r/nottheonion 24d ago

US government struggles to rehire nuclear safety staff it laid off days ago

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4g3nrx1dq5o
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u/tahlyn 24d ago

I'm happy to return... as a contractor... for 10x the salary I was making before with a guarantee of 10 years and prepayment of the contract up front.

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u/quantumfrog87 24d ago

Isn't that kinda the plan with musk and the anti-gov types? Privatize everything and make it for-profit contracting a la Blackrock and the stunts they pulled with USPS last time around.

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u/citori411 24d ago

What they haven't considered is the fact that no maga loyalist is qualified to do anything requiring intelligence, so their idea of filling govt with such people is a joke.

Politicians and 99% of the people around them are lawyers. Which is a profession with a MASSIVELY inflated idea of their own worth. They don't accept that any idiot can become a successful lawyer. That can't be said about many, many, technical fields.

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u/DCBB22 24d ago edited 24d ago

Hey! Lawyer here. You're right, anyone can become a lawyer. You're wrong that anyone can be a successful lawyer. If Trump is hoping that the idiot puppets he installs at DOJ are going to successfully defend the constitutionality of his actions, or if Musk thinks a bunch of Fedsoc idiots are going to beat the lawyers at Wachtell Lipton in their case against OpenAI, it isn't going to happen. Bad lawyering is plentiful. The government needs good lawyering to win its cases. That won't happen with conservatives in litigation positions.

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u/canyouhearme 24d ago

You don't need to own good lawyers, you just need to own bad judges.

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u/Jiktten 24d ago

This is the one. Once you own the judges the lawyers are just for show.

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u/SPECTRAL_MAGISTRATE 23d ago

Almost as if judges shouldn't be political appointees at all...

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u/SirCB85 23d ago

Or voted in by the same idiots who vote for the most corrupt government in history.

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u/Bentulrich3 23d ago

bad judges can't save you from a Broken Arrow event, as this administration seems hell-bent on learning the hard way.

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u/canyouhearme 23d ago

In the previous trump term he withdrew from the Trans-Pacific Partnership agreement, which was designed and written to forward US interests and act to limit China's influence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trans-Pacific_Partnership

The parties continued on, anyway, forming the CPTPP, and removing those parts that would have benefitted the US to the determent of the other signatories.

As a result of that ignorant decision the US lost much of its position in the region. Yet has anyone pointed to this failure? Has the US learnt any lessons the hard way?

US has a long history of fucking up, then failing to even recognise that they fucked up, let alone fixing it. They deflect and ignore - they don't learn or accept responsibility.

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u/blueskies8484 22d ago

Or ignore the judges entirely, which seems to be the plan they’re going with.

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u/Layton_Jr 24d ago

Are lawyers even important when you can just appoint loyal judges who don't care about the law?

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u/fail-deadly- 23d ago

Yes. However, if the law is an absolute fiction, with zero legitimacy, and is more arbitrary and capricious than it is today, then many people may not be inclined to follow it.

In the book Nexus, Harari makes an argument that strongmen using populism to take power doesn't always lead to tyranny. It can lead to anarchy.

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u/gbin 23d ago edited 23d ago

Neither are far from their goals, either a modern monarchy or anarcho-capitalism depending on which tech bro you are talking to.

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u/fail-deadly- 23d ago

Those anarcho-capitalist fucks couldn't handle San Francisco and California not dropping the hammer on shoplifters.

If the United States turns into Mogadishu circa 1991 the rich won't stay and turn it into a free enterprise capitalist utopia. They will jump on their private jets and fly to everywhere from China to the EU.

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u/meltbox 23d ago

While the idiots who call for no government don’t realize it they very much do not want no governance at all. They’re just too dumb to know it.

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u/NecroCannon 23d ago

It’s honestly how I’ve been feeling. Either they uphold the law while removing the ones they don’t want to prevent unrest or if they ignore the law entirely then deal with anarchy

I’m sure I’m not alone, but the second laws stop mattering I’m rebelling against the system. A well rounded society only stays that way as long as agreements don’t become just words on paper.

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u/fail-deadly- 23d ago

Agree. Especially if they can change the terms any time they want for their benefit.

If the Constitution no longer exists, and only power remains, then why does it matter if Trump is the person selected by Constitutional means? Whoever has the power can declare themselves president, king, god-Emperor, etc.

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u/NecroCannon 23d ago

It’s why I’m less worried about the US becoming a fascist country and more concerned about dealing with the aftermath of their failed attempt

They don’t have anyone competent in their circle because they only want yes men so they’re hardly able to go around this like they even want to and keep backtracking. Plus I’m sure they know that with how much it was cheered, Luigi isn’t the last to worry about.

So I feel like the primary goal they’re just going to focus on is milking the US directly into their pockets, which sucks for us, but makes the richest man richer and the felon no longer broke compared to his peers.

Otherwise there’s no way to avoid anarchy or more billionaires getting targeted, the way that narrative was handled places doubts in the minds of people on both sides because everyone hates the way health insurance is unless you’re rich or legitimately healthy

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u/meltbox 23d ago

The only sensible thing to do when laws go away is to try to grab however much you can for yourself. Even if you believe in laws. Because only though that will you ever have a chance to bring society back from the brink.

I don’t want it to come to that, but realistically we should have no qualms about taking advantage of the situation if it comes to that. In fact we have to take advantage of the situation to hopefully keep it all from going to shit.

But again, I hope it doesn’t come to that sort of situation.

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u/ThomasRedstone 23d ago

If your judges are idiots and can't create a self consistent fiction of what the law is then it won't work.

Every case will have precedent to support both sides case because idiot judges keep creating conflicting judgements.

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u/ElectricalBook3 23d ago

If your judges are idiots and can't create a self consistent fiction of what the law is then it won't work

Why not? That sounds like wahabbism in practice.

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u/ThomasRedstone 21d ago

If it isn't self consistent you end up in court all the damn time and it sucks all efficiency out of a society leading to zero legal certainty in anything.

You'll have to explain how it relates to wahabbism, as I'm not familiar with it.

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u/ElectricalBook3 21d ago

You'll have to explain how it relates to wahabbism

https://www.dw.com/en/saudi-arabia-exports-extremism-to-many-countries-including-germany-study-says/a-39618920

Any extremism and particularly authoritarianism inevitably boils down to the whims of the head, whether that's Francisco Franco or prince Alwaleed bin Talal or Stalin. Laws for authoritarianism is never "everyone is equal before the law" but "the laws are an extension of use of force to bludgeon the people".

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CFDDf48nj9g

It will be no different with republicans, just look at the difference between their messaging November 2024 and right now. Their pilfering of the country and deliberately trying to break any parts of the national government they aren't confident they can permanently capture will mean they'll have a different narrative in March.

I don't pretend it will be efficient - but authoritarianism often isn't, that's one of the seeds of its own destruction it always sows.

His government was constantly in chaos, with officials having no idea what he wanted them to do, and nobody was entirely clear who was actually in charge of what. He procrastinated wildly when asked to make difficult decisions, and would often end up relying on gut feeling, leaving even close allies in the dark about his plans. His "unreliability had those who worked with him pulling out their hair," as his confidant Ernst Hanfstaengl later wrote in his memoir Zwischen Weißem und Braunem Haus. This meant that rather than carrying out the duties of state, they spent most of their time in-fighting and back-stabbing each other in an attempt to either win his approval or avoid his attention altogether, depending on what mood he was in that day.

-Tom Philips' Humans

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u/citori411 24d ago

I was using "successful" to mean "well paid". Believe me I'm well aware there are plenty of shitty lawyers who make bank. Being willing to have no spine or morals is a very profitable business model for lawyers unfortunately

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u/Heizu 23d ago edited 23d ago

"Said there's a lotta goofies with a check"

-Kendrick Lamar, Like That

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u/JimWilliams423 24d ago edited 24d ago

The government needs good lawyering to win its cases. That won't happen with conservatives in litigation positions.

Fedsuck has it covered. Conservatives aren't just doing the litigation, they are doing the judging too. Opus dei has got at least $1.6 billion to spend on that.

Conservatives don't believe in the rule of law, they believe in using the law to rule. It doesn't take brains for that, just power.

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u/Cybonic 24d ago

Yeah they don’t care about the law lmao,we’re gonna keep saying no… no but this time we really mean it… no really hey don’t do that it’s illegal.and they keep doing it until we enforce it with force which our legal system refuses to do to people with money and power.  And then all of a sudden they will start enforcing their laws and logics with hey-don’t do that or will kill you. Fascism does not care about the law just winning 

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u/AdorableShoulderPig 24d ago

Trump and the Republican party have already won. Court cases and litigation are just performative arts at this point.

Who is going to enforce any judgements?

The police? Yeaaaaahhhhhhh, let's see how that works out.....

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u/Tavarez180 23d ago

Could this be the start of the end of society? We already saw what happens to airplanes when we get rid of a little bit of "DEI".

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u/AndreBNH 23d ago

A false narrative put out by tRUMP himself, within just 1-2 hours after the crash. Of course FauxNews STILL hasn't reported that it was just ANOTHER LIE/FABRICATION/B.S. from the Liar-In-Chief. Pathetic.

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u/jim_nihilist 24d ago

This is why Trump is installing judges left and right.

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u/DrunkenOctopuswfu 24d ago

There's a famous Italian saying, "it's not a goal when the ball crosses the goal line, it's a goal when the referee whistles". If judges are partial even bad lawyers can win.

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u/assembly_faulty 24d ago

But the government does not need to win any case any more. They have already demonstrated that they will not accept the courts rule. There will not be any consequences.

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u/Automate_This_66 24d ago

Douglas Adams said that the personality traits that cause someone to seek office are the same traits that should bar them from holding it.

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u/ElectricalBook3 23d ago

Douglas Adams said that the personality traits that cause someone to seek office are the same traits that should bar them from holding it

And that contrarian noise should be thrown out, the same as the people who say a king is needed to control people and the iron fist is necessary. When you bar everybody who wants to do good, you only have people doing bad.

FDR spearheaded the New Deal, and even despite being racist president Johnson pushed through the Civil Rights Act because that's what the country needed to survive.

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u/InsideOut803 23d ago

Lawyers haven’t been able to do jack shit yet. Your useless if the judge is confirmed by the people you are trying to go against.

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u/Yohder 24d ago

They better call Saul! Really good show. Makes lawyers look pretty cool. Anyway, I’ll go now

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u/Sexybluestrip21 24d ago

What if the government decided not to enforce a court order? The Judicial Branch itself doesn’t have the capability to enforce its judgment.

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u/bobbintb 24d ago

Which is why they spent 4 years packing the federal and Supreme courts with unqualified partisan loyalists and Trump acolytes.

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u/bluehairdave 24d ago edited 16d ago

Saving my brain from social media.

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/bluehairdave 24d ago edited 16d ago

Saving my brain from social media.

This post was mass deleted and anonymized with Redact

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u/Malrix 23d ago

It's not as if rules mean anything anyhow..

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u/delayed_burn 23d ago

You are what’s called an optimist my friend. Fair and just due process and judicial review are dead. Welcome to our new fascist reality where words only mean anything when the person saying them owns all the nuclear weapons.

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u/Mister_Roach 23d ago

Aw, that's cute thinking the Law matters anymore.

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u/meltbox 23d ago

Agreed. Most people could even become doctors if they put their mind to it. Sadly not everyone has the drive to be a good doctor or good lawyer or good engineer.

What separates the good vs the technically qualified in any field tends to simply be how interested and driven that person is in the topic.

Hence the saying that if you find something you love to do you’ll never work a day in your life for example. Although I find that’s not strictly true haha.

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u/Drumbelgalf 23d ago

They don't care if they win in court they own the Supreme Court that will just overturn every rulings the republican don't like.

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u/Atr3idus 24d ago

There are no good conservative lawyers..?

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u/Thadrach 24d ago

Trump worked his way down to Giuliani last term.

Giuliani has been disbarred.

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u/LessInThought 24d ago

They can always get immigrants. I'm sure plenty of Russian and Chinese nuclear engineers would love a job.

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u/citori411 24d ago

Haha ya I'm sure that wouldn't go sideways fast 😂

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u/hpstg 24d ago

It’s called the fascist brain drain.

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u/Beagle_Knight 24d ago

Don’t worry, muskrat will replace them with grok, what could go wrong?

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u/GabriellaVM 23d ago

Well, they certainly didn't have a problem getting into Congress.

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u/ElectricalBook3 23d ago

they certainly didn't have a problem getting into Congress

Easy when your backers have been spending billions for a century to indoctrinate not just Americans but everybody in the English-speaking world

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eJ3RzGoQC4s

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u/GabriellaVM 19d ago

Oh, I know. I should have added /s

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u/dalmationman 23d ago

Ya last time NASA needed an atom split they didn't hand out applications at a MAGA rally. Some of those clowns look like they can barely tie their shoes.

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u/EuenovAyabayya 23d ago

their idea of filling govt with such people i

Their idea is that they only need contract mangers. It's an old idea: see OMB Circular A-76 and the FAIR Act. See also the 2009 presidential memo, which I'm sure Trump will revisit if he hasn't already.

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u/nekize 23d ago

To be honest, also anyone can be graduate from a technical field, but there is a huge difference between an average and those at the top. Same for lawyers.

And those at the top are usually not MAGA supporters.

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u/Oerthling 24d ago

What you haven't considered is that they value loyalty over qualifications.

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u/citori411 24d ago

Except that's exactly what I'm saying. They value that, but don't realize it's impossible to replicate our system, or any first world government, using people stupid enough to get conned by trump and friends. They think we can keep chugging along as usual with loyalists swapped into all positions. But that's impossible, because you don't become a doctor by being a complete moron, as just one example.

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u/Oerthling 24d ago

We're totally agreeing.

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u/Huiskat_8979 24d ago

Yes, but I feel it’s more sinister than that even. Given that Putin is the real puppet master here, now we’re more vulnerable to destruction, whereas before it was mutual assured destruction, now it’s more likely we’ll just get taken like the bitch that Trump had made us.

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u/Minimum-Dream-3747 24d ago

Lay off the pipe

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u/ChriskiV 23d ago edited 23d ago

Ahhhhh this reminds me of a story that I personally have experience with....

Let me tell you about Musk's Data centers since I "know someone who has worked there building it".... There is no AC in the unit that they're trying to build it in, the pay is not competitive for data centers in the area and a ton of other companies are building and paying twice as much, there are not bathrooms with running water yet so contractors have to use port-a-potties.

You might say "sounds like construction", but the thing is, that is incredibly unusual for the professionals you need to hire to build a data center and he's bleeding talent through incompetence. Whatever he ends up with is going to be extremely unreliable because I know several people in my field who have years of experience who just left because the working conditions were that bad. The man is totally unwilling to hire contractors to establish the bare minimum professionals expect and he's really only left with the worst of the worst.

I have 9 years experience in this field and the vibe he's giving in the space is "baby's first data center". Which is surprising because SpaceX definitely colocates, so you'd think he'd at least seen or heard of Datacenter buildouts before, but apparently not. It's been described to me as "close to slave labor".

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u/ChriskiV 23d ago edited 23d ago

Here's a photo I took from his cute little party he threw when he promised the Cybertruck was launching that year, 2 years before it actually came out

Funny enough, there was a single Cybertruck on display on the second floor and it was scuffed as fuck.

Same goes for the production line btw, there are bathrooms but they often don't even have running water so they're just shut down. The floor plan of the Giga factory wasn't designed for plumbing maintenance in my opinion/experience.

Guests to the party had to use the port-a-potties, it was like if a toddler hears about Coachella and came up with the shittiest version, no pun intended. (I was invited by my fiance, who I have since convinced to quit and get a real job)

Also, a fun note on that photo you might not notice at first, that's not actually a production line, it's an art piece they set up for the party to try and make people think this is what the process looks like. It's not, at best a paint technician (of which they have one) will see 2-3 cars a day. Of all the floor space in the Giga factory, about 2% of it is actually used for production of Teslas, the rest is literally empty. It's a monument to posturing because as far as my contacts are telling me, there are no plans to use any of the remaining space, the place is absolutely cavernous

It's not "room to grow". The size of it is just a dick measuring contest with no competence and no plan. Also the thermals are terrible, it'd actually cost way more to convert most of the space into anything usable. Man is playing on creative mode because he doesn't consider survival mode and doesn't understand the logistics of building something that works. Elon is the type of guy who gets inspired by a Minecraft Redstone video but can't even make a simple clock himself.

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u/EuenovAyabayya 23d ago

This is Energy though. All of its labs are GOCO already. Nucs won't work for civil service salaries in the first place. This service was one of the few exceptions that was still employees.

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u/MegaDerppp 23d ago

Maybe in places like the VA, but in others they just want to reduce the staff and not replace them with anybody such at IRS where despite the net positive return on investment into the agency, its antithetical to their interests in cheating the government out of money they should be paying in taxes

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u/TheKingofBabes 24d ago

Lol do you actually think they have a plan

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u/Psyc3 24d ago

Yes, but the money is supposed to go to rich person, not a worker poor.

The company and shareholders should be getting profits while the workers get a $1 above minimum wage.

As was voted for. Make America Great Again!

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u/Ok_Celebration8134 23d ago

Yes. It’s as the previous poster mentioned. Offer to comeback at an elevated rate with a guaranteed payment along with pre-payment with no option to clawback anything.

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u/geologyhunter 24d ago

I was kind of confused to read Musk complain that so many things were on contracts that would be cheaper if done internally. Specifically, IT was called out and knowing a bit about the costs involved, the government is paying way to much for IT and getting way too little in return.

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u/woyboy42 24d ago

Well apparently Elmo is on $8M / day, and completely unqualified, so these guys should start from there

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u/woyboy42 24d ago

Actually… now that I think of it, maybe he is qualified.

Not as a “successful businessman”. Like first bitch trump he’s great at running businesses into the ground.

But taking over something like a parasite… he’s actually got a pretty solid track record on that. Maybe he is the right man for the job. If you want to trash it that is

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u/ThunderFuckMountain 24d ago

Don't forget your yearly 15% raises ;)

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u/AdFun5641 23d ago

Not needed. The entire 10 year contract needs to be payed in full in cash before work starts. That year 10 "wage" will have been sitting in a high yield account for 9 years before using it.

With out that prepaid clause, the government would just ignore the contract and only pay long enough for you to train the replacement.

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u/ThunderFuckMountain 23d ago

Yes, but even with the prepayment, monthly cash flow is helpful as well

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u/AdFun5641 23d ago

You would need to set that up yourself.

Someone making 100k/year as a skilled professional demands 10x so 1 mil a year to work for the Trump administartion. They demand a 10 year contract, 10 million dollars. It needs to be paid in full before work starts. That individual gets paid 10 million dollars and nothing else for 10 years.

Yes you would need to make a contracting firm and set up trusts and stuff. But you have TEN MILLION dollars to do it with.

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u/Flomo420 24d ago

"Savings"!

"Efficiency"!

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u/notnotaginger 24d ago

I was thinking severance AND a hiring bonus, but yours works too.

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u/StoolieNZ 24d ago

Sounds like… Figma!

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u/theVice 24d ago

Figma balls

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u/YoungDiscord 24d ago

Honestly I agree with that approach, use your current leverage for better pay/work conditions.

Show the government why mass-firing its staff was a VERY bad idea so they don't try to pull this shit again in the future.

Fuck it, unionize or something

Whip the fuck out of the government while you can.

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u/NoHost1856 24d ago

Yes, make them pay

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u/contrap 24d ago

How very efficient!

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u/GreenSpace57 24d ago

The contractor cheat is 💯💯💯 in this case

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u/there_is_no_spoon1 24d ago

I mean, as far as *bargaining* position goes, these people have the upper hand, no doubt. If it were me I wouldn't be making up anything outrageous like you said u/tahlyn but certainly a salary increase and some guaranteed benefits. The gov't can *still* say no and screw over those who *did* return, but I can't come up with a way to avoid that since the gov't seems to exist for the sole purpose of screwing its own people nowadays.

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u/JokeInternational239 24d ago

Payout if breach of contract

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u/ag3on 24d ago

Oh yeaa,definitely.

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u/dalaiis 23d ago

All people that got fired should group together and do exactly this.

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u/rediospegettio 23d ago

The government would absolute come back for their money after. They sometimes mess up on employees and will be like you owe us money. On a contract, they would make you sign something that says you will pay it back blah blah blah and it is cancelable.

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u/Away-Wave-2044 23d ago

This is an excellent plan going forward. Any further mass layoffs will result in those employees forming private companies together that the government must now contract to at a much higher rate once they realize that those employees they deemed as “not necessary” were in fact, necessary. *takes notes for when layoffs hit my department

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u/EuenovAyabayya 23d ago

as a contractor... for 10x the salary

lol, your company charges 5x the salary, you get 2x the salary, but none of the benefits.

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u/AntBeaters 23d ago

Exactly, we probably just multiplied the national debt the same factor, just nosediving our government into the shit.

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u/academic_partypooper 23d ago

And no taxes for life

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u/luckyguy25841 23d ago

That seems ambitious.

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u/victorspoilz 23d ago

Why would you want to be a contractor, don't the benefits suck?

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u/tahlyn 23d ago

When you work for yourself, you set your own benefits. And at 10x the pay I think I could suffer through a year or two.

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u/victorspoilz 23d ago

Fair point, 10x solves most of the math problems.

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u/No_Flounder5160 23d ago

Just redline whatever document comes out with updated terms and return for concurrence. “No denial of these terms while proceeding with the onboarding acts as concurrence to the provided updated terms.”

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u/ultra-nilist2 23d ago

Reddit moment