Retiring/separating reserve officers who transitioned to GS

[Pags]

The biggest downside to GS employment is just how bloody awful the working tech is. The fixation with Microsoft Office tools over a secure/monitored network with limited remote access - not to mention a 20 year old device (laptop, phone/tablet) policy that is obsolete and does not address contemporary cultural norms. A good example is a strict prohibition on password management tools - look in any .gov office and you see post its plastered everywhere with passwords written down. Want to use Slack or something else to efficiently collaborate? Good luck.

I mean it is a USG network...so having it secure certainly makes philosophical sense...how they've done it is less than great. And your tech is also agency dependent (notice a theme) depending on your environment, funding, and role. Some people get iphones and MS surfaces while others get 5yr old laptops. COVID certainly has pushed my agency forward toward Teams and what not. Also, I've been able to connect from home/distance over wifi for a year now. Mrs Pags gets a new machine on Friday so I'm curious as to what it will be. But Mrs Pags did get better tech when she worked out in town and wasn't saddled by a giant oppressive enterprise network.

 

[ChuckMK23]

I still can't get Teams to work as advertised. It's garbage.

CVR teams works ok - its when they shut down CVR and enforce native app on a gov laptop on a gov network that will be a dumpster fire!

 

[Griz882]

The biggest downside to GS employment is just how bloody awful the working tech is. The fixation with Microsoft Office tools over a secure/monitored network with limited remote access - not to mention a 20 year old device (laptop, phone/tablet) policy that is obsolete and does not address contemporary cultural norms. A good example is a strict prohibition on password management tools - look in any .gov office and you see post its plastered everywhere with passwords written down. Want to use Slack or something else to efficiently collaborate? Good luck.

My government Dell laptop was designed during the Cold War and can be counted on to; (a) pry open the hatch of a Soviet T-82, (b) survive a tactical nuclear strike, and (c) fail to download any software written after 1998.

 

[Pags]

I still can't get Teams to work as advertised. It's garbage.

We've been using it more (our enterprise teams, not cvr) and it actually works pretty well. I've found I really like the collaboration it enables so we don't have to email .doc and .ppt around and spend half our time doing version control and merging docs.

 

[jmcquate]

My issued aren't isolated to me in my agency, so maybe it's my agency. Not looking forward to the move to 365.

 

[jmcquate]

MY educated guess at IT issues (at least within DoD), is the relative autonomy that agencies are given with regard to network architecture and the one fit works for all solutions that come from DISA. But what do I know, I'm a history major.

 

[squorch2]

wasn't saddled by a giant oppressive enterprise network.

you can be saddled by a giant oppressive enterprise network and use current tech!

source: am currently saddled by a giant oppressive enterprise network

 

[Pags]

you can be saddled by a giant oppressive enterprise network and use current tech!

source: am currently saddled by a giant oppressive enterprise network

Yeah, but is the current tech still good or has the enterprise drained its capability?

 

[squorch2]

current tech still good!

also, Flank Speed juuuuust might resolve a lot of tech issues - just gonna be a few years. The capability is there now, as demonstrated by CVR Teams/etc.

 

[Pags]

current tech still good!

also, Flank Speed juuuuust might resolve a lot of tech issues - just gonna be a few years. The capability is there now, as demonstrated by CVR Teams/etc.

Yeah, seems like OFS will take a bit to get to the same level of capability that CVR had. Although I'll appreciate not having to manage two outlook calendars and teams apps.

 

[nodropinufaka]

The biggest downside to GS employment is just how bloody awful the working tech is. The fixation with Microsoft Office tools over a secure/monitored network with limited remote access - not to mention a 20 year old device (laptop, phone/tablet) policy that is obsolete and does not address contemporary cultural norms. A good example is a strict prohibition on password management tools - look in any .gov office and you see post its plastered everywhere with passwords written down. Want to use Slack or something else to efficiently collaborate? Good luck.

Absolutley

left the feds for a FFRC.

nice computer laptop and huge monitor sent to me. Full telework.

slack and Microsoft office on our phones.

its truly amazing.

quality of life is top notch but the retirement isn’t as good as the feds and neither is the security. Trade off I guess

 

[Flash]

The biggest downside to GS employment is just how bloody awful the working tech is. The fixation with Microsoft Office tools over a secure/monitored network with limited remote access - not to mention a 20 year old device (laptop, phone/tablet) policy that is obsolete and does not address contemporary cultural norms. A good example is a strict prohibition on password management tools - look in any .gov office and you see post its plastered everywhere with passwords written down. Want to use Slack or something else to efficiently collaborate? Good luck.

I mean it is a USG network...so having it secure certainly makes philosophical sense...how they've done it is less than great. And your tech is also agency dependent (notice a theme)....

There are often very good reasons for limiting what tools you can utilize for government work, especially security-related, though as Pags points out that the implementation is often lacking.

 

[ChuckMK23]

There are often very good reasons for limiting what tools you can utilize for government work, especially security-related, though as Pags points out that the implementation is often lacking.

Of course - I get it. Its in the implementation that frustrates me. There are other ways to achieve the same outcome at lower cost and better user experience. I worked in near SCIF level security often at GE and we had phenomenal tools with really great security on a MacBook Air and the experience was the same whether I was in Cincinnati or Zurich. Two factor authentication, secure networking, always encrypted messaging, always on secure VPN that “just worked”, catalogs of secure pre-authorized apps both traditional and web based SaaS all tied to our universal auth stack. It was really well done.

Even though I have a clearance, nothing I do on my job now is beyond FOUO. I am thankful for OWA that I can use on my personal devices with CAC - same for SharePoint. So I can do my job on my personal Chromebook or my home gaming rig once I plug in the CAC reader.

My issue iPad Pro 11” is nice - but again the Blackberry technology to enable email access is its own secured walled off container - its nice having access to email via an LTE iPad since no phone based email. Of course everyone in my office/team/command texts each other on day to day stuff. ForeFlight MFB on the iPad Pro is awesome.

 

[Pags]

Of course - I get it. Its in the implementation that frustrates me. There are other ways to achieve the same outcome at lower cost and better user experience. I worked in near SCIF level security often at GE and we had phenomenal tools with really great security on a MacBook Air and the experience was the same whether I was in Cincinnati or Zurich. Two factor authentication, secure networking, always encrypted messaging, always on secure VPN that “just worked”, catalogs of secure pre-authorized apps both traditional and web based SaaS all tied to our universal auth stack. It was really well done.

Even though I have a clearance, nothing I do on my job now is beyond FOUO. I am thankful for OWA that I can use on my personal devices with CAC - same for SharePoint. So I can do my job on my personal Chromebook or my home gaming rig once I plug in the CAC reader.

My issue iPad Pro 11” is nice - but again the Blackberry technology to enable email access is its own secured walled off container - its nice having access to email via an LTE iPad since no phone based email. Of course everyone in my office/team/command texts each other on day to day stuff. ForeFlight MFB on the iPad Pro is awesome.

I think the problem is that there often aren't elegant COTS solutions that meet all the various USG requirements. So to meet all those requirements the USG ends up kluging together different apps that don't quite play nice together and can get out of sync during updates.

I'd also imagine that GE may be an exception due to size and available funding. Big for profit companies can afford to buy nice stuff while govt agencies who make purchases at the agency level are limited by funding and what they can buy.

 

[jmcquate]

kluging together different apps that don't quite play nice together and can get out of sync during updates.

This and riding large applications into the ground without upgrading until the platform is no longer supported by the vendor. Making for a difficult upgrade due to skipping multiple version