[AyyWS]

I worked for a private company contracted to provide a portion of a public service and later got employed by the the government agency.

- The contractor had no budget. Our servers were out of date and we were running out of date OSes and software. We were all paid below standard and overworked.

- We had a tiny budget at the agency to buy things at the very end of the year. We ran up to date software and OSes, except for a few large complicated systems that were setup with grant money. We were all paid well below standard. I was no longer on call at all times of the day and night.

Contract awards go to the lowest bidder.

[pifm_guy]

But if the lowest bidder has some kind of penalty to pay if average queueing time goes over 15 minutes or random members of the public rate the service provided below 3/5 stars, then they'll do a much better job.

[AyyWS]

We were contracted because the agency lost lawsuits and had to payout and change policies. The contractor was never successfully sued, but I had to compile lawsuit discovery documents 6 times in 2 years.

[feet]

That doesn't exist because those contracts are awarded to friends of politicians. You don't penalize a friend, do you?