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Dental and optical appointments also work for sick leave, for what that's worth; the various OPM fact sheets are actually really useful here.
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Dec 9, 2020 22:51
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Hey what’s the expectation for how much leave you get annually? I realized that the Army gives a month each year but I’m not sure that I should expect more or less for feds. I was looking for something with 5-6 weeks or ar least being able to negotiate for that.
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Dec 10, 2020 01:31
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White Chocolate posted:Hey what’s the expectation for how much leave you get annually? I realized that the Army gives a month each year but I’m not sure that I should expect more or less for feds. I was looking for something with 5-6 weeks or ar least being able to negotiate for that. Sick: 4hrs per pay period Annual: 0-5.9 years of service: 4hrs per pay period 6-14.9 years of service: 6hrs per pay period + 4hrs at end of year 15+ years of service: 8hrs per pay period So, 13 sick days, 13/20/26 annual days. Where I'm at, this isn't negotiable, to my knowledge.
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Dec 10, 2020 01:37
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Sometimes you can get credit from your other jobs to get into the higher leave categories earlier, but that's about all I've heard of in terms of negotiation. You might be able to start with a balance too, but I've never heard of anyone get that. And I think the OPM guidance is actually 3 years to move from the 4h to 6h categories. https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/leave-administration/fact-sheets/annual-leave/
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Dec 10, 2020 01:43
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I always forget the extra 4 hours. It dropped this week and was a very pleasant surprise.
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Dec 10, 2020 01:55
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Alucard posted:
Ah yeah, it was like a million years ago. My bad.
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Dec 10, 2020 01:56
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Yeah, the cut-offs are 3 and 15 years. Eight hours per pay period seemed like a lot at first, but now I’m convinced that should be the bare minimum for anyone in any job. You actually get sane amounts of time away from work. Service Credit for Annual Leave Accrual (e.g., come on board with credit for three years and start earning 6/pp immediately) is absolutely a thing, but it depends upon how relevant your experience is to the appointment for which you’ve been selected and how badly the agency needs to fill that appointment. If you’re going into a GS-13 or up billet that requires very specialized experience of which you have years you might be in luck! Otherwise it never hurts to ask but you’re likely to be disappointed. All just ime across a few agencies.
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Dec 10, 2020 02:01
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Loucks posted:Yeah, the cut-offs are 3 and 15 years. Eight hours per pay period seemed like a lot at first, but now I’m convinced that should be the bare minimum for anyone in any job. You actually get sane amounts of time away from work. Oh well, I'll hit 3 years in April. Hooray 6 hours/pp!
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Dec 10, 2020 02:15
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I got a tentative offer from the IRS, for “TAX EXAMINING TECHNICIAN, GS, 0592, 06, Step 01”. Should I read that as being GS 6 Step 1, and is 0592 the position’s number? Or is it GS 5?
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Dec 10, 2020 02:28
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Yeah 0592 is "Tax Examining Series" https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/classification-qualifications/classifying-general-schedule-positions/occupationalhandbook.pdf Usually they list it series, grade, step, since I believe that's the order of the boxes on most of the payroll and hr forms
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Dec 10, 2020 02:31
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wolfs posted:I got a tentative offer from the IRS, for “TAX EXAMINING TECHNICIAN, GS, 0592, 06, Step 01”. Should I read that as being GS 6 Step 1, and is 0592 the position’s number? Or is it GS 5? Congrats!
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Dec 10, 2020 03:56
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Yes, that’s a Grade 6.
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Dec 10, 2020 03:59
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Just don't let the IRS return process drive you mad the way it did Discendo Vox. Or do, we can always use the entertainment.
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Dec 10, 2020 03:59
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You don't have to be crazy to work for the IRS; they will train you for that! We also got an extra 2 hours off. Probably should use it before the (potential) shutdown, since a bunch of people lost it in '18 because they had it scheduled for Christmas week, lol.
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Dec 10, 2020 04:26
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On the IRS’ website, under the onboarding section, it says the position is grade 4 - but the email I received and the tentative offer letter pdf say grade 6. Should I ask the HR person who sent it which it is, or wait for a final offer after they get my fingerprints and whatever else?
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Dec 10, 2020 04:27
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wolfs posted:I got a tentative offer from the IRS, for “TAX EXAMINING TECHNICIAN, GS, 0592, 06, Step 01”. Should I read that as being GS 6 Step 1, and is 0592 the position’s number? Or is it GS 5? Is that the one where you're given a stack of forms to process and if you hit a certain amount that counts as your 8 hours? I think one of my OJIs had that position and that they moved it out of Philly
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Dec 10, 2020 05:04
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Thought better of it.
sparkmaster fucked around with this message at 18:48 on Dec 10, 2020 |
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Dec 10, 2020 05:28
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I'm already a federal employee and applying for a new position at another agency and I'm being given a choice between applying as "Competitive Merit Promotion" or under a special hiring authority. I qualify for both, does it matter which I choose? I've never been given the choice like this on a federal application and I can't help but wonder if the special hiring authority doesn't confer some kind of advantage. Try to search for this online just brings up a bunch of fed info sites describing what hiring authorities are, nothing comparing them against each other.
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Dec 10, 2020 06:49
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wolfs posted:On the IRS’ website, under the onboarding section, it says the position is grade 4 - but the email I received and the tentative offer letter pdf say grade 6. Should I ask the HR person who sent it which it is, or wait for a final offer after they get my fingerprints and whatever else? Given discussion earlier in the thread, I believe the correct answer is to print the email and the tentative offer, and then if the final offer matches print that as well and check your SF-50 once you're in training. If your SF-50 doesn't match the final and tentative, you can now bring your printed copies and complaint to HR and you may effectively get a bank error in your favor. If the final doesn't match the tentative, that's a good time to contact the person who sent both about the discrepancy. Your odds may be better than the other case where the final offer was better than the tentative, but be patient and don't expect too much.
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Dec 10, 2020 08:00
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Elem7 posted:I'm already a federal employee and applying for a new position at another agency and I'm being given a choice between applying as "Competitive Merit Promotion" or under a special hiring authority. I qualify for both, does it matter which I choose? I've never been given the choice like this on a federal application and I can't help but wonder if the special hiring authority doesn't confer some kind of advantage. Which authority is it? I'd want to make sure that if I were hired under the special authority that it didn't impact your status as a career candidate. Otherwise, yeah it makes sense to me to go with the special hiring authority as those will often allow supervisors makes direct hire offers and skip competition entirely. Makes 100% sure you qualify for the special authority though. I've seen folks lose jobs because they didn't have the status they thought they did (ie their NCE had expired)
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Dec 10, 2020 08:51
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Despite the myriad of problems my agency's management has, one that I've never run into is being denied leave or being shamed for taking it. There's been one or two times I've had to call into a meeting on a day off and gotten comp time, but that's about the worst of it.
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Dec 10, 2020 15:30
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Loucks posted:Yeah, the cut-offs are 3 and 15 years. Eight hours per pay period seemed like a lot at first, but now I’m convinced that should be the bare minimum for anyone in any job. You actually get sane amounts of time away from work. I’m mostly looking at GS-13 billets so this was very helpful. 
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Dec 10, 2020 15:53
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wolfs posted:On the IRS’ website, under the onboarding section, it says the position is grade 4 - but the email I received and the tentative offer letter pdf say grade 6. Should I ask the HR person who sent it which it is, or wait for a final offer after they get my fingerprints and whatever else? What did the job listing say?
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Dec 10, 2020 16:05
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Also on a lot of jobs where they're on a series, you can get hired at any level in the series depending on experience. I applied for a 5/7/9 and got hired as a 9, while the other trainee in my office got hired as a 7 despite having 10 years in the service to my 5.
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Dec 10, 2020 16:25
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White Chocolate posted:I’m mostly looking at GS-13 billets so this was very helpful. When I got hired they gave me credit for my private sector engineering experience for leave calculation purposes but left out my military service. I had to go back and forth with HR after accepting the TO to get my military service recognized. But when they fixed that they left out my private sector experience. Very frustrating. Just make sure to be very polite but persistent when dealing with onboarding, recruiting, and HR. It will take months or even years but your stuff should get fixed.
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Dec 10, 2020 19:52
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My "bonus" this year is a time off award for ~4 days. I'll take that over the measly (after-tax) cash awards. I would have preferred a Quality Step Increase which my performance rating qualified me for. But QSIs seem to have disappeared with the current administration - at least in my agency.
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Dec 10, 2020 20:40
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Yeah same for us, the higher ups came down and said pretty much no QSIs and SSPs.
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Dec 10, 2020 21:38
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Toshimo posted:In a typical year, if you have more than a couple of days of Use-or-Lose coming into Thanksgiving, you are loving up and need to re-evaluate your life choices. The one saving grace with folks with high use or lose is leave donations. Then again a coworker just loving died with ample amounts of annual and sick leave.
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Dec 10, 2020 22:17
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Delorence Fickle posted:The one saving grace with folks with high use or lose is leave donations. Then again a coworker just loving died with ample amounts of annual and sick leave. 
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Dec 10, 2020 23:35
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Delorence Fickle posted:The one saving grace with folks with high use or lose is leave donations. Then again a coworker just loving died with ample amounts of annual and sick leave.
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Dec 11, 2020 01:19
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We got QSIs in 2019.
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Dec 11, 2020 05:10
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We'll never get QSIs in our office because it's explicitly impossible to get a 5 in interpersonal communication, and you require all 5's to get one. I went to war with my OS over that one year and he basically confessed he had nothing to do with it. The DM and ADM decide how many 5's each person gets, and nobody will ever get all of them.
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Dec 11, 2020 05:39
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I’ve had a similar experience where we were basically told that maxing out performance reviews was impossible. I just told the guy I report to that if the only thing on the table is a few hundred dollars in bonus money it wasn’t worth the effort to try to excel. I think that was when I finally burned out on that position and started to look elsewhere. It’s funny because I used to sign in and genuinely try to do the best I could, but there’s really no point when the only way you can get a raise is through time in grade or taking another appointment. Preventing QSIs is a great way to ensure that the people capable of quality work leave your agency. Guess we’ll see if congress pushes through another pay freeze or manages to figure out a way to slash the benefits I’ve been paying into for so long.
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Dec 11, 2020 14:19
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Loucks posted:I’ve had a similar experience where we were basically told that maxing out performance reviews was impossible. I just told the guy I report to that if the only thing on the table is a few hundred dollars in bonus money it wasn’t worth the effort to try to excel. I think that was when I finally burned out on that position and started to look elsewhere. It’s funny because I used to sign in and genuinely try to do the best I could, but there’s really no point when the only way you can get a raise is through time in grade or taking another appointment. Preventing QSIs is a great way to ensure that the people capable of quality work leave your agency. Yes, exactly this. I got a perfect rating this year for the first time in 5 years. I was expecting a QSI. I read the HR policy on performance awards and QSIs are possible - but the burden is on management to get them. They have to work with the agency's budget office to determine if there are sufficient funds available in the agency budget for a QSI. If I know that I can bust my rear end and get a QSI each year then I will stay in your office and ride my gs-13 up to a gs 13 step 10. Otherwise I'm going to jump ship for the next interesting lateral move that becomes available or try to get my gs-14 faster than I normally would have tried because that's the only way to get a decent salary bump. grenada fucked around with this message at 15:38 on Dec 11, 2020 |
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Dec 11, 2020 14:33
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Wait does that mean I’m a scrub for getting four 3’s and a 4
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Dec 11, 2020 15:52
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It depends, as some offices treat 4.5 like a warning and some treat 3.3 as a sign of hard work
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Dec 11, 2020 16:05
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Seeing as how I built a research buoy out of literal garbage and got a 4 in “equipment maintenance” I’m hoping my center is more toward the “3.3 is good” side of things
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Dec 11, 2020 16:14
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At my previous agency, my office made getting a 5 virtually impossible since the administrative part was supposed to be 3/5 only unless you were admin staff. Which means you could only lose 1 point elsewhere. Meanwhile other offices didn’t have that policy. My current agency does pass/fail.
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Dec 11, 2020 16:17
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I think I told this story in this thread before, but one of my old supervisors believed and was even willing to argue at an all-hands meeting that it was not only impossible but actually illogical for anyone in our office to earn a 5 for customer service, because part of the general employees' job series' duties was skill with interviews, and we did not conduct interviews at our office.
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Dec 11, 2020 16:58
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My entire new hire group was encouraged to write a self review, which was promptly ignored before we all received 3s across the board with the same copy/pasted comments. We all had significant outside experience and accomplished a lot despite having basically no support. I just assumed that reminding new hires they can go gently caress themselves at the end of probation was a customary part of the hiring process. Glad I only had to work for that guy for one year though.
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Dec 11, 2020 17:23
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