GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
Mollie Hemingway, Ed. ·
April 6, 2012 at 3:43pm
Earlier this week we noted that the head of the Obama administration's cost-cutting agency was forced to step down after a devastating Inspector General report revealed that employees had blown $822,000 on a Vegas conference. It looked awful.
But leave it to GSA to somehow make things worse. House Oversight and Government Reform Committee Chairman Darrell Issa has posted a video that won an award at that conference. What is the subject of that video? Living large and wasting cash at GSA. Oh dear, this doesn't look good.
What concerns me most of all is that the video has shockingly good production qualities.
- Comment (18)
- · Quote
- · UnfollowFollow (0)
Comments:
Dec '10
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
As Glenn Reynolds likes to say: Tar. Feathers.
Dec '10
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
I've heard from several sources that a couple of people, including the head honcho, were fired for this. Can somebody tell me exactly what that means? In the private sector, when you do something this bad, you're out on the streets (union shops excluded). But because this is the federal bureaucracy, can I assume that 'fired' just means moved laterally with a slight pay raise?
Dec '10
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
I'm going to put my conservative credentials in jeopardy here. I think the outrage over this video is being a little overblown. It appears to me that the guy is just trying to be funny, poking fun at whatever topics happen to fit into his rhythm meter.
Some of my colleagues & I made a slightly similar video several years ago. There were 4 of us working on a project and go-live happened over a weekend. We were spending 16 hours a day in the office Thursday through Monday. We were tired, rummy, but for the most part we didn't have to work that hard since the launch went smoothly.
So one of the guys brought in a video camera and we shot a take off on Armageddon - with everyone walking side by side down the hall, etc. There were other scenes of everyone in our "war room" watching March Madness, eating pizza, etc.
If a client representative had seen the video and knew nothing about what we had been doing that weekend, he could have been a little outraged that they were spending money on consultants with no value. That was far from the case, however.
Jul '11
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
I agree with “The Great Adventure!”, seems like a lot of smoke for minimal amount of fire on this one. We need to save our outrage for those things that truly need it, otherwise we are going to suffer “little boy that cried wolf” syndrome. As for the video I think these things are sort of silly and pointless, they have more potential of blowback than any good that comes from them.
May '10
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
I think that is precisely why this kind of thing is so disgusting: federal bureaucracies rarely do anything of value. Such gleeful displays of profligacy add insult to injury.
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
That's one way to look at it. And I thought the video was very well done and the tune catchy. But the problem is that the culture that comes through in the video is one that jokes about lavish spending and lack of accountability.
The jokes at the end of that video -- about the party suite and what not -- would be so much funnier if we weren't actually dealing with *precisely* that problem here. It's not a joke, in other words. It's the reality.
While many Americans are hurting and out of work, the bureaucrats who enjoy high salaries and gold-plated benefits packages (compared to the rest of us, that is), are laughing it up with mindreaders as entertainment.
Jun '10
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
The guy that makes me mad is the MC at the end. He lacked any sense of humor but was all in on the time/money wasting schtick.
Mar '11
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
♫ Viva Las Vesgas! ♬
Nov '11
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
It's this kind of [stuff] that turns people into libertarians.
Dec '10
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
Mollie Hemingway, Ed.
The jokes at the end of that video -- about the party suite and what not -- would be so much funnier if we weren't actually dealing with *precisely* that problem here. It's not a joke, in other words. It's the reality.
I won't dispute that. But we have no context on when this was actually made, who the guy doing the singing is, what his actual job performance has been, etc. I agree that if the only thing he ever accomplishes is putting together silly videos/songs, then it is terrible. But if it's just someone blowing off steam, I would tend to be a little more forgiving.
I get as disgusted as anyone at lazy, do nothing government bureaucrats, but before I pronounce sentence on someone, I would like to know that they are, in fact, lazy do nothing government bureaucrats.
Apr '11
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
In the private sector the head of the division would be prosecuted.
Dec '10
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
Kind of makes me wonder why I suffer so much abuse for telling my coworkers to buy their own damned gloves instead of purchasing them with your money.
Oct '11
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
I worked for the Justice Department in D.C. after college, and I couldn't believe the Soviet-like level of laziness and desuetude. Attorneys, secretaries and entire floors of people did nothing more than read the newspaper and play Solitaire or electronic Stratego. Many of them were good people who wanted (but no longer knew how) to work with a sense of purpose and meaning. I would contrast federal employees with the state employees I met while working for a former governor of Wyoming. The state employees were more likely to put in overtime and to feel a deep personal investment in what they were doing, whether for the state engineer's office or the game and fish department. Perhaps it can be likened to subsidiarity. The state employees were closer to the people they were serving and to the problems they were addressing.
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
I guess one of the things that frosts my flakes about this video is that veterans and military retirees might well be required to pony up an additional 300% out of pocket expense for their healthcare (much of which is service related), while the public sector union beneficiaries enjoy rather extravagant jaunts to Vegas on the public dime and then raise holy hell if asked to contribute much of anything to their benefits package. Of course, I may be projecting that frustration onto the video,...but it does seem like an "in-your-face" exercise.
Edited on April 6, 2012 at 7:20pmMar '11
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
I first I thought this was a parody of the whole GSA Las Vegas conference. Then I read the notes after I saw the ending. I personally find it ironic not outrages.
I really don't know what big the deal in making the video was. I always enjoy it when people do a decent job of making fun or playing off all the Acronyms the U.S. government has.
Now if it was done when they should of been working, then yes I could see some outrage. However you really need to put it in prospective. This waste is like a grain of sand on a beach when one compares it to all government waste.
Mar '11
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
What about the waste of talent? That guy is good. He could probably do well in the private sector if the rewards were there.
Jul '10
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
I guess I'll take the opposite view and be pleased by this. I wish all the government agencies spent their days making hip hop videos in their offices rather than figuring out ways to interfere ever more with my life.
Mar '11
Re: GSA Employee Sings About Wasting Cash At Cash-Wasting Vegas Conference
It's not the video. It is the hundred s of thousands of dollars some government employees waste every day. For nothing. No accountability. But enjoy. Its not like we have any financial worries, right?