Help - Former USAID contractor -- zero interviews in a year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I am not in DC but we had a large contingent of IR folks in my circle in my city as dh worked for a large NGO and US Aid contractor based here for over 13 years. He left years ago to start a business ( he was on the fundraising side). Many of our program friends from those days now work in city government or state government. They are well suited for emergency management, one is high up working on the homeless programs and policy. Turns out work in refugee camps is great experience for this crisis. Others work in non profits around town. These were senior director level folks mostly.

Homeless programs? Another drain on the taxpayer dollar if you look at places like LA.

Sure, let’s just throw people away. A civilized world has social safety net programs. If ours were better here we would spend a lot less and have a lot fewer people get to the breaking point.

You probably think it’s all the cities’ faults too don’t you? That the many fentanyl addicts don’t come from the rural areas and suburbs where there are no services and you send them in the cities for us to deal with. We are dealing with your problem. You probably consider yourself a Christian. You sound like a tool who has just enough so that you are afraid of sharing it with anyone else. Whatever loser.

Lol nope. Wrong on all counts.

Try not to have an aneurysm, dear. And funny how you ignore the data re: the nonprofit industrial complex.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say this with respect because I know there’s a lot of affected people here (in addition to the OP), but could someone please explain how/why the people at this org were paid so much before when it seems like their actual skills just didn’t warrant that high level of pay? Is this typical in government orgs? I knew government positions paid a lot more than I originally expected, but I was told that they need to pay those salaries (in addition to the security that has historically also come with government positions) in order to staff the positions.

I worked for a USAID contractor. For sure the management skills are transferable, but the challenge is that what I did was super specialized and no longer exists. Do you need someone to design and implement a low-cost program to get women in Nigeria or Malawi to take their prenatal vitamins and give birth in a birth facility with a trained midwife? Or maybe you need to figure out how to reduce the biases among midwives that lead to infant and maternal mortality. I’m your woman. I’ve done it and have the studies to prove the programs reduced death.

But the jobs here in the US that reduce infant death are few and far between. Who funds them? Some counties and states, but they are not funded to the level we funded these sorts of programs abroad. Sad, isn’t it? And I would understand and even sort of approve if we pulled all that money from USAID and instead used it for health programming in the US. But we didn’t. And now we are losing not just the work, but the expertise. I was a known, respected expert in my field. I’m now doing something different, and can’t mentor the next generation should we decide maternal health is important again. Poof. A generation of knowledge is just gone.

I don’t want anyone’s pity - I’m doing fine. But I would like people to understand that the skills USAID people had were real and valuable and necessary for the work we did. We just don’t seem to find helping poor people a needed skill anymore.

Your work sounds interesting and fulfilling but I’m not sure that you answered the question. Why were you paid so much money to do that work?

I don’t know that I was paid that much. I was in senior leadership, managing programs and budgets totaling $100 million/year and overseeing a staffing structure of 800 people. I made $140,000. I’m always told here on DCUM that makes me poor. I thought it was very fair pay for a job that meant a lot to me.

Who paid the salaries of the staffing structure of 809 you oversaw?

You did, for the most part. As you pay for the staffing structures of thousands at defense contractors, consulting companies, and now AI companies. When the government awards a contract for something to be delivered (airplanes, lives saved) the organization hires staff to do the work. It’s not a gotcha. The government contracts out a large percentage of that work, and those organizations need staff to do the work. That is how work gets done.

The government awards a contract for lives saved??

[Anonymous]

Sorry but it sounds like his skills either aren't there, aren't unique, or aren't transferrable.

The problem with a lot of these USAID folks is there's a lot of talk about deliverables and managing programs but it's a lot of words.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe that usaid did much measurable help I think they shot themselves in the foot by not tying the aid with clear kpis, targets and outcomes.

We DID have kpis, targets, and outcomes. Measured and reported on in excruciating detail in real time dashboards plus quarterly and annual reports. My projects then also had baseline, midline, and endline research to measure change in health metrics.

I just don’t understand why people think USAID was out there throwing money around. There were contracts and deliverables and measurement of outcomes. We even had our contracts cancelled if we didn’t perform. And then (gasp) we fired the staff who were responsible for messing up.

I think the usaid problem is that over the biden years they let the crazies get too much power and public facing attention. Whether you were doing good work or not, all that everyone saw publicly was usaid pushing stuff like drag queen empowerment for Afghanistan type craziness.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say this with respect because I know there’s a lot of affected people here (in addition to the OP), but could someone please explain how/why the people at this org were paid so much before when it seems like their actual skills just didn’t warrant that high level of pay? Is this typical in government orgs? I knew government positions paid a lot more than I originally expected, but I was told that they need to pay those salaries (in addition to the security that has historically also come with government positions) in order to staff the positions.

I worked for a USAID contractor. For sure the management skills are transferable, but the challenge is that what I did was super specialized and no longer exists. Do you need someone to design and implement a low-cost program to get women in Nigeria or Malawi to take their prenatal vitamins and give birth in a birth facility with a trained midwife? Or maybe you need to figure out how to reduce the biases among midwives that lead to infant and maternal mortality. I’m your woman. I’ve done it and have the studies to prove the programs reduced death.

But the jobs here in the US that reduce infant death are few and far between. Who funds them? Some counties and states, but they are not funded to the level we funded these sorts of programs abroad. Sad, isn’t it? And I would understand and even sort of approve if we pulled all that money from USAID and instead used it for health programming in the US. But we didn’t. And now we are losing not just the work, but the expertise. I was a known, respected expert in my field. I’m now doing something different, and can’t mentor the next generation should we decide maternal health is important again. Poof. A generation of knowledge is just gone.

I don’t want anyone’s pity - I’m doing fine. But I would like people to understand that the skills USAID people had were real and valuable and necessary for the work we did. We just don’t seem to find helping poor people a needed skill anymore.

Your work sounds interesting and fulfilling but I’m not sure that you answered the question. Why were you paid so much money to do that work?

I don’t know that I was paid that much. I was in senior leadership, managing programs and budgets totaling $100 million/year and overseeing a staffing structure of 800 people. I made $140,000. I’m always told here on DCUM that makes me poor. I thought it was very fair pay for a job that meant a lot to me.

Who paid the salaries of the staffing structure of 809 you oversaw?

You did, for the most part. As you pay for the staffing structures of thousands at defense contractors, consulting companies, and now AI companies. When the government awards a contract for something to be delivered (airplanes, lives saved) the organization hires staff to do the work. It’s not a gotcha. The government contracts out a large percentage of that work, and those organizations need staff to do the work. That is how work gets done.

So USAID contracted companies and consultants for things like AI and airplanes under the claim they were saving lives. And USAID "supervised" these hundreds of contractors and companies (who also had their own layers of supervisors)?

Yikes...I'm starting to see why so many people claim USAID was a scam.

No - the government, in the form of the DOD (sorry, Department of War?), as well as every other department contracts for things like airplanes and AI services and a gazillion other services and products.

USAID did too. Same structure, same type of contracts and awards. Same types of oversight. It’s just that instead of preventing infectious disease in Florida or Maine we prevented infectious disease in Malawi or Nepal. You can object that we shouldn’t be using our money that way. I disagree, but fine, that is your opinion. What isn’t opinion but a flat-out lie is that we engaged in fraud, or were incompetent, or that it “didn’t work,” or even that we have no useful skills. Hello, Ebola!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say this with respect because I know there’s a lot of affected people here (in addition to the OP), but could someone please explain how/why the people at this org were paid so much before when it seems like their actual skills just didn’t warrant that high level of pay? Is this typical in government orgs? I knew government positions paid a lot more than I originally expected, but I was told that they need to pay those salaries (in addition to the security that has historically also come with government positions) in order to staff the positions.

I worked for a USAID contractor. For sure the management skills are transferable, but the challenge is that what I did was super specialized and no longer exists. Do you need someone to design and implement a low-cost program to get women in Nigeria or Malawi to take their prenatal vitamins and give birth in a birth facility with a trained midwife? Or maybe you need to figure out how to reduce the biases among midwives that lead to infant and maternal mortality. I’m your woman. I’ve done it and have the studies to prove the programs reduced death.

But the jobs here in the US that reduce infant death are few and far between. Who funds them? Some counties and states, but they are not funded to the level we funded these sorts of programs abroad. Sad, isn’t it? And I would understand and even sort of approve if we pulled all that money from USAID and instead used it for health programming in the US. But we didn’t. And now we are losing not just the work, but the expertise. I was a known, respected expert in my field. I’m now doing something different, and can’t mentor the next generation should we decide maternal health is important again. Poof. A generation of knowledge is just gone.

I don’t want anyone’s pity - I’m doing fine. But I would like people to understand that the skills USAID people had were real and valuable and necessary for the work we did. We just don’t seem to find helping poor people a needed skill anymore.

Your work sounds interesting and fulfilling but I’m not sure that you answered the question. Why were you paid so much money to do that work?

I don’t know that I was paid that much. I was in senior leadership, managing programs and budgets totaling $100 million/year and overseeing a staffing structure of 800 people. I made $140,000. I’m always told here on DCUM that makes me poor. I thought it was very fair pay for a job that meant a lot to me.

Who paid the salaries of the staffing structure of 809 you oversaw?

You did, for the most part. As you pay for the staffing structures of thousands at defense contractors, consulting companies, and now AI companies. When the government awards a contract for something to be delivered (airplanes, lives saved) the organization hires staff to do the work. It’s not a gotcha. The government contracts out a large percentage of that work, and those organizations need staff to do the work. That is how work gets done.

The government awards a contract for lives saved??

It estimates the deaths averted through the contracted services usually. So deliver this many doses of vaccines into kids’ arms, and through epidemiology we can know how many won’t die of Measles, tetanus, or rabies. The deliverable is the vaccine service (or nurses trained, or malaria bed nets hung or whatever) not the lives saved. But the goal is lives saved. I mean, that still seems good and noble to me, but apparently saving children’s lives is out of fashion these days.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry but it sounds like his skills either aren't there, aren't unique, or aren't transferrable.

The problem with a lot of these USAID folks is there's a lot of talk about deliverables and managing programs but it's a lot of words.

No, the problem is that the job market is terrible and the government has poured gasoline on it by dumping 300k extra workers into it all at once. Very few industries or sectors have added any meaningful number of jobs in the past year other than healthcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say this with respect because I know there’s a lot of affected people here (in addition to the OP), but could someone please explain how/why the people at this org were paid so much before when it seems like their actual skills just didn’t warrant that high level of pay? Is this typical in government orgs? I knew government positions paid a lot more than I originally expected, but I was told that they need to pay those salaries (in addition to the security that has historically also come with government positions) in order to staff the positions.

I worked for a USAID contractor. For sure the management skills are transferable, but the challenge is that what I did was super specialized and no longer exists. Do you need someone to design and implement a low-cost program to get women in Nigeria or Malawi to take their prenatal vitamins and give birth in a birth facility with a trained midwife? Or maybe you need to figure out how to reduce the biases among midwives that lead to infant and maternal mortality. I’m your woman. I’ve done it and have the studies to prove the programs reduced death.

But the jobs here in the US that reduce infant death are few and far between. Who funds them? Some counties and states, but they are not funded to the level we funded these sorts of programs abroad. Sad, isn’t it? And I would understand and even sort of approve if we pulled all that money from USAID and instead used it for health programming in the US. But we didn’t. And now we are losing not just the work, but the expertise. I was a known, respected expert in my field. I’m now doing something different, and can’t mentor the next generation should we decide maternal health is important again. Poof. A generation of knowledge is just gone.

I don’t want anyone’s pity - I’m doing fine. But I would like people to understand that the skills USAID people had were real and valuable and necessary for the work we did. We just don’t seem to find helping poor people a needed skill anymore.

Your work sounds interesting and fulfilling but I’m not sure that you answered the question. Why were you paid so much money to do that work?

I don’t know that I was paid that much. I was in senior leadership, managing programs and budgets totaling $100 million/year and overseeing a staffing structure of 800 people. I made $140,000. I’m always told here on DCUM that makes me poor. I thought it was very fair pay for a job that meant a lot to me.

Who paid the salaries of the staffing structure of 809 you oversaw?

You did, for the most part. As you pay for the staffing structures of thousands at defense contractors, consulting companies, and now AI companies. When the government awards a contract for something to be delivered (airplanes, lives saved) the organization hires staff to do the work. It’s not a gotcha. The government contracts out a large percentage of that work, and those organizations need staff to do the work. That is how work gets done.

So USAID contracted companies and consultants for things like AI and airplanes under the claim they were saving lives. And USAID "supervised" these hundreds of contractors and companies (who also had their own layers of supervisors)?

Yikes...I'm starting to see why so many people claim USAID was a scam.

No - the government, in the form of the DOD (sorry, Department of War?), as well as every other department contracts for things like airplanes and AI services and a gazillion other services and products.

USAID did too. Same structure, same type of contracts and awards. Same types of oversight. It’s just that instead of preventing infectious disease in Florida or Maine we prevented infectious disease in Malawi or Nepal. You can object that we shouldn’t be using our money that way. I disagree, but fine, that is your opinion. What isn’t opinion but a flat-out lie is that we engaged in fraud, or were incompetent, or that it “didn’t work,” or even that we have no useful skills. Hello, Ebola!

I'm trying to understand the bureaucracy so I appreciate your reply.

So what did USAID contract? I get DoD get Boeing or whoever to build a missile or an airplane. I see references to things like malaria nets or pre natal vitamins but does that really requires the hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of people?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry but it sounds like his skills either aren't there, aren't unique, or aren't transferrable.

The problem with a lot of these USAID folks is there's a lot of talk about deliverables and managing programs but it's a lot of words.

No, the problem is that the job market is terrible and the government has poured gasoline on it by dumping 300k extra workers into it all at once. Very few industries or sectors have added any meaningful number of jobs in the past year other than healthcare.

If healthcare added all these job why aren't the people who prevent infectious diseases in Africa or stopped ebola working in that field.

It sounds like the government propped up the 300k extra workers and they don't really have marketable skills.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I say this with respect because I know there’s a lot of affected people here (in addition to the OP), but could someone please explain how/why the people at this org were paid so much before when it seems like their actual skills just didn’t warrant that high level of pay? Is this typical in government orgs? I knew government positions paid a lot more than I originally expected, but I was told that they need to pay those salaries (in addition to the security that has historically also come with government positions) in order to staff the positions.

I worked for a USAID contractor. For sure the management skills are transferable, but the challenge is that what I did was super specialized and no longer exists. Do you need someone to design and implement a low-cost program to get women in Nigeria or Malawi to take their prenatal vitamins and give birth in a birth facility with a trained midwife? Or maybe you need to figure out how to reduce the biases among midwives that lead to infant and maternal mortality. I’m your woman. I’ve done it and have the studies to prove the programs reduced death.

But the jobs here in the US that reduce infant death are few and far between. Who funds them? Some counties and states, but they are not funded to the level we funded these sorts of programs abroad. Sad, isn’t it? And I would understand and even sort of approve if we pulled all that money from USAID and instead used it for health programming in the US. But we didn’t. And now we are losing not just the work, but the expertise. I was a known, respected expert in my field. I’m now doing something different, and can’t mentor the next generation should we decide maternal health is important again. Poof. A generation of knowledge is just gone.

I don’t want anyone’s pity - I’m doing fine. But I would like people to understand that the skills USAID people had were real and valuable and necessary for the work we did. We just don’t seem to find helping poor people a needed skill anymore.

Your work sounds interesting and fulfilling but I’m not sure that you answered the question. Why were you paid so much money to do that work?

I don’t know that I was paid that much. I was in senior leadership, managing programs and budgets totaling $100 million/year and overseeing a staffing structure of 800 people. I made $140,000. I’m always told here on DCUM that makes me poor. I thought it was very fair pay for a job that meant a lot to me.

Who paid the salaries of the staffing structure of 809 you oversaw?

You did, for the most part. As you pay for the staffing structures of thousands at defense contractors, consulting companies, and now AI companies. When the government awards a contract for something to be delivered (airplanes, lives saved) the organization hires staff to do the work. It’s not a gotcha. The government contracts out a large percentage of that work, and those organizations need staff to do the work. That is how work gets done.

So USAID contracted companies and consultants for things like AI and airplanes under the claim they were saving lives. And USAID "supervised" these hundreds of contractors and companies (who also had their own layers of supervisors)?

Yikes...I'm starting to see why so many people claim USAID was a scam.

No - the government, in the form of the DOD (sorry, Department of War?), as well as every other department contracts for things like airplanes and AI services and a gazillion other services and products.

USAID did too. Same structure, same type of contracts and awards. Same types of oversight. It’s just that instead of preventing infectious disease in Florida or Maine we prevented infectious disease in Malawi or Nepal. You can object that we shouldn’t be using our money that way. I disagree, but fine, that is your opinion. What isn’t opinion but a flat-out lie is that we engaged in fraud, or were incompetent, or that it “didn’t work,” or even that we have no useful skills. Hello, Ebola!

I'm trying to understand the bureaucracy so I appreciate your reply.

So what did USAID contract? I get DoD get Boeing or whoever to build a missile or an airplane. I see references to things like malaria nets or pre natal vitamins but does that really requires the hundreds of millions of dollars and thousands of people?

Not for one individual program, no, but USAID had hundreds and hundreds of programs across something like 40 countries. It adds up.

Imagine it for the US first, then it might be clearer for what we did in other countries. Say you are the CDC, or the FDA. You want to immunize 1 million people against measles across 3 states in the US with the lowest vaccination rate. Because the government is always being accused of waste, fraud, and abuse, the systems for spending money are seriously robust. You’ll need to publish a request for proposals and have organizations/companies submit bids. The bids take months to prepare and are hundreds and hundreds of pages long, full of accountability information the government requires. Maybe you choose one health care organization in each state to handle the vaccine, train extra nurses to counsel reluctant parents, and run a public service campaign to actually get people to want to vaccinate against measles. Once you look at each of those pieces you’ll see there are a lot of people and a lot of expenses to do each thing. Look at the public service campaign, for example. You need to analyze why people in that community don’t vaccinate, and what might motivate them. You need to pay to create communication content, and then to put it on TV/radio/billboards/influencers.

If you were a pharma company introducing your version of Ozempic you’d spend a gazillion dollars and fly your staff to off site training in Hawaii in order to increase uptake of your drug.

USAID did the same thing as my example of a measles vaccine campaign but in desperately poor places where the local government couldn’t afford to pay for it itself. Would it be cheaper to simply give the government of Malawi money to run the vaccine program itself, rather than having US organizations come in and do it? Hell yes. But then we have Americans saying we are giving away pallets of cash to dictators. So Congress, in its wisdom, created a system whereby we can ensure every dollar is spent legally and transparently…even though it isn’t efficient.

[Anonymous]

If OP husband has anything listed in his resume concerning USAID that will be a big red flag to any private sector company. Not debating the good USAID did but the whole way the closing went down is something a private sector company is not willing to risk especially with the current Administration.

Second point mid-level managers in private sector, publicly traded companies all most part do not exist anymore. Call it right sizing, lateral support structure or ?basically mean the same thing, less people do more work. You get a report card every quarter, called the earnings call. Guarantee company misses on Wall Street expectations everybody knows to start pedaling faster.

[Anonymous]

i’m solution oriented, with hantavirus and now ebola on people’s minds, could you market something like new dangled PPE, gloves, sanitizer, whatever?

or, if that’s not your thing, how about becoming a social media influencer on public health? sure there are a lot of them— you could be one! and i would follow you if you add in a healthy dose of Trump insults.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry but it sounds like his skills either aren't there, aren't unique, or aren't transferrable.

The problem with a lot of these USAID folks is there's a lot of talk about deliverables and managing programs but it's a lot of words.

No, the problem is that the job market is terrible and the government has poured gasoline on it by dumping 300k extra workers into it all at once. Very few industries or sectors have added any meaningful number of jobs in the past year other than healthcare.

If healthcare added all these job why aren't the people who prevent infectious diseases in Africa or stopped ebola working in that field.

It sounds like the government propped up the 300k extra workers and they don't really have marketable skills.

Because the jobs in healthcare are in the provision of healthcare services (doctors, NPs, nurses, hospital and office administrative staff), not in public health (got cut!) or infectious diseases.

It sounds like you have no idea what you’re talking about, which is unsurprising.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:PP here and I have been through reorganizations x 2 and I am in a hiring position now. It is tough. My last open position had 300+ applications within a week. This is in data/tech roles, and 90% were foreign applicants.

Good thing H1Bs cost $100k a pop now, I guess. Now tell us there was no one qualified among the remaining 30.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Sorry but it sounds like his skills either aren't there, aren't unique, or aren't transferrable.

The problem with a lot of these USAID folks is there's a lot of talk about deliverables and managing programs but it's a lot of words.

No, the problem is that the job market is terrible and the government has poured gasoline on it by dumping 300k extra workers into it all at once. Very few industries or sectors have added any meaningful number of jobs in the past year other than healthcare.

If healthcare added all these job why aren't the people who prevent infectious diseases in Africa or stopped ebola working in that field.

It sounds like the government propped up the 300k extra workers and they don't really have marketable skills.

Because the jobs in healthcare are in the provision of healthcare services (doctors, NPs, nurses, hospital and office administrative staff), not in public health (got cut!) or infectious diseases.

It sounds like you have no idea what you’re talking about, which is unsurprising.

So you reinforced the point. These 300k really have no expertise in healthcare or any other field.