HUD Reviews

Pros

It had the pros of any other federal job — stable and adequate pay, reasonable and flexible hours, and good benefits

Cons

Where to start… The organization’s leaders were delusional in that they believed that just because something was written in some policy that people would automatically comply with it. Therefore, to try to make things happen, more and more policy would get piled on top of itself. The result was that there was so much “paperwork” that nobody could begin to comprehend it, let alone comply with it. Once, an executive leader was asked if guidance could be developed to help stakeholders comply with some set of requirements. Her response was that they should simply “read the regulations,” as it was all spelled out there. Oh, of course! My opinion is that HUD accomplishes very little, which is sad to admit. I think improving people’s lives would be more likely if the entire HUD budget was just handed to random people in impoverished neighborhoods. Instead, we were paid to check boxes on forms and write long-winded, teethless letters to city officials. Managers were hit-and-miss, mostly miss. The last boss I had was a real doozy. She got enjoyment from publicly humiliating us in staff meetings. An earlier manager didn’t really do anything, aside from scheduling meetings to “discuss policy.” In these meetings, there was no end result, and the same talking points would get rehashed over and over. Other managers were themselves delusional, believing that HUD as a whole was accomplishing great things. They were usually the ones who had been there for decades.