I had a contract at a section of the Secretary of State's department to supply system management services. This would have been about 1991 or 92. By this time I had a 9-track tape filled with all the system management tools I had created over the years, so it didn't take long for me to get set up. A key feature of my tools was that the system manager didn't have to do anything once everything was up and running. The system monitored itself. I was there for emergencies and software upgrades.
I had a great corner office overlooking Eddy Street in downtown Hull. Across the street was a store that sold "adult" toys and accessories. I could see all the comings and goings. Though I am sure that many people think such businesses attract perverts and other Riff-Raff, most of the clients I saw were well-dressed young women. Twenty minutes or so after entering the store they'd emerge with a small or a moderately-sized package. An interesting way to spend my time.
This section had two operators on staff. They had their own office on a different floor. In theory, they spent their days monitoring the system. In reality there was nothing for them to do, especially after I had set up the automated system management tools. Well, one of them would have to mount a tape before leaving for the evening and remove, label, and store it next morning after the backup had run. They played computer games all day. Not that I could blame them. They weren't responsible for creating their job descriptions. At least they weren't hurting anything.
One day as I dozed in front of my PC, my inner hacker alert went off. I saw a process running that had full system privileges (these are the keys to unlock various off-limits parts of the operating system, including things like creating and changing accounts, accessing all files, and destroying the system.) I immediately sent a message to the suspected hacker: You have 30 seconds to call this number: xxx-xxx-xxxx or I will blow away your process. My phone rang almost immediately.
Who are you? I asked.
Your system manager, was the reply.
I'm the system manager. Who do you work for?
The intruder explained that he worked for a large well-known company that had a contract to monitor and manage the system. He told me that all he did was check in every few months to see how things were going.
Off to the client I go to ask for an explanation. My liaison knew nothing about this other company with a system management contract. He had to get back to me. Apparently he asked around and discovered that they did, indeed, have such a contract.
So, now we have 3 1/2 people doing a job that could really be done by someone who spent ten minutes or so on the system every week. I proposed to my boss, back at my company, that we make a proposal to do just that. The two game-playing civil servants would be transferred elsewhere in the hopes that they would find something useful to do, the second contact would be cancelled, and we'd have a small contract for system management on an as-needed basis. That probably would save the government $300,000 or more a year. My idea was nixed because my company didn't want to risk the $150,000/year the client was paying for me (out of which I made about $70,000) in order to replace it with a contract for $50,000 or less per year.
Sigh! Big sigh!
Multiply that $300,000 by all the tiny sections of huge departments where people are so bored with their jobs they read novels all day or cruise the Internet and I'm sure the government deficit would disappear.
Oh, sorry, what a ridiculous idea. The government would be forced to find something else to waste money on. Maybe they could build more prisons even though the crime-rate has been steadily falling for decades or buy some expensive military hardware designed to operate on Mars. After all, that appears to be one of the government's main duties.
(PS. Yes, I know there are many dedicated hard-working people in the civil service. I met and worked with many of them.)
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