DOGE Finding: The Government Processes Retirement Paperwork In An Underground Mine

need confirmation other than “Musk said so”.

“Some of the things that I say will be incorrect."
Musk, 2/11

 

I think we can all agree a lot of processes can be improved. I honestly do hope they succeed. The issue is that you can't just find bad processes. You have to come up with solutions to them.

 

Yeah, agreed. I’d like a bit more specificity about what this “processing” includes, and what happens to the info. If the gov is receiving a lot of paper docs, I could see them using somewhere like this as a storage and digitalization facility. But the lack of details leaves me skeptical that this is any big deal. And if they have to store the records, I doubt they’ll save any $ by moving them out of the abandoned mine.

 

This isn’t a new phenomenon. It’s been talked about in all the news stories over the last day or so abt it being known as an issue for years. Reported back in 2014. Obama looked into doing something about it.

 

Iron Mountain sounded familiar to me. Apparently they handle documents for 95% of the fortune 1000, so I guess just about anyone who ever worked in an office or finance job in corporate America may have come across them.

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Kind of amusing, I didn’t know it was a literal mountain. But sounds like the govt is just a customer. So I’m not sure of Musks point here. I’m sure a lot of people want to streamline processes, but even if processes are digital at some point permanent records still need to be kept and for an entity like the govt those facilities are going to be massive. But “Iron Mountain” isn’t even a govt enterprise, they apparently handle… just about everything? It’s a publicly traded company on the stock exchange, stock ticker IRM.

 

I never fully appreciated what a pathological liar Musk is. I knew he lied about his rise at Tesla, but I did not realize that he lies about absolutely everything. It is either that, or he is one of the stupidest human beings alive.

Either way, Iron Mountain is where the retirement paperwork is STORED, not processed.

 

The processes are pretty inefficient. I filled out my retirement paperwork online, sent it to my HR department so they can fill in some of the items. I then reviewed everything to make sure it is all correct, printed it out. Hand signed it, and then turned it in. They will then mail it (not electronically) to OPM. In a month I will receive my estimated pension amount which will be around 65% of my final pension amount. Then about 6 months after that, once they’ve completed the processing, I’ll get 100% of what I’m owed. It will take a while to improve the timeline, especially with them downsizing OPM

 

What does the place where your paper work is stored have to do with this? If it's true that this is a private company that works with Fortune 1000 companies to do the same thing, then it's highly unlikely it's some great government inefficiency that's going to save us billions. More likely it's a very efficient company that uses an abandoned mine because they got a good deal on a massive storage space.

 

I’m just explaining my actual experience with the process. The mine where the paperwork is stored isn’t a new thing, it’s been there for ages

 

Yeah he is very dumb. Good observation Einstein. “Stupidest”

 

So you mean that your hero loser knew about this for FOUR YEARS and just didn't care about doing anything about it?

It took President Doge flying in from South Africa and rediscovering this mountain, in order to fix it?

#SAD!

 

It's been going on for 60-70 years. That's pretty amazing given the opportunity over the last 20+ years to at least digitize new filings.

 

So why is Musk focusing on the records, rather than the process to fill out more efficiently? Either way, the final permanent record ends up in storage. Digital mediums aren’t always great for permanent storage or archiving of records. Optical drives fail. Hard drives fail. Hackers can change live data.

Maybe he wants to do away with the records. No record, no pension. Sorry ‘bout that.

 

Beats me, guess you’ll have to ask him. Again, I’m just telling you my experience with the process which you can combine with the expertise you have from reading articles on the internet.

 

Musk is trying to cause outrage by lying ... plain and simple. It doesn't appear anything is processed there. Probably has no affect on the time it take to process a pension. But "Musk says maybe we can save a little money by finding a cheaper storage location" isn't the headline he's looking for.

 

I think you are either misunderstanding or misrepresenting what he meant.

It looked like he was saying its not some new big deal like Elon is making it out to be

 

They should move it to that warehouse from Raiders of the Lost Ark, looked to have plenty of above ground storage capability

 

Every job I've ever had contracts with Iron Mountain to store paper documents. You have to be willfully ignorant to believe the intent of this post.