> However, when doing far less critical updates, it's common to set up a test environment, do a dry run of the work, test the roll-back, test the monitoring and alerting, that sort of thing. Doesn't guarantee no outages, and I'm playing armchair QB here, but it seems like a botched job.

Quite possible. The DOGE antics from the early days of the administration applied an indiscriminate flame thrower to govt agencies gutting them without thought or planning. It's not surprising we are seeing critical govt systems start to fail. What's surprising is how long it took for the true extent of the damage to be revealed.

Hopefully, the midterm results will mean greater scrutiny and transparency into DOGE's antics.