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Betazoid posted:Good job, Library of Congress, on finally getting through those applications. I applied on October 19, 2020, and just got called to interview, so literally a full seven months. No wonder everyone says to apply and just forget about it. I DID forget. in theory eventually probably?
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May 19, 2021 17:31
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GD_American posted:If you do it, post details and stories. I volunteered for it but apparently the entire agency's leadership said "lol gently caress that" I decided to go for it and applied, not heard anything yet, but it looks like they do weekly lists and they have to be signed off by the deputy AG so dunno how long all that takes.
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May 20, 2021 16:32
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I want to be excited about this Washingon Post article about how hard the new administration is trying to actually rebuild hiring, but, well, you have to be at least a little cynical to want to be a federal employee please just give me anything permanent at all
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May 21, 2021 23:12
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Betazoid posted:Good job, Library of Congress, on finally getting through those applications. I applied on October 19, 2020, and just got called to interview, so literally a full seven months. No wonder everyone says to apply and just forget about it. I DID forget. I have contacted applicants so long after the joa closed that they assumed I was running some weird scam and yelled at me. Anyway the best way to do federal employment is to script every last bit of routine work without telling anyone and enjoy the newfound free time.
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May 21, 2021 23:21
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Loucks posted:Anyway the best way to do federal employment is to script every last bit of routine work without telling anyone and enjoy the newfound free time.
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May 22, 2021 01:20
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Do you guys actually write scripts? I would love to “automate the boring stuff” with python but I assume I would need OCIO approval to install python.
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May 22, 2021 01:31
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laxbro posted:Do you guys actually write scripts? I would love to “automate the boring stuff” with python but I assume I would need OCIO approval to install python. Powershell comes default in Win10 now. Also, in the old days, we just made Wordperfect macros to do poo poo.
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May 22, 2021 01:33
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Quarex , I know we’re hiring at NSC. It’s all they can talk about.
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May 22, 2021 02:14
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I'm going to try to ride this cybersecurity wave. Sucks how when you apply to literally any position it takes 6-12 months though. Is it weird that the experience they are asking for is really low? Some of these GS-12 openings only need 1yr. They must be desperate. Woof Blitzer fucked around with this message at 03:00 on May 22, 2021 |
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May 22, 2021 02:55
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I'd love to script the worst part of my job (adjustments) away but only if I could do it on paid time away from the phones for a week or three and  that will never happen while I'm still in this line of work. I could spend my weekends on it anyway but I feel distinctly like I'd have more to show for that effort and be more appreciated writing free open source tax software instead. We get one hour of read time per week that I have sometimes used for something like this but I hit a point where I'd either need a stupid proliferation of magic numbers or reread up on somewhat complicated math to come up with a proper formula for the part I got stuck at and... when was the last time I had an adjustment call about PTC again? Maybe I should just read up on the week's CERS reports instead, it'll suck less.
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May 22, 2021 03:06
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laxbro posted:Do you guys actually write scripts? I would love to “automate the boring stuff” with python but I assume I would need OCIO approval to install python. I use python, java, and even occasionally perl all the time.
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May 22, 2021 03:13
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laxbro posted:Do you guys actually write scripts? I would love to “automate the boring stuff” with python but I assume I would need OCIO approval to install python. Batch files baby. 
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May 22, 2021 03:19
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saintonan posted:and even occasionally perl all the time. Gross
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May 22, 2021 03:19
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Ignatius M. Meen posted:when was the last time I had an adjustment call about PTC again? Wait, does AM not get calls about PTC all the time? I would have assumed you did given how many problems with it we see in SP. I guess the 8962 is just scary enough that taxpayers accept the numbers we spit out?
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May 22, 2021 03:35
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saintonan posted:I use python, java, and even occasionally perl all the time. Did you just go to python.org and install it? Or did you have to submit a ticket to justify it. All I want to do it automate pulling data out of 100s of individual excel files submitted by grantees and populating a “master” excel file with all of the data. I’d love to automate some basic data quality checks as well. Currently my colleagues populate it manually and it always has sooo many errors when I look at it. It looks like powershell has an excel module so I’ll check that out first!
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May 22, 2021 03:50
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laxbro posted:Did you just go to python.org and install it? Or did you have to submit a ticket to justify it. All I want to do it automate pulling data out of 100s of individual excel files submitted by grantees and populating a “master” excel file with all of the data. I’d love to automate some basic data quality checks as well. It's installed as part of a larger COTS package on my RHEL7/8 systems. My Win10 systems have local whitelisted python installs.
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May 22, 2021 04:02
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Antivehicular posted:Wait, does AM not get calls about PTC all the time? I would have assumed you did given how many problems with it we see in SP. I guess the 8962 is just scary enough that taxpayers accept the numbers we spit out? We get calls about problems with them all the time, but they basically go "what's this letter about?" or "where's my refund?" more often than "I sent in my form 1095-A and 8962 months ago, where's my refund?" and those are both way more often than "uhhhh this refund is smaller than it should be/I owe when I should have got a refund, what gives?" actually leading to adjusting PTC as opposed to a million other things. Which is good, it means that people are getting their stuff fixed correctly or at least not in a way they follow up with us later on at least a decent amount of the time, but does mean that I don't handle specifically adjustments nearly as often as just telling people "yeah, stuff was missing on your return, yeah your preparer/Turbotax/etc. messed up when they said you didn't need that form, the center's backed up due to virus stuff so we don't know when you'll get your refund". Ignatius M. Meen fucked around with this message at 04:36 on May 22, 2021 |
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May 22, 2021 04:33
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Ignatius M. Meen posted:We get calls about problems with them all the time, but they basically go "what's this letter about?" or "where's my refund?" more often than "I sent in my form 1095-A and 8962 months ago, where's my refund?" and those are both way more often than "uhhhh this refund is smaller than it should be/I owe when I should have got a refund, what gives?" actually leading to adjusting PTC as opposed to a million other things. Which is good, it means that people are getting their stuff fixed correctly or at least not in a way they follow up with us later on at least a decent amount of the time, but does mean that I don't handle specifically adjustments nearly as often as just telling people "yeah, stuff was missing on your return, yeah your preparer/Turbotax/etc. messed up when they said you didn't need that form, the center's backed up due to virus stuff so we don't know when you'll get your refund". Also, "Please don't send your return again; it will just make things worse" or "No, there is no one you can talk to expedite return processing"
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May 22, 2021 06:27
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Xelkelvos posted:Also, "Please don't send your return again; it will just make things worse" or "No, there is no one you can talk to expedite return processing" I have loved the cases that have resulted from the COVID mail backlog about as much as I love sitting on cacti. People in the service centers, please, please, please get those 2020 returns done so I can start telling people they can resend their returns again.
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May 22, 2021 07:24
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We're working on it It's... gonna be a while
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May 22, 2021 07:45
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laxbro posted:Did you just go to python.org and install it? Or did you have to submit a ticket to justify it. All I want to do it automate pulling data out of 100s of individual excel files submitted by grantees and populating a “master” excel file with all of the data. I’d love to automate some basic data quality checks as well. What, you don't want to write an excel macro? 
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May 22, 2021 12:09
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Can you negotiate in-grade steps during hiring?
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May 22, 2021 22:16
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Beerdeer posted:Quarex , I know we’re hiring at NSC. It’s all they can talk about.
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May 22, 2021 22:32
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Woof Blitzer posted:Can you negotiate in-grade steps during hiring? Absolutely. We bring people on at Step 10 fairly often because we can't reclassify the grade on a position, but we have to offer enough to get them in.
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May 22, 2021 22:32
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Dr. Quarex posted:I always heard it was a remarkably pleasant place to work. But so far I have only seen USCIS internal postings there. Though I guess they could have posted an ISO-1 opening that I did not see; I would rather burn through every penny of my savings than risk being stuck at a GS-9 for another five years so I am only searching for 10s and up All the internal-only postings at USCIS make me insane. We're severely understaffed across the board, and every time you fill a vacancy with an internal transfer, you're just robbing Peter to pay Paul.
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May 23, 2021 17:26
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Lady Bureaucrazy posted:All the internal-only postings at USCIS make me insane. We're severely understaffed across the board, and every time you fill a vacancy with an internal transfer, you're just robbing Peter to pay Paul. It is fine, I will patiently wait here with my two simultaneous federal jobs (leaving me somehow unemployed regardless) until USCIS gets its head back in the game
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May 23, 2021 18:26
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Lady Bureaucrazy posted:All the internal-only postings at USCIS make me insane. We're severely understaffed across the board, and every time you fill a vacancy with an internal transfer, you're just robbing Peter to pay Paul. Same at my workplace, except we detail people around, which is somehow even worse. You can't backfill detailers, so you end up with subordinates picking up the slack while their bosses are in some other role. Heck, we have a handful of positions that are essentially detail only. They haven't filled them in years and pretty much exist to give people a shot at GSbig pay for 90 days.
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May 23, 2021 21:30
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Lady Bureaucrazy posted:All the internal-only postings at USCIS make me insane. We're severely understaffed across the board, and every time you fill a vacancy with an internal transfer, you're just robbing Peter to pay Paul. One of the IRS IT divisions did a big hiring a while back that resulted in a net increase of -1 people on the payroll. A lot of execs were very embarrassed by that one.
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May 24, 2021 02:53
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Lady Bureaucrazy posted:All the internal-only postings at USCIS make me insane. We're severely understaffed across the board, and every time you fill a vacancy with an internal transfer, you're just robbing Peter to pay Paul. I applied for that Refugee Officer posting if it makes you feel (somewhat) better. I doubt I'll get it, but I'll apply anyways and let them tell me no. sparkmaster posted:Same at my workplace, except we detail people around, which is somehow even worse. You can't backfill detailers, so you end up with subordinates picking up the slack while their bosses are in some other role. Heck, we have a handful of positions that are essentially detail only. They haven't filled them in years and pretty much exist to give people a shot at GSbig pay for 90 days. Yeah, every day I get the emails about detail positions all throughout my agency but nobody wants to do them and that's even with the temporary pay bump.
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May 24, 2021 03:17
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Delorence Fickle posted:Yeah, every day I get the emails about detail positions all throughout my agency but nobody wants to do them and that's even with the temporary pay bump.
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May 24, 2021 03:47
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lol I doubt my office will ever hire another reservist again. One of our CSRs, who hired in a year before me, has probably about three years less in the office than me because she kept volunteering to get activated to get away from the office. And right as we're critically understaffed in our Title 2 (disability/retirement) section, a Naval reservist in there goes on extended military leave
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May 24, 2021 14:49
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Does anyone have experience with the Pathways program, firsthand or otherwise? I recently accepted a ladder position at a new Agency. Technically, this is for a 1-year term appointment under Pathways. From reading the regs, these can be converted to career appointments but can also be a term appointment or the Pathways length can be extended since the budget doesn't fall under their FTE allotment. Basically, I'm worried about not having a chair when the music stops, such as being terminated the day prior with the only appeal avenue being EEO (Not warranted in this case, just stating the fact). While you technically can be terminated for no reason, there should be some sort of performance or conduct warning giving some indicator of issues. My mid-point review went well with a mix of meets or exceeds expectations, I have weekly check-ins with my supervisor, and seem to be working well with the team. My supervisor overall seems pretty transparent but obviously, there are things management cannot share with employees. Since I know this is a management issue, I've only lightly broached the question with a response of "Our goal is for you to learn as much as you can but we have to see if you're a good fit for the Agency and we're a good fit for you, so I can't guarantee anything", and I haven't pushed it from there. I think I'm just being paranoid especially due to the fact that all of my previous experience was in HR and saw all the dirty details from the other side of the curtain.
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May 24, 2021 22:42
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Of the pathway interns we have the only ones who don't get offered a perm seat are ones who have background issues, like credit, past employment issues, misconduct, etc. But we also don't have a whole lot of them so ymmv.
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May 24, 2021 23:27
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EconOutlines posted:Does anyone have experience with the Pathways program, firsthand or otherwise? In my agency the pathways interns are usually brought on as a gs-5, given a term for 3 years and made permanent after that. Sounds like a poo poo deal but the people you’d be competing with for a normal slot have masters degrees and a slew of field experience. People regularly take a 40% pay cut to work here for some reason, so in that regard the pathways program still was worth it. Extra points to whoever can guess which underfunded, non-regulatory scientific agency I work for
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May 25, 2021 13:38
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USGS?
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May 25, 2021 13:57
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Knocked it out of the park Edit: I should mention that, despite the odd hiring practices and low pay, I absolutely love it here and work with some top tier scientists
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May 25, 2021 14:00
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App13 posted:I absolutely love it here and work with some top tier scientists This is all I can think of: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoy4_h7Pb3M&feature=youtu.be
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May 25, 2021 14:16
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I hired pathways folks a couple of times in USDA. The goal was always to keep them, but there was a nice jettison mechanism built into the program for those who didn't do well. I overall hated the program because it narrowed my applicant pool by a lot.
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May 25, 2021 14:28
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App13 posted:Knocked it out of the park Everyone I know there seems to really love it. 
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May 25, 2021 17:41
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When I started with the gov, I was FCIP, which was similar. Half of USCIS was at one point until we all converted en masse. I’ve never seen anyone not convert.
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May 25, 2021 17:52
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