Defense contracting firms are made up of different types of people. From one perspective there are three groups: executives, managers and the Others.
I am one of the Others.
From my perspective, the system is designed to meet the following criteria (in descending order of importance):
- Provide post-retirement jobs for GOFOs
- Make lots of money for the stockholders
- Provide life time sinecures for executives and managers
- Provide jobs for the relatives of executives and managers
- To provide the US Government a venue to test their absurd processes and theories
- To justify elaborate and huge Pentagon and Department of Defense bureaucracies
- Provide a place for people with MBA degrees to be useless until they can find a sinecure (see item 3)
- Provide equipment and services to the armed forces of the United States.
Engineers (a subgroup of the Others and to which subgroup I belong) are lowly creatures. They don't understand the Earned Value Management System, nor do they care about budget or schedule, they don't even care about that most holy of holies, The Spreadsheet.
In other words, we engineers are viewed by managers much the same way as British infantry were viewed by their officers. "Enlisted for drink, the scum of the Earth." For if we were upper class wannabe types we would not have gotten an engineering degree. What's the point of that? Don't the fools realize that we don't build anything in the US of A anymore?
Silly ba$tard$, they might as well move to India and work in tech support.
If you wish to succeed in this country you need an MBA, right?
In other words, we engineers are viewed by managers much the same way as British infantry were viewed by their officers. "Enlisted for drink, the scum of the Earth." For if we were upper class wannabe types we would not have gotten an engineering degree. What's the point of that? Don't the fools realize that we don't build anything in the US of A anymore?
Silly ba$tard$, they might as well move to India and work in tech support.
If you wish to succeed in this country you need an MBA, right?
That FedEx ad is CLASSIC.
ReplyDeleteI share your take on the Mil-Industrial Complex and that's one reason why I avoided getting involved with it during my civilian career. I did do ONE TDY to DeeSee/Suburban VA to work on an Air Force proposal and was subsequently "recruited" to join EDS' Military Division. I politely but firmly refused the offer.
I love that ad!
DeleteWhen my son got out of the Navy, I asked him if he might be interested in working for my company. With his Navy experience and his mad computer skills he would've been highly prized. He politely declined. He's a very smart lad!