StressTestInUSA said:
Cantstandit..
Thanks for your effort and mostly your friend's effort..who took the pain to understand all this messy process of GC and how we are screwed...
If you ever get a chance again for this kind of 'talk' to happen..please ask him we an 'online case status check' for our cases...to know in how much deep waters we stand...!!
On the other hand cantstandit..in the letter you drafted I think it is a good idea to ask for a 'online case status' for our application..(which they may come back with a 'no..we need to have a s/w linked to the database etc,no funds,no time '...) something similar to the USCIS application status....
This is a very valid point we r asking to keep things transparent to us...!!
I totally agree, the online status check is a must.
When I was discussing this with my friend, he told me he once worked for a company who contracted with the goverment. He tells me this is NOT the way the goverment works.
Every time a gov agency wants to implement something new, there must be a budget to fund that, then they contract someone to do it. Plus, most of the time, the initiative has to come from above, Congress, etc. It has to be on the yearly plan/budget, etc, etc.
In that example, I asked him, "why won't the DOL just ask the IT guy to post the info on the web, it's so simple !!", he goes, "there's NO IT guy sitting around. If they wanna post something on the web, they need to ask the contractor who maintains the website to do it, and the contractor will charge for it, therefore, there must be funding for it".
The thing is, we're soooo used to working here, where productivity is king and we have to do everything and quickly, but the goverment is a totally different animal, they don't follow the same concepts as the rest of the businesses.
Anybody working in goverment contracting, please share your opinion, I'm by no means expert on this.