DOGE news

[NeuroTypical]

14 hours ago, HaggisShuu said:

unnecessarily anal

I think that was the little caption under my high school photo.  Finance clerk is the best calling in the whole church!

Honestly, I enjoy the audits.  I enjoy watching the auditor grow increasingly frustrated as he discovers an issue, only to discover I had already documented it so well that he is forced to check the 'ok' button on the item.

It's a simple thing to get a bizarre receipt from sister Tryinhard, full of her inked notes and incorrect calculations, and document in a file how you arrived at the correct total.  It's only slightly harder to remember to attach your notes to the expense for the auditor to find.

Edited February 13 by NeuroTypical

[HaggisShuu]

14 hours ago, mirkwood said:

Two signatures is all that is required.  Two is the number and the number is two.

 

 

If someone lost their membership it would have been due to committing a crime with the church finances...as in stealing/embezzlement etc.  

I know I was exaggerating. For some reason my stakes audit committee has just gone a bit insane. They want the person submitting the expense to have a signature on the receipt (I think in America you normally sign receipts, we don't in the UK), we then also have a form which the stake gave to us, which is essentially rewriting out the receipt for the claimant, bishop and clerk to sign, its just unnecessary. The goal post moves for us every audit. We've always had the same practices, but everytime they will take issue with something that wasn't an issue in the previous audit, but the practice hasn't changed. 
With tithing batches, they want both people to sign to form you print out afterwards, and the bank teller who handles the deposit to sign the slip we write the amounts on. (All normal and how we have always handled it.) but now they want us to sign an additional slip as well. Every audit they want more signatures on more things, and its's all so petty and a complete lack of trust from leadership on this one. 
 

In regards to the stories of people losing their membership. I think there is a lot of fear mongering which is spread around. Excommunications in the UK aren't very common but they need to come back, I know of sexual predators who have made children their victims, who are still members, but people who dabble with money, the church makes sure they can never come back. Just comes across like the priorities are backwards sometimes. 
 

Anyway, rant over. 

[Ironhold]

15 hours ago, HaggisShuu said:

As a ward clerk. Church audits are my least favourite part. Everything is so unnecessarily anal. They want every scrap of paper to have the signatures of about 14 brethren on it, just to confirm that the relief society president did in fact, buy a £2 table cloth for her activity. 
 

There is always all sorts of stories which get floated around of Church members who have lost their membership for inappropriately dabbling with church finances. Which has always rubbed me the wrong way a little bit. 

At the time I was serving as branch finance clerk, there was a big to-do in the news by way of the announcement that the California State Democratic Party was broke. 

They had one single person handling all of their finances, and due to an absolutely astounding lack of oversight this person had been embezzling money left, right, and center. The party officials only discovered the situation when a check bounced and they had to ask why it bounced. 

I remember joking with a few people about how the church had tighter standards than some political parties. 

[mirkwood]

11 minutes ago, HaggisShuu said:

I know I was exaggerating. For some reason my stakes audit committee has just gone a bit insane. They want the person submitting the expense to have a signature on the receipt (I think in America you normally sign receipts, we don't in the UK), we then also have a form which the stake gave to us, which is essentially rewriting out the receipt for the claimant, bishop and clerk to sign, its just unnecessary. The goal post moves for us every audit. We've always had the same practices, but everytime they will take issue with something that wasn't an issue in the previous audit, but the practice hasn't changed. 
With tithing batches, they want both people to sign to form you print out afterwards, and the bank teller who handles the deposit to sign the slip we write the amounts on. (All normal and how we have always handled it.) but now they want us to sign an additional slip as well. Every audit they want more signatures on more things, and its's all so petty and a complete lack of trust from leadership on this one. 
 

 

Me being me, I would have a printed out copy of the handbook of instructions showing why the added measures are not necessary and I would not being doing any of them until they were in the handbook.

[NeuroTypical]

33 minutes ago, HaggisShuu said:

...signature on the receipt...

Ok yes that's a bit much.    Does the UK use the finance tab of the church website to submit expenses?  I'm trying hard to go totally paperless.  This is the norm here: 

- Person submits expense through their phone, attaches receipts which are just screen captures of whatever they've ordered. 
- I review it all, ask for more info if needed, then approve. 
- A member of the Bishopric also reviews and approves - they can do it remotely from their phones too if they want.  Otherwise I have them do it during tithing. 
- Bishop reviews, also an online process, also whenever he wants.

Quote

With tithing batches, they want both people to sign to form you print out afterwards, and the bank teller who handles the deposit to sign the slip we write the amounts on. (All normal and how we have always handled it.) but now they want us to sign an additional slip as well.

Yeah, two signatures on the slip is necessary for when someone steals the sealed donation package.  This has happened once on my watch - after we delivered the package to the mailbox.

Signing the additional slip is again out of process.  Basically asking you to swear an additional oath that you're not up to no good.  There's a scripture about oath swearing: 

And again it is written, thou shalt not forswear thyself, but shalt perform unto the Lord thine oaths; But verily, verily, I say unto you, swear not at all; neither by heaven, for it is God’s throne; Nor by the earth, for it is his footstool; Neither shalt thou swear by thy head, because thou canst not make one hair black or white; But let your communication be Yea, yea; Nay, nay; for whatsoever cometh of more than these is evil.

It's probably overboard to call out the stake auditor on his evil process request, but that's up to you.

[NeuroTypical]

In new exciting news:  DOGE Website is up!!

https://doge.gov/

The "Workforce" section is pretty dang interesting.   Measuring the "unconstitutionality" of the federal government is like a dream come true:

[HaggisShuu]

18 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

Ok yes that's a bit much.    Does the UK use the finance tab of the church website to submit expenses?  I'm trying hard to go totally paperless.  
 

We use the finance tab yes. What we have always done is exactly what you have described. 
1. brother/sister uploads a photo of evidence of purchase

2. Bishopric and Clerk check and approve

3. Member gets reimbursed and everybody is happy. (Except for the auditor)

what the stake audit committee is now requiring is that the brother and sister who are making the expense claim, put their own signature on the receipt. (Because the fact that it is their name next to the receipt on the system is evidently not enough names or signatures for the UK audit department.)

 

My gripe is that, if it is the member making the request, you have the clerk and a bishopric member confirm that it is them making the request, surely there is enough evidence in place that it is the member making the request. Why make us chase round for an additional signature? 

Edited February 13 by HaggisShuu

[Carborendum]

15 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

In new exciting news:  DOGE Website is up!!

https://doge.gov/

The "Workforce" section is pretty dang interesting.   Measuring the "unconstitutionality" of the federal government is like a dream come true:

There was a problem with Trump's first administration with "regulations" (aka: rules).  He declared that for every new regulation, they had to get rid of two existing ones.  So, this led to people asking for interpretations of the laws.  The "malicious compliance" deep state bureaucrat would respond: "I'm sorry, but I can't give an interpretation because that may be considered a "new regulation."  So, in order to give you that interpretation, I'll have to first consider which two existing regulations need to be abolished before I can give you this interpretation."

I haven't thought about this enough, nor do I comprehend the sinister mind of a government bureaucrat.  So, I can't figure out a solution.  But I'm of a mind to think that if there is going to be progress, the bureaucrats themselves will need to be good honest people with the welfare of the citizens in mind.

[HaggisShuu]

18 minutes ago, NeuroTypical said:

In new exciting news:  DOGE Website is up!!

https://doge.gov/

The "Workforce" section is pretty dang interesting.   Measuring the "unconstitutionality" of the federal government is like a dream come true:

The UK needs its own version of DOGE. Not to blaspheme, but most towns and cities are sh*tholes, the economy is horrible, immigration is unchecked, the free healthcare system we are all so proud of is in shambles, nobody can buy a house, and the government is instead investing millions into green initiatives in Somalia, Gender equality initiatives in nepal, and buying high end cars for Albanian prisons. 

[HaggisShuu]

2 minutes ago, HaggisShuu said:

The UK needs its own version of DOGE. Not to blaspheme, but most towns and cities are sh*tholes, the economy is horrible, immigration is unchecked, the free healthcare system we are all so proud of is in shambles, nobody can buy a house, and the government is instead investing millions into green initiatives in Somalia, Gender equality initiatives in nepal, and buying high end cars for Albanian prisons. 

The most outrageous thing in the UK is the "facilitated return scheme". Instead of just deporting illegals, we pay them thousands to return to their home country. Joke.

[Carborendum]

Supreme Court's Roberts pauses federal judge's order on Trump administration foreign aid funding

Summary:

Judge Amir H. Ali ordered Trump to continue USAID funding.
SCOTUS (Roberts) countered that order temporarily until he/they can review the case.

[Ironhold]

The whole bit about government employees being sent e-mails asking them to list five things they've done as part of their job? 

I'm seeing individual people riff on the concept by asking them to list five things they've done in their personal lives, in support of the church, and so forth. 

So if nothing else, perhaps this might get a few people doing some needed soul-searching.

[NeuroTypical]

Uh-oh - just got an email from my wife, asking me to send her 5 things I did for her last week.   

Honestly, with all the legitimate things to gripe about that Trump is doing, this one doesn't really make sense.   

For folks who get all worked up about the email request, a minute and a half of your time please: 

 

 

[Phoenix_person]

On 2/13/2025 at 11:07 AM, NeuroTypical said:

In new exciting news:  DOGE Website is up!!

https://doge.gov/

The "Workforce" section is pretty dang interesting.   Measuring the "unconstitutionality" of the federal government is like a dream come true:

How is "unconstitutionality" being measured here? What kinds of "agency rules" are we getting upset about? Writing laws and administrating/enforcing them are two different things. One requires legislation, the other requires rules and policies. The latter might not always be explicitly spelled out in legislative language, which is why we have bureaucrats to begin with. I don't necessarily like it either, but I don't see how it's unconstitutional to allow bureaucrats to have some wiggle room for interpretation in the administration of the law, especially when we're talking about federal agencies, all of which are subject to congressional oversight. Our Constitution has a pretty solid system of checks and balances in place. It doesn't always work as quickly or as efficiently as we would like, and that's a deliberate feature that serves the purpose of avoiding political chaos via sudden, highly partisan "reform" performed by unelected oligarchs with very clear partisan loyalties. 

On 2/27/2025 at 2:59 PM, NeuroTypical said:

Uh-oh - just got an email from my wife, asking me to send her 5 things I did for her last week.   

Honestly, with all the legitimate things to gripe about that Trump is doing, this one doesn't really make sense.   

The biggest gripe I've seen is confusion caused by a lack of clarity/consistency over the purpose of these emails and how mandatory they actually are. It's also just a terrible way to run an organization. Do you think people like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have thousands of employees emailing them their weekly accomplishments. This reeks of performative micromanagement, and I don't think that's a good use of government time and resources. Should federal employees be held accountable for their productivity? Sure, but why is the CEO the one enforcing it? Why even have office managers and supervisors if everyone is expected to report directly to the top? That's a terrible power dynamic. 

On 2/27/2025 at 2:59 PM, NeuroTypical said:

For folks who get all worked up about the email request, a minute and a half of your time please: 

 

 

Which minute and a half in this 1hr+ video are you referring to?

[NeuroTypical]

Yay - glad you stopped by @Phoenix_person!

32 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

The biggest gripe I've seen is confusion caused by a lack of clarity/consistency over the purpose of these emails and how mandatory they actually are. It's also just a terrible way to run an organization. Do you think people like Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos have thousands of employees emailing them their weekly accomplishments.

I've been in the private workplace since high school.    I've weathered maybe almost a dozen economic downturns, and experienced all sorts of workplace stress from the uncertainty.  Yes, on more than one occasion, I've had to update a resume for review by the people I was employed by, with the obvious ominous overtones that if they didn't like what they saw, I might be fired.   Medium and large companies.  I've been laid off twice.  Once with zero warning, once after watching 3 months of downsizing finally get to me.

You've shared publicly that you're a disabled vet involved in community organizing, but have you ever been employed by someone other than the government?  It's not a gotcha question, it's just that I've known many people who have never worked in the private sector, and they tend to be utterly clueless about the realities of working in happy capitalist America.  Where the indignities of having to apply for your own job, getting laid off, experiencing stress and uncertainty about the next paycheck, unfairness brought about by ignorant or uncaring bosses, cutthroat meritocracy coupled with nefarious co-workers, are all part of the experience.   From my conservative point of view, it's a tragic inexcusable injustice that government employees have historically been protected from such realities at the taxpayer's expense.  In my opinion, a reckoning like this is about 50 years overdue.

Imagine taking issue with someone experiencing confusion and a lack of clarity from management as downsizing is happening.  Heh.  Welcome to the real world my friend.

 

32 minutes ago, Phoenix_person said:

Which minute and a half in this 1hr+ video are you referring to?

The video starts at 12:47 when Musk starts taking questions on the topic, and he answers the questions through roughly 14:22 in which he describes the intent of the email request and the reasoning behind it.

Anyway, glad you dropped by.  Are you proud of your governor for replacing words like mother with "inseminated person"?  https://www.wisconsinrightnow.com/gov-tony-evers-wants-to-change-mother-to-inseminated-person-in-state-law/

 

Edited March 1 by NeuroTypical

[Ironhold]

As far as the five questions go, remember that when Musk took over Twitter he discovered that a very large percentage of the work force was getting *paid* for 40+ hours a week but were only at their workstations for a fraction of that time, some as few as 10 hours a week, due to these individuals instead spending their time in the company-provided recreational areas. 

That's what he's taking into his position here at DOGE, the concern that a lot of the people on the federal payroll are people who might not actually be earning their pay. Thus, we have these e-mails, in which he's asking people to give a brief job description so that he knows who is actually doing what. 

I myself have had to do something like this in the past at the newspaper I'm with given that we're so short-handed I'm actually doing *several* jobs that in a larger, healthier newspaper would each be done by different people. 

[Phoenix_person]

7 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Yay - glad you stopped by @Phoenix_person!

I've been in the private workplace since high school.    I've weathered maybe almost a dozen economic downturns, and experienced all sorts of workplace stress from the uncertainty.  Yes, on more than one occasion, I've had to update a resume for review by the people I was employed by, with the obvious ominous overtones that if they didn't like what they saw, I might be fired.   Medium and large companies.  I've been laid off twice.  Once with zero warning, once after watching 3 months of downsizing finally get to me.

You've shared publicly that you're a disabled vet involved in community organizing, but have you ever been employed by someone other than the government?  It's not a gotcha question, it's just that I've known many people who have never worked in the private sector, and they tend to be utterly clueless about the realities of working in happy capitalist America.  Where the indignities of having to apply for your own job, getting laid off, experiencing stress and uncertainty about the next paycheck, unfairness brought about by ignorant or uncaring bosses, cutthroat meritocracy coupled with nefarious co-workers, are all part of the experience.   From my conservative point of view, it's a tragic inexcusable injustice that government employees have historically been protected from such realities at the taxpayer's expense.  In my opinion, a reckoning like this is about 50 years overdue.

It's funny you should ask, because I worked at a Spectrum call center last year that was shut down a month after I quit, 300+ employees laid off.

I was a reservist in the Army, which means I had a day job when I wasn't driving gun trucks in Iraq. I spent most of my adult life working in food/bev service. My first management job was at a family-owned bar, and that's where I learned of the expectations of perpetual growth in business. I spent three years justifying my job with numbers, and my bar consistently outperformed the owner's other two. Despite the small size of the company, I still had an ops director that I reported to instead of the owner. I was eventually let go (by the owner, who also fired his ops director) after an industry-wide slump hurt our bottom line, and I bear no ill will for that. Nor do I bear any ill will towards Medtronic for laying off my ex wife while I was in the ICU. You can't take stuff like that personally, I get it. I understand that layoffs happen and that there's a process to determining numbers and identifying unlucky individuals. The more I learn about Musk's process, the less I like it.

7 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Imagine taking issue with someone experiencing confusion and a lack of clarity from management as downsizing is happening.  Heh.  Welcome to the real world my friend.

That's the funny thing about us lefties, we're always imagining ways the world can be better. We're not necessarily trying to radically change corporate structure or operations. If companies want to lay off thousands of employees to make the magic Wall Street line go up, that's their prerogative, and it's probably safe to assume that employees in those jobs know that there's always that risk even if they do their jobs well. Government employees aren't used to their agencies being run like corporations. Many of them aren't accustomed to taking directives directly from the White House. That's a kind of confusion and micromanagement that I don't want to see in my government.

7 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

The video starts at 12:47 when Musk starts taking questions on the topic, and he answers the questions through roughly 14:22 in which he describes the intent of the email request and the reasoning behind it.

So he praised Trump for assembling the greatest cabinet ever, then proceeded to field questions about the employee accountability process that THE DEPARTMENT HEADS should be conducting. And we're doing this to find fake/dead people on government payroll? I'll definitely be looking for a list of those names in the coming weeks, because that's a wild premise. I understand wanting to take the temperature of the workforce and its productivity, but he chose a bizarre and inefficient way to do it. The leadership of the various government agencies should be more involved, otherwise we do not have the "best cabinet ever", do we? This is why I hated the idea of DOGE from its inception. I knew it would give Musk WAY too much access to sensitive government data (and fresh new government contracts) while he micromanages our government to death. I've known plenty of "leaders" like that, both in the military and the private sector. They always create more chaos than they resolve.

7 hours ago, NeuroTypical said:

Anyway, glad you dropped by.  Are you proud of your governor for replacing words like mother with "inseminated person"?  https://www.wisconsinrightnow.com/gov-tony-evers-wants-to-change-mother-to-inseminated-person-in-state-law/

Wrong state. And no, I don't particularly care what wording Wisconsin uses to refer to pregnant folks. He'll never get it passed, anyway. He couldn't even get weed legalized despite being literally surrounded by legalized states. This will probably go about as far as the Michigan GOP's effort to get Obergefell repealed.

https://www.cbsnews.com/detroit/news/michigan-rep-josh-shriver-to-unveil-resolution-same-sex-marriage/

Edited March 2 by Phoenix_person