11th
#RantFriday — Spectacular Failures: Federal Government Website Migrations
The Federal Government’s track record with high-profile website transitions took another black eye with the October changeover for the Direct Loans program run by the Department of Education. Seems lots of folks can’t log on. Also, the new system doesn’t know about payments made under the old system.
The mail pieces with statements changed, too.
According to The Consumerist, the new vendor is having trouble keeping up with capacity.
Really?
Did they have no idea what traffic they needed to expect?
Who are these rank amateurs being allowed to set up customer-facing government systems?
Who awarded this work to these clowns?
All this while USAJobs.gov continues to flounder as reported previously in this space.
The federal government has literally thousands of open positions, but good luck applying for them. Odds are pretty good your recently-submitted application was either lost or never delivered to the hiring manager. Of course, it would be poor form to call to confirm that someone is actually reviewing your credentials, because that’s apparently a huge time suck for hiring managers to respond to individual applicants.
Heaven forbid a job applicant being motivated, showing initiative and being hungry for work. Surely that doesn’t happen in America.
Government websites change every day. Old vendors get cut. New vendors are brought in. Some sites become insourced that were previously outsourced. And vice versa.
Regardless of who is doing the work, putting a replacement website that’s simply not ready for production in front of customers is sinful.
Imagine if this was the Social Security administration website. Or Medicare’s.
There would be a line of pensioners in a fleet of buses wrapping around Washington, DC so tight the Beltway would scream uncle!
If government is moving—trudgingly—in the direction of automation, replacement technology simply must be at least as effective as the systems they replace.
It’s not a nice to have. It’s a must.
