Why US Gov't Retirement Involves a Hole in the Ground Near Pittsburgh 142
Increasing automation worries some people as a danger to the livelihood of those who currently earn their livings at jobs that AI and robots (or just smarter software and more sophisticated technology generally) might be well-suited to, as the costs of the technology options drop. The Washington Post, though, features an eye-opening look at one workplace where automation certainly does not rule. It's "one of the weirdest workplaces in the U.S. government" — a subterranean office space in what was once a limestone mine, where 600 Office of Personnel Management employees process the retirement papers of other government employees. The Post article describes how this mostly-manual process works (and why it hasn't been changed much to take advantage of advancing technology), including with a video that might remind you of Terry Gilliam's Brazil. As the writer puts it,
"[T]hat system has a spectacular flaw. It still must be done entirely by hand, and almost entirely on paper. The employees here pass thousands of case files from cavern to cavern and then key in retirees’ personal data, one line at a time. They work underground not for secrecy but for space. The old mine’s tunnels have room for more than 28,000 file cabinets of paper records."
Not surprising (Score:4, Insightful)
My wife worked 30+ years for two different government agencies. Getting OPM to figure out her pension correctly was a nightmare.
Re:Makes perfect sense (Score:2, Insightful)
I mean, he gave a thoughtful comment pointing out that this system is probably the cheapest way of dealing with the move to digital records. Why did you then respond with "Herp derp! Government sucks!"
You libertarians don't seem to even care if your rants are on topic these days.
Re:This is a glitch in the Matrix...... (Score:5, Insightful)
if that isn't efficiency, I'm not sure what efficiency looks like...
The NSA may be efficient at amassing lots of data. But I doubt if that is an efficient way to achieve their real mission of identifying useful intelligence. They are efficient at creating haystacks, but that doesn't mean they are finding many needles.