The Infinite Wisdom of the Government

In the winter of 2018, the job that Sarah had held for the previous 21 years, as a social science researcher in a small federal agency, was eliminated for no apparent reason and with no plan for what was to replace it. Sarah had joined the staff in 1997, and she was committed to the agency’s important mission of overseeing and improving the delivery of services for individuals who suffer from behavioral health disorders. Her years of experience as a clinical social worker in hospital settings had provided a solid foundation for her work at the agency, where she was responsible for conducting studies to examine and understand the ways in which mental health and substance abuse services are financed, organized, and delivered in the U.S. 

The small team of behavioral health researchers with whom Sarah had worked closely and enjoyably over the past several years were highly trained professionals, dedicated and successful. Together they conducted a diverse array of studies and created an impressive body of publications in prominent peer-reviewed journals--but none of that seemed to matter to the agency’s new and totally unqualified leadership. Their entire team was ordered—abruptly, without explanation, and with no opportunity for discussion—to immediately cease all of the activities that they had been specifically hired to do, and simply to await further instructions. Eight months later, they were still waiting for those instructions. 

Sarah and her colleagues were never given an opportunity to discuss the abrupt termination of their responsibilities, nor were they permitted to question the reasons for it. Their inquiry emails went unanswered, and staff meetings, supervisory sessions, or meetings of any kind ceased to exist.  It would be difficult to imagine a more senseless, demeaning, and demoralizing scenario, an incredible waste of intellectual and professional resources.

The ban on their research activities was total—they were told verbally (presumably so that there would be no paper trail) that they could not initiate any new projects, nor even submit completed papers for agency approval or consideration. Expensive projects and studies that had been years in preparation were summarily terminated or merely abandoned. These decisions were made invisibly, by individuals in other parts of the agency whom they did not know or who refused to identify themselves. No opportunity for discussion or reconsideration ever presented itself, despite repeated requests from the staff members.  

The agency was small compared to other federal agencies, and relatively unknown: over the years, when Sarah would attend outside conferences and meetings, she had become accustomed to blank stares and puzzled looks from other federal staff who were unaware of her agency’s existence. Nevertheless, she had always found the work stimulating and enjoyable, and was consistently absorbed in the content of her job and her responsibilities.  She valued the exchange of ideas and the opportunity for teamwork and collaboration with her team of talented colleagues. She believed in the agency’s mission, and was proud of the contribution to the field that she and her team were making.

While in past years, under the agency’s previous management, there had at least been some adherence to basic human principles and some measure of logic to the leadership’s decisions, it became increasingly clear that the new mandate was to dismantle successful programs and activities without any plans for their replacement—seemingly to simply drive out as many career staff as possible.  The new management style precluded any kind of dissent or discourse; staff’s views and opinions were given no consideration, nor was there any interest in their backgrounds and experience, or in the body of work that they had produced.  It was infuriating and depressing, and Sarah and her colleagues felt increasingly powerless. It came as no surprise to Sarah (or anyone else, she suspected) that the agency’s ranking in 2018 on the federal government’s annual "Employee Viewpoint Survey" (a.k.a. the “Best Places to Work” ranking) was a dismal 315 out of 317 agency sub-components.  

The phrase “the plan is, there is no plan” began to echo in Sarah’s mind, as she and her teammates heard about the abrupt cancellation of long-standing technical assistance and program evaluation contracts in other parts of the agency, with only a vague explanation that these functions would be (magically) brought “in-house” at some point in the future. No details ever emerged as to how, when, or by whom this feat might be accomplished. They could only wonder about the effects that those drastic yet apparently ill-considered changes had on the staff of the affected programs, and on the morale of the outside providers and stakeholders who depended on the agency for knowledge, direction, and support.    

When Sarah emailed the center’s leadership to tell them that she was planning to attend an annual health services research conference—a conference that that she had attended for years, was held locally, and had no registration fee—she received an immediate, strongly-worded reply absolutely forbidding her attendance. The agency leadership decreed that Sarah and her team were “not permitted to engage in any research-related activities at all”—which apparently meant that they were even precluded from learning about the latest findings in their field. For Sarah, that was the final straw.

It took Sarah those eight months of serious reflection and deliberation to make the painful decision to leave. She retired from the government that summer, a sad and reluctant end to a successful career in federal service, and a tearful farewell to her beloved team. While cleaning out her cubicle, Sarah found a cryptic note tucked into the pages of one of her books.  She had written it to herself months earlier, when the agency's decline appeared to be accelerating. It read, “I cannot continue to work in an agency that does not believe in its own mission.” At the time she wrote it, Sarah never really expected the situation to become so extreme that she would feel compelled to act upon those words. 

“It’s going to take a very long time to repair the remarkable amount of damage that has been done,” Sarah observed to her colleagues, “both to this particular agency and to the people who depend on its services. And to what end? What has all of this disruption accomplished?” Sadly, nothing more than chaos for chaos’ sake, without purpose or reason.