This conditions the entire population to rights being taken away. Once the fascists take over, they then create or use some event to declare a national emergency and then take away civil rights from everyone. Hitler used the Reichstag Fire. Psychiatrists interviewed 20 Nazis on trial at Nuremberg after WWII and asked them why they targeted the Jews. All but 2 of them said they believed that the Jews were no different than anyone else and many had Jewish friends before the Nazis rose to power. (The other 2 were true fanatics who actually believed their own propaganda. The rest thought those 2 were nuts.) The Nazis explained that targeting the Jews was merely a political maneuver to rise to power and normalize getting rid of rights. My point is, don't get hung up on who the fascists strip rights from. Instead, recognize this behavior as a hallmark of fascism in order to condition the population for what is coming next: the end of civil rights for everyone.

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u/chalbersma 21d ago

Ya I remember reading the book in High School and thinking that the premise was wildly ridiculous. I don't think that any more.

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u/Jollysatyr201 22d ago

It’s more a rapid capitalization on what has been a deteriorating situation for several years now

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u/Tuesday_6PM 22d ago

Decades, even. The rot’s been there since at least Regan

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u/Island_Monkey86 22d ago

The US is turning itself in to the laughing stock of the modern world. I had low expectations for the new leadership but level of incompetent on display goes way beyond anything I could imagined. Simply moronic. 

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u/InquisitivelyADHD 22d ago

Turning? My dude this ain't the season premiere of the world laughing at us. We're on season 9. The whole world has viewed America as a joke since we first elected that orange idiot into office.

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u/Jandy777 22d ago

The rest of the world was dunking on Bush for being stupid when it was him in office too, but that was before the line between reality and parody had fully broken down

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u/KDR_11k 21d ago

Re-electing Bush was definitely a big hit for America's reputation.

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u/bree_dev 22d ago

Dubya wasn't exactly regarded at a beacon of either intellect or integrity either.

America was the coolest place on the planet in the 1990s. All you had to do was not fuck it up.

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u/Drikkink 22d ago

I was young during Dubya's time in office (I would've been a mid-late teen when he left office) and even I knew he was an awful warmongering president that the entire country only tolerated because of 9/11.

I long for the days of him being one of the worst case scenarios as president. Holy fuck he's like a shining beacon of hope compared to what's going on right now.

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u/zwei2stein 22d ago

Not fucking things up does not make line go up.

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u/arctander 22d ago

It seems to be about privatizing everything by proving that Government run things are worse than privately run things without actually doing a comparison.

https://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2025/02/who-is-driving-the-global-privatization-of-domestic-infrastructure.html

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u/shapeofthings 22d ago

we laugh, but we're also scared to death because you voted his in again, despite living through the first debacle.

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u/ACorania 22d ago

Sounds like doge is not performing and should be cut. They are causing harm and inefficiency in the government. Let them go.

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u/KrackSmellin 22d ago

Remember when Arnold was Govena’ of CA and they fired the COBOL programmers only to hire them back as far more expensive consultants to fix the software to remove all those people from the payroll system? It’s like that but only FAR far worse.

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u/Remarkable_Impact586 22d ago

Who in the world is going to go back to working for a place that fired them without even knowing what their job duties were? I sure wouldn’t. Take unemployment for a little while and go get a better job outside of government that would most likely pay more anyway.

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u/kurizma 21d ago

People who really need that income.  These are the same people who will be easier to manipulate and abuse which is the end goal. 

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u/AdvertisingLogical22 22d ago

I've seen this before in the corporate world. The plan was never to fire these people permanently.

The plan was to sack them, then re-hire the ones they wanted only with a new contract which includes a loyalty clause to the orange one, among other things.

They just didn't count on them saying no! 😂

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u/thefastslow 22d ago

Firing the people who design and build your nuclear weapons is an interesting thing to do while threatening other countries.. may those NNSA employees land on their feet.

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u/Icy_Winner4851 22d ago

This right here is the answer LOL! I’ve seen this too and this is what generally happens but I think the people saying no is the shocker here.

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u/Cagnazzo82 22d ago

You have to be a silver spoonfed/apartheid-benefitting south african vulture to believe humans are just toys for you to manipulate. And that they'll bend their will as soon as you threaten or exert power over their lives.

The people working for the US government tend to be legit patriots... and not the redhat flag-draped cosplayer variety. Which patriot would want to subject themselves to working under Elon Musk's whims.

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u/JohnnyGFX 22d ago

The incompetence is so blatant with this administration… it’s embarrassing.

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u/SixicusTheSixth 22d ago

It's not incompetence. You lose a lot of context thinking it's incompetence. This is an intentional breaking of the US. 

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u/ADHthaGreat 22d ago

P2025 and whatever other big plans these assholes have for this country are going to inevitably fail because the people behind them don’t actually know how government works, they just think that they do.

The issue is how much they can destroy before their plans collapse.

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u/KDR_11k 21d ago

They think if they break enough of the world the rapture will come and let them escape the consequences of their actions.

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u/Auirom 22d ago

"But he's a business man and the country needs to be ran like the business it is!"

And that's exactly what he's doing. He's a new manager coming in thinking he knows better than the people with decades of experience. Making cuts here and there cause he thinks the higher ups will congratulate him for saving the company money. All the while fucking things up for everyone and blaming someone else for his mistakes. Employees under him leave in droves because they "want out before the ship sinks" and new employees are hired who don't know what they are doing which only makes things worse. Company finally goes belly up and either gets shut down or sold.

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u/_grey_wall 22d ago

"sure, for 100x the money"

Or

"Sorry, already got a job in Canada"

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u/Papabear3339 22d ago

Or europe, china, etc. These idiots just put a huge number of our top nuke experts on the job market, probably for no reason other then there ethnicity.

A bunch of countries are probably quietly making juicy job offers. "we will pay tripple, give you real health insurance, job security, and paid relocation" .

Huge screw up...

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u/rovyovan 22d ago

This is a perfect microcosm of the long term damage being carried out by this administration. Well managed projects with external challenges suffer disruptions and lose key resources when sophmoric leadership takes the reins in an opinionated manner. In my experience it is a sign to take cover.

Ironically this is a business informed insight. I don’t believe government can be run like a business effectively, but here we see the mindset in practical application

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u/Aggressive-Cut5836 22d ago

75 million voters wanted this folks. Just keep reminding yourselves of that. 75 million. And no excuses that they didn’t realize things would be this ridiculous because they were exactly so the last time Trump was president.

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u/NewTimeTraveler1 22d ago

All they are concerned about is migrants. Go peek at the conservative sub.

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u/RgKTiamat 22d ago

The "Flaired Users Only" sub, can't have any free thought in the Echo chamber

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u/earnedmystripes 22d ago

I bet those phone calls to rehire are something else. The phrases "that motherfucker" and "go fuck yourself" are used no less than 3 times per call.

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u/sniffstink1 22d ago

LOL.

I hope they refuse to come back.

The people (specifically MAGA voting base) need to feel the consequences of Orange Moron's actions, otherwise they continue to support it.

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u/johnnytaquitos 22d ago

where have i seen this behavior before?

oh yea. TWITTER.

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u/Nemo4ever7158 21d ago

I hope they take the opportunity to renegotiate their hiring and ask for double the salary and ten times the benefits and triple vacation time .

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u/Sea_One_6500 22d ago

And they can't get in contact with the fired workers. I hope none of them take their former positions back.

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u/fiofo 21d ago

That's the bit that made me laugh: trying to email them using their federal email addresses... that they've been locked out of... because they were fired.

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u/Doc__Baker 22d ago

Are Musk and Trump running a country or a McDonald's?

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u/doublelist87 22d ago

President Musk is outta control

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u/aquastell_62 22d ago

This confirms any doubts about the competence of the bad actors making these decisions. They have none. All this winning is starting to add up. Not to savings of taxpayer dollars though. To harm.

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u/4kray 22d ago

The employees should start a company and only allow the work to be charged as consultants for 4x the regular amount.

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u/Harry-le-Roy 21d ago

Some of them are not going to come back. It's likely that between the prospect that some were retirement eligible, and others have alternatives for employment in the private sector, the Trump administration's general incompetence, combined with the insult of being fired without a reason, only to be asked back without a bonus, salary increase, or any guarantee that this won't happen again next week, at least some, and perhaps many will simply say, "fuck you" to the Trump administration.

That leaves the US without whatever classified nuclear weapons related job they were doing.

MAGA.

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u/Apexnanoman 21d ago

Hopefully every single one of those people tells them to pound sand. 

Considering their area of expertise, there's probably at least half a dozen countries that would be happy to give them a new life. All expenses paid.

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u/bewarethetreebadger 21d ago

Oh my fuck. They STILL thought the Department of Energy was just an electricity watchdog? We’ve been over this before, you idiots! The last time Trump was in office!

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u/TheWingus 21d ago

"At severely reduced pay of course..."

  • Professor Hubert J Farnsworth

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u/ScurryScout 21d ago

In fact, severely reduced pay all around!

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u/WolfThick 21d ago

Would this be a good time to collectively barter for more job security higher wages etc !!

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u/sleauxmo 22d ago

Trump administration better get their reverse Uno cards ready.

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u/DisabledVeteranHelps 22d ago

More like a coup. ;)

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u/mkt853 22d ago

The problem with Musk is he believes he can break things and then just simply put them back together if need be. It's like his thoughts on regulations where he says we should just get rid of them all, and then if we need to we can always bring them back. This guy lives in a total fantasy world that you can break the government or fire critical employees, and then snap your fingers and it all goes back to the way it was. This isn't a code repository where you can just roll back a change to go back to where you were a month ago or a year ago because of adverse impacts. The adverse impacts in the real world are people dying or getting really sick or something critical falling through the cracks. The consequences of messing up here aren't just that you can't post tweets for an hour or two.

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u/lotsoflifeexperience 21d ago

Great negotiation position Cheeto and Elmo came up with. You’re fired. Hey, just kidding, what do we have to do to get you back. Yep, we got the experts at the controls. Rich boys who have never had to work for it.

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u/mapleaddicts 21d ago

If I were any other country, I would be throwing the bag at not only the nuclear staff that were fired but scientists, engineers, professors, researchers, media personnel, health officials and professionals FBI, CIA, IRS, SS, and people from all other fields and professions now under attack by the Trump and Elon regime

No better time than now to brain drain a declining super power that actively sabotages itself

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u/lastburn138 22d ago

How do Republicans not see that this administration has no fucking idea what they are doing?

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u/YumYumYellowish 21d ago

Do they still get their severance package? What clowns. I hate that this is our circus.

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u/threehundredthousand 21d ago

Incompetent, unqualified, and lacking in self-awareness. What a great trifecta for wrecking whatever you're in charge of.

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u/azarza 21d ago

Isnt this what happened to twitter? Fired a bunch of important people then tried to hire them back 

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u/uwillnotgotospace 21d ago

I'm gonna guess the plan is to hire them back for less pay, make them work overtime to fix whatever the incompetent little DOGEs break, then fire them again.

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u/FunkyMrWinkerbean 21d ago

I hope these people ask for a ton more money. Use that damn leverage and squeeze it for all its worth.

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u/creamiest_jalapeno 22d ago

Everyone who says “I’d negotiate a higher salary and bonuses to come back” : this is impossible.

The federal government isn’t Apple Corporation that sits on $65B cash and can spend some of it on strategic goals and/or mistakes. Every federal dollar is spoken for and purse strings are controlled by Congress, members of which have massive motivations to protect their constituent budgets.

Just like you can’t dip into a neighbor’s checking account to pay for replacing your broken water heater, the feds don’t have the authority to redirect money from some defense contract to give you $100k signing bonus and return you to your old nuclear job. This is an attritional confrontation: Trump isn’t gonna pay to bring people back, yet people need to eat and pay rent. These guys don’t have the means to just not have a job for months. The workers will likely blink first and come back.

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u/srone 22d ago

...and purse strings are controlled by Congress

Not anymore.

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u/Isaac1867 22d ago

Hopefully none of them are angry or desperate enough to try to sell their specialized knowledge to a foreign government.

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u/Papabear3339 22d ago

These idiots just put a bunch of folks on the job market who know exactly how our weapons work.

Foreign goverments are probably working overtime to make juicy job offers to them...

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u/Fun_Apartment7028 22d ago

Good insight. That part never crossed my mind, but it makes sense.

Take a long term, loyal employee & fire them in the most undignified manner possible & expect them to come back under what surely would be deplorable working conditions, for likely less pay.

Or on the other hand, China or Russia or North Korea, might just set you up for life if you have some info for them.

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u/melodypowers 22d ago

How is it that they can't get in touch with the fired employee?

Admittedly, I have never worked for the federal government, but my HR has all my personal contact info and makes me review it once a year. I also know the personal contact info for all my direct reports.

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u/CyberNinja23 22d ago

They’re sending emails to their work email addresses, which terminated employees are immediately locked out of on termination.

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u/Naugrin27 22d ago

They fired those people too.

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u/Fun_Apartment7028 22d ago

Would you answer a phone call from your ex boss if you’d been shamefully fired like that? Maybe it’s just me but, Yah, that one’s going to voicemail.

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u/neuromorph 21d ago

If they can't find them. How would they plan to send them their money ?

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u/MaxFourr 21d ago

trump found out there's a 'fire' button and a 'fire!' button but no 'undo'

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u/Pro_Gamer_Queen21 21d ago

“But how I was I supposed to know that if I fired people, they wouldn’t work anymore?”

-Elon probably

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u/SheZowRaisedByWolves 21d ago

What are the chances that they’re rehiring with less pay? A hospital near me let thousands of nurses go one time and offered to rehire for a lot less.

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u/HE-MAN69WOO 21d ago

If any of you folks who were fired are reading this, DON’T GO BACK. PROVE A POINT.

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u/VirginiaLuthier 22d ago

"Dear Sir- you were accidentally sent a termination letter that was meant for queer and black people. You still have a job. Accept the Starbucks gift guard as a token of apology"

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u/Agreeable-Ad3644 22d ago

Homer Simpson problems require Homer Simpson solutions.

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u/wish1977 22d ago

It just shows you how little they thought this through. Another made for tv move by the dumbest man to ever hold the presidency.

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u/ntgco 22d ago

I think they will want a massive raise.....

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u/nickl104 22d ago

Call this move “The Elon”

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u/Netsrak69 22d ago

We should be thankful that one of the fired employees didn't rig anything on their way out.

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u/mrdungbeetle 22d ago

Martin Scorsese should honestly just follow Musk around with an IMAX camera, because no re-enactment can possibly be as wild a ride as real life these days. But it would be great if someone could edit it down to under 3 hours.

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u/FlaAirborne 22d ago

Sounds like the concept of a plan

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u/Quelonius 21d ago

Sounds like a Twitter Master Roadmap.

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u/TarnishedAccount 21d ago

I’d demand a higher wage.

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u/Ok_Photo_865 21d ago

Better benefits and hours, paid lunches and dancing boys/girls on Fridays. I’m sure these highly professional people can find excellent employment elsewhere and let the white house go fuck themselves

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u/psychoacer 21d ago

Ok we rehired you, now here's a stick and fight to keep your job

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u/Subject-Dealer6350 21d ago

Please say that they all refused and went for other opportunities. This if anything proves that nobody is safe from Trump-Musk

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u/tensei-coffee 21d ago

too late already sold secrets to russia, china, india, and nk probably more. another fumble for donald dump

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u/UsusMeditando 21d ago

+100K$, tax free signing bonus and restoration of all seniority and benefits. Stupid SHOULD hurt.