The government shutdown is inexcusable.

It is a failure by all who contributed to it, regardless of position, party or opinion, regardless of whether by act or omission.

I know that the last nine months have been chaotic and hard on almost everyone, whether in government or in industry, and very discouraging.

I say to all that are bearing the burden of firings, furloughs, work without pay, and business disruptions, that you are very much appreciated.

Hang in there, and let's hope this madness is curable before it's too late.

On 10/4/2025 at 9:44 AM, Vern Edwards said:

I say to all that are bearing the burden of firings, furloughs, work without pay, and business disruptions, that you are very much appreciated.

Thank you Vern. Your support and encouragement are greatly appreciated.

48 minutes ago, here_2_help said:

I request that the focus of this thread be returned to the government workforce instead of Medicare fraud. You want to create a separate topic for fraud, waste, and abuse? Go ahead. But not here, please. Vern started us off on the right foot, then we kind of devolved. How about we continue to acknowledge the efforts of those who keep focusing on the mission, despite distractions and roadblocks? And to those who have been let go, I hope you find a new, better job. This is not an easy time to be looking!

Want to honor COs? Okay. How about this: over your years working in or around government, what’s your best cost prevention or cost avoidance “war story” attributable to an 1102’s diligence and foresight?

The kind of stuff that will never make the news goes here.

1 hour ago, WifWaf said:

Want to honor COs? Okay. How about this: over your years working in or around government, what’s your best cost prevention or cost avoidance “war story” attributable to an 1102’s diligence and foresight?

I can come up with quite a few stories about cost prevention but the significant ones aren’t attributable to a single CO acting alone. One significant project was initiated by the Senior Procurement Executive at Federal Student Aid but accomplished through cross functional teams. She was inquisitive and constantly talked with senior contractor management. She discovered along with program managers that a dozen or so major contracts for financial aid used statements of work that reflected obsolete processes, duplicative steps, work superseded by legislative changes, and lacked introduction of new technology and tools. The various program offices including finance, legal, and technical support along with COs had week long off-site sessions with the individual contractors to reform each contract. The average savings turned out as 20% across the board which represented several hundred million dollars over the contracts life.

Several posts have been deleted because they were off topic.