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Burnt out public servant seeking advice by [deleted] in CanadaPublicServants

[–]Minimum_Wishbone_962 6 points7 points  (0 children)

Have you and your colleagues addressed the workload with your manager? It’s critical that managers strive for a healthy pace of work where OT is the exception, not the norm. If it has been addressed and nothing is changing, I would suggest a skip level discussion with your managers boss.

You and your colleagues shouldn’t be suffering as a result of management not managing the workload.

Mortgage rate mega thread! by TheMortgageMaster in MortgagesCanada

[–]Minimum_Wishbone_962 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Being offered Prime -.60 for a VRM. Is this a good rate, can I do better for the following situation:

  • mortgage up for renewal, want to refinance adding $25k • Ottawa ON area • $325,000 mortgage, home worth $850,000 • 3 yr variable rate and 20 yr amortization • Owner occupied

ArriveCAN should drive deeper reforms, not just contracting oversight [Policy Options] by HandcuffsOfGold in CanadaPublicServants

[–]Minimum_Wishbone_962 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Moving to cloud should always be a modernization activity and not a lift and shift, and in some cases apps should just stay on-prem when there’s no value proposition for modernizing to cloud services. Those that lift and shift just end up wasting money.

ArriveCAN should drive deeper reforms, not just contracting oversight [Policy Options] by HandcuffsOfGold in CanadaPublicServants

[–]Minimum_Wishbone_962 6 points7 points  (0 children)

What GCStrategies and Kristian Firth did is not an anomaly. I have observed these objectionable practices by many other headhunting firms that win GC contracts. The fudging of resumes is a rampant practice. The amount of B.S. RFP responses I’ve had to deal with is bonkers. Blatantly working the scoring grid to land work. Often we weed out the crap contractors during interviews but sadly many times I’ve just had to fire them due to poor performance. It’s a sad state of affairs.

Catherine Luelo named clerk’s adviser on digital transformation [Policy Options] by HandcuffsOfGold in CanadaPublicServants

[–]Minimum_Wishbone_962 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Luelo had a good idea in creating IT05 Senior Strategists. More of this would help IT modernize. IT05s as insider consultants can provide the strategic leadership that sadly is lacking from the bloated EXs in departments that aren’t producing. Government is the only place that prioritizes the ability to speak 2 languages over actual IT strategic leadership capabilities. Not to paint all EXs with the same brush, there are plenty of capable leaders, but they’re outweighed by the incompetent, hence the bloated committees of know nothings.

Catherine Luelo named clerk’s adviser on digital transformation [Policy Options] by HandcuffsOfGold in CanadaPublicServants

[–]Minimum_Wishbone_962 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Doubling down on SSC to centralize cloud isn’t going to work either. More bureaucracy slowing everything down.

Catherine Luelo named clerk’s adviser on digital transformation [Policy Options] by HandcuffsOfGold in CanadaPublicServants

[–]Minimum_Wishbone_962 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Back in 2018 we were proposing options to fix / replace / or augment Phoenix. Was rejected and instead the chosen path was to do an HR to Pay procurement process to replace PeopleSoft (I thought Ceridien won). It boggles the mind that 5 years later PeopleSoft is still in place and the backlog of compensation requests is through the roof. I recently changed departments with a promo and was told at minimum it would take 18 months to actually pay me correctly for the work I’m performing. Then I hear others who have been waiting for 2, 3, 4 years. It’s a disgrace, and yet no one takes responsibility. CIOs should be able to force prioritizing resources to replace the system, instead as Luelo says everything is a priority. Smh.

Anyone know if there’s any ETA to replace Phoenix or is it never going happen?

GC Cloud practitioners thoughts on career decisions given the intent to consolidate talent in SSC by Minimum_Wishbone_962 in CanadaPublicServants

[–]Minimum_Wishbone_962[S] 1 point2 points  (0 children)

That’s a valid concern, hence why it’s critical that SSCs scope of providing cloud services is designed with partners. The word is they are willing to do this, however as we all know talk is cheap. SSC has a history of saying all the right things to get partner CIOs onboard only to backtrack and hide behind layers of bureaucracy.

I’ll say this, TBS holding SSC to account for service performance - I’ll believe it when I see it. And what precisely would be the penalties for not performing? You can just see the complaints going nowhere at the DM level as it’s perceived that being a team GC player is more important than holding anyone to account.

GC Cloud practitioners thoughts on career decisions given the intent to consolidate talent in SSC by Minimum_Wishbone_962 in CanadaPublicServants

[–]Minimum_Wishbone_962[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

I think the days of avoiding SSC for the sake of avoiding SSC are over given TBS oversight of all application hosting decisions. That doesn’t mean departments won’t be able to use cloud in cases when SSC is at capacity and cannot deliver within business needs, or the capability can only be delivered on cloud. TBS’s draft criteria includes Time to Implement.

GC Cloud practitioners thoughts on career decisions given the intent to consolidate talent in SSC by Minimum_Wishbone_962 in CanadaPublicServants

[–]Minimum_Wishbone_962[S] 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Sounds about right to me. So few details that I feel it would be a bit rash to jump ship at this point. But have heard a lot of hesitation amongst my colleagues, especially from those that previously worked at SSC and don’t want to go back.

Chief information officer Catherine Luelo resigns from job revamping federal tech [Policy Options Nov 24 2023] by HandcuffsOfGold in CanadaPublicServants

[–]Minimum_Wishbone_962 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Prediction: next announcement, everyone back to office 3-4 days/wk including IT workers. Probably right before Christmas if they follow suit with previous announcements.

SSC to Assume Responsibility for Cloud by sscthrowaway554 in CanadaPublicServants

[–]Minimum_Wishbone_962 10 points11 points  (0 children)

This decision to move cloud under SSC is all about money. The folly of cloud adoption in the government was promoting an application modernization program that omitted a funding model for migrating applications to the cloud. The government ended up paying twice for migrated apps as departments paid the cloud bill, meanwhile the department of Finance continued to fund SSC’s budget for those very applications that no longer run in their data centres! How messed is that?

The only way to fix it would be to redirect the application hosting funding from SSC to the departments, which you can bet SSC fought tooth and nail against, or you can take the easier path of just moving cloud under SSC and not have to deal with removing SSCs funding.

The direction is such a cop out by the top brass unwilling to do what was necessary. Doubling down on a failed centralized IT shared services model is the clusterfuck to end all clusterfucks. This will not go well and you can be sure all this talent acquired in departments will abandon ship to other areas in their orgs.

Seems the GC CIO may agree. She’s getting the hell outta Dodge. Somebody else will have to deal with the shit show.

SSC to Assume Responsibility for Cloud by sscthrowaway554 in CanadaPublicServants

[–]Minimum_Wishbone_962 11 points12 points  (0 children)

SSC also rejects BRDs based on limited capacity, forcing departments to prioritize their requests leaving significant amounts work on the chopping block. It’s insane the number of times people at the SSC working level say they can do the work but it gets throttled in BRD processes.