To build on @LorenRaeDeJ ‘s excellent points:
I spent only one year at DOD, but my DASD worked insane hours, as did nearly every civilian in the office (incl admin staff). Lazy, they were NOT.
1/ https://twitter.com/lorenraedej/status/1344626934697914370

While I was there, we dealt with Assad’s chem attack on Ghouta, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the emergence of ISIS, the beginning of the unraveling of Yemen, and several other crises, along with all the usual day-to-day military assistance and training programs DOD runs.
2/

We’re we bloated and inefficient? No. We were frequently under-staffed, and we were constantly under intense time pressure. We always met our deadlines - even when they were nearly impossible to schedule due to the incompatibility of different committee staff schedules.
3/

Policy had been in a hiring freeze already for some time, which meant that the only personnel actions we could do was to transfer people around within Policy, which we often had to do as crises came and went.
4/

I also interned at State when I was at uni, and dear God they were so understaffed that my unit - the humanitarian demining unit - spent part of that summer being JUST ME AND THE BRAND NEW CHIEF OF DEMINING (a very sharp USMC LtCol who managed to keep us going).
5/

The US State Dept runs the largest demining train the trainer program in the world. And for a few weeks, it was run by a LtCol and an intern who had been there longer than the LtCol.

You may say: see? That proves we don’t need all these people!

No, dude. We needed help.
6/

Look. I haven’t worked in govt much, but I study how govts work, and while our civil service structure has problems and needs reform, the problem is NOT lazy workers, selfishness and apathy, bloat, or inefficiency.
7/

Are there such people in there? Of course. But the vast majority work their a**es off for the U.S. public, and get nothing but constant denigration of their competence and work ethic. They deserve better from us.
Fin/