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Delorence Fickle posted:I got an offer from USCIS but they wanted to bring me in as a 5 (from a 9) and would not budge so I had to turn that down.
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Jul 13, 2022 23:43
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Dr. Quarex posted:Yeah and my only fellow USCIS wannabe-lifers who have successfully moved from the field to service centers in the past two years have taken grade demotions to get there (one went from 14 to 12!). No wonder me trying to finally get a (permanent) 11 there is not working these days The GS-9 position I'm looking at would be in a field office. Should I reconsider? Or at least not be so excited about it? Dr. Quarex posted:That happened to a friend of mine with a master's degree, and on the surface she got the raw end of the deal since I came in at a 9 with one, but then she made it to 13 in just over 5 years and I had to switch agencies three times to get an 11, so maybe it looks good if you start at 5! You PAID YOUR DUES Huh, this is also helpful to know!
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Jul 13, 2022 23:44
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The background check I'm working on is 33 pages long. I've been licensed to teach children and that was an easier process.
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Jul 14, 2022 00:33
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Dammerung posted:The GS-9 position I'm looking at would be in a field office. Should I reconsider? Or at least not be so excited about it?
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Jul 14, 2022 00:41
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Department is i the top half, component is in the bottom quarter. That sounds about right. Shockingly our "effective leadership" score went up almost 8 points year over year.
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Jul 14, 2022 00:51
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Fell Fire posted:The background check I'm working on is 33 pages long. I've been licensed to teach children and that was an easier process. Woof, I've been there! (Sort of, it was twentyish pages long in my case?) It's a heck of a thing. Dr. Quarex posted:Field office life is something I cannot speak to directly, though second-hand discussions tell me that it is harder but you will objectively be better at the job since you actually interview people, which will help you move up (in theory and usually in practice). That sounds pretty cool! That, and my favorite part of working for FEMA is talking to people. Take that and make it in a stable location where people are less likely to threaten to attack/shoot me and I will be happy as a clam.  Quick edit: For anybody who is considering working for FEMA in Disaster Survivor Assistance, I want to note that those occurrences where my personal safety was threatened were not at all common or frequent! People were stressed out and, in many cases, facing the worst time of their lives. They weren't always nice, I won't sugar coat it, not being a jerk back is a part of the job. Even then, I can only remember three instances in the 200+ days I was working for FEMA (and not just waiting for another deployment/training) where threats were made, and none of them ended with me being harmed. I was, however, bitten by a stray cat, so, uh, don't pat stray cats, especially if the survivors you're working with say the cat frequently bites people. Dammerung fucked around with this message at 01:30 on Jul 14, 2022 |
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Jul 14, 2022 01:22
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280th overall but we beat the average! Our best rank was in Work/Life balance which actually makes sense from my experience. Our Teamwork rank was dogshit though. We didn't breach the 400s at least but it's close Leadership is also poor and a lot of that probably comes down to that we're an agency with 5 locations spread out across the country and like practically every agency, the HQ is in DC while everyone doing the actual production work is in a different state and being one of the few agencies involved in manufacturing anything, let alone something at this scale besides the Bureau of Engraving and Printing, no one in gov't really understands the typical needs and logistics involved unless they've specifically worked for the Mint for a while or have been in private industry doing something similar.
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Jul 14, 2022 01:36
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Fell Fire posted:The background check I'm working on is 33 pages long. I've been licensed to teach children and that was an easier process. You should see some of the finished ones, seen some breach 200 pages.
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Jul 14, 2022 02:34
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Dammerung posted:
The field office I worked in was in the bad part of Detroit so I’m sure that didn’t help with my anxiety. I did learn a lot in a very short time. They had me interviewing right off the bat and giving people their citizenship.
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Jul 14, 2022 04:22
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Beerdeer posted:The field office I worked in was in the bad part of Detroit so I’m sure that didn’t help with my anxiety. I did learn a lot in a very short time. They had me interviewing right off the bat and giving people their citizenship. Oh, that sounds super cool! I mean, not the anxiety, I am sorry about that, but it's super cool that they'll just let you have at it.
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Jul 14, 2022 04:56
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My unit ended up in the top 200. Our dogshit covid/return-to work policies are what tanked us - which absolutely tracks with lived experience. HUD absolutely poo poo the bed on that opportunity and now we're missing out on tons of good people who don't want to move to take positions in DC and there's been a big exodus of folks that onboarded during the pandemic (some in other parts of the country) and don't want move now to go into a mostly empty office one day a week to sit on teams calls. They also rope-a-doped a bunch of people by saying they'd listen to employee demands and we saw the results of their employee consultations and then they did nothing with those results. Maybe this is an opportunity for us to improve though since everyone's gonna look at where we did the worse overall.
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Jul 14, 2022 06:50
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Xelkelvos posted:Our best rank was in Work/Life balance which actually makes sense from my experience.
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Jul 14, 2022 14:28
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I have been acting head of my unit for the last few weeks and will have to do it for another month or so and I'm here to tell you: managing a fedgov budget sucks donkey dicks. I got dropped into doing it at what is probably the worst time of the fiscal year to learn anything but holy poo poo I'm not going to do this for the rest of my career even if it means I never get promoted again.
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Jul 16, 2022 02:41
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Midjack posted:I have been acting head of my unit for the last few weeks and will have to do it for another month or so and I'm here to tell you: managing a fedgov budget sucks donkey dicks. I got dropped into doing it at what is probably the worst time of the fiscal year to learn anything but holy poo poo I'm not going to do this for the rest of my career even if it means I never get promoted again. I’m a budget liaison to folks like you. Yea, the next few months might suck if you still have a lot of money to push out the door. What part don’t you like? Do you have lots of grants and contracts?
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Jul 16, 2022 04:06
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laxbro posted:I’m a budget liaison to folks like you. Yea, the next few months might suck if you still have a lot of money to push out the door. The thing I hate the most is the fact that the spreadsheet pilots constantly gently caress up the data inputs to the central financial tracking database, and everybody knows this but still insists on treating the data like it's holy writ. Also demanding updates on spend rates twice a day while blasting me with requests for estimates on program budgets through 2035 three times a week. gently caress it.
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Jul 16, 2022 04:15
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https://twitter.com/USFWS/status/1547929557986029570
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Jul 16, 2022 04:25
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Midjack posted:The thing I hate the most is the fact that the spreadsheet pilots constantly gently caress up the data inputs to the central financial tracking database, and everybody knows this but still insists on treating the data like it's holy writ. Also demanding updates on spend rates twice a day while blasting me with requests for estimates on program budgets through 2035 three times a week. gently caress it. Ah yea that sounds terrible. I’m fortunate that my agency seems to have sane budget process and tools. In my previous job I very briefly had to do IT investment reporting. It was actually insane. The day my COR cert expired was a very happy day. Never again.
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Jul 16, 2022 14:58
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So funny thing: after an inquiry turned into a research project, it turns out I've been misclassified for 3 years as an FLSA exempt employee. My position description said I was Non-exempt, but when they hired me they inputted it incorrectly in my SF-50. Because I'm so low on the totem pole, my title 5 OT rate is the same as my FLSA rate. Is there anything else I potentially missed out on or should follow up on after being misclassified for so long?
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Jul 17, 2022 09:41
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sparkmaster posted:So funny thing: after an inquiry turned into a research project, it turns out I've been misclassified for 3 years as an FLSA exempt employee. My position description said I was Non-exempt, but when they hired me they inputted it incorrectly in my SF-50. OT for training if you had classes that ran long, OT for travel if you had to do it outside of work hours are two that can be huge.
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Jul 17, 2022 16:12
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I have four more weeks of this ten-week long training that's just been PowerPoint hell and being talked at by a rotation of four people. I can't believe that I'm going to feel relief when I start taking phone calls from angry chuds about their taxes.
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Jul 18, 2022 07:06
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Direct hire / remote job I applied to just closed with 1300 applicants... But a note saying only the first 50 would get sent to the hiring manager. Any way of knowing if I'm part of that 50? Was morning on the first day, so I wouldn't be surprised, but that's a lot of applications.
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Jul 19, 2022 05:27
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You'll likely get an email stating your status soon. Direct hires process faster because I think HR just clears everyone who self-certifies on the questionnaire regardless of the resume. You may also want to check if it says it cuts off at 50 candidates or on the day that 50 candidates are exceeded.
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Jul 19, 2022 11:52
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quote:The first 50 qualified and eligible candidates who applied will be considered for referral to the selecting official. Additional candidates will be referred based on hiring needs and/or Hiring Manager request.
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Jul 19, 2022 12:06
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Sounds like it's in order of application and if none of those meet the hiring manager needs they'll go to further eligibles. I feel like not making the qualified and eligible list for a direct hire is pretty rare though. My impression is as long as you know how to fill out the questionnaire, you'll certify.
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Jul 19, 2022 12:43
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I did my FEVS today and you should, too. It asks a lot of the wrong questions, is haphazardly designed, and really wants to guide you into saying the wrong things, but it's what we have, and I've badgered some coworkers who were reticent into filling it out. I don't know that I'm going to get anywhere with it, but finally we have a Division Director after literal years of vacancy so when she schedules her inevitable folksy, fake 1-on-1 I'm going to have a copy of last year's results pulled up on my screen with some very obvious highlights made.
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Jul 19, 2022 15:40
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Toshimo posted:I did my FEVS today and you should, too. This reminds me of the first "Town Hall" meeting with my agency's new director. Every serious question asked got answered with "We'll look into it". "How are you going to deal with attrition despite having the "best" telework perks in the government? (not anymore)" "Uhh, We'll look into it" Just get ready for that bullshit.
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Jul 19, 2022 16:48
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Delorence Fickle posted:This reminds me of the first "Town Hall" meeting with my agency's new director. Every serious question asked got answered with "We'll look into it". "How are you going to deal with attrition despite having the "best" telework perks in the government? (not anymore)" "Uhh, We'll look into it" Oh, yeah. I've played this game before.
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Jul 19, 2022 17:23
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I got a very random cash award today. No emails or anything, just "a new SF-50 posted". Thank you?
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Jul 19, 2022 17:36
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I'm looking forward to the SESes having a town hall about the FEVS results where they are *shocked* that they score poorly for the nth year in a row despite making zero changes in how they actually do things.
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Jul 19, 2022 18:45
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Endless Mike posted:I'm looking forward to the SESes having a town hall about the FEVS results where they are *shocked* that they score poorly for the nth year in a row despite making zero changes in how they actually do things. We got a lunatic email today about last year's results (why do these take so long to compile that I never see them until the next survey has started?) And how we "maintained" 15th place of 17 agencies like it was somehow a badge of honor.
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Jul 19, 2022 18:55
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Did a different interview with USPTO in mid June but still haven't heard back though I know that the next incoming training group starts in August. Losing a bit of hope on this position which is a shame
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Jul 19, 2022 22:11
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Toshimo posted:I did my FEVS today and you should, too. My agency is absolutely going batshit over getting everyone to fill out this loving thing. I've gotten no less than 20 emails this week and last begging me to fill it out.
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Jul 20, 2022 02:14
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Technically seven years of federal service in and I still have never received an FEVS survey invitation despite loving surveys At least the last two years make sense as I am with new agencies than the previous year
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Jul 20, 2022 02:18
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El Mero Mero posted:My agency is absolutely going batshit over getting everyone to fill out this loving thing. I've gotten no less than 20 emails this week and last begging me to fill it out. Yea I think it look bad to have a low engagement score. But in my experience management generally finds a way to cherry pick the results. "Yea our unit was in the bottom 10th percentile but didn't you notice our raw score increased 8 points from last year?" But I think there's a few telework and work/life balance questions on there so I always complete the FEVS and I always blast them on work/life balance even though my agency does a pretty good job. Can't let them get complacent.
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Jul 20, 2022 02:20
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Toshimo posted:I did my FEVS today and you should, too. I did mine last week. Now that I think of it, I don't think I've ever seen my agency's results for it. Our other office survey last year was never reported on either. PneumonicBook posted:I got a very random cash award today. I've gotten this before too. Asked my supervisor and he said "Just try to fake it when we get around to the awards ceremony "
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Jul 20, 2022 02:40
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I filled out the FEVS today. I'm doing my part!
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Jul 20, 2022 04:19
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El Mero Mero posted:My agency is absolutely going batshit over getting everyone to fill out this loving thing. I've gotten no less than 20 emails this week and last begging me to fill it out. Same, and I have the same reaction every time. I scan the email looking for the phrase “59 minutes” and yeet that poo poo in the trash if I don’t see it. Give me 59 minutes or go to hell. I’m not helping you manufacture the impression that leaders care about these issues and are working to improve them without something tangible in return.
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Jul 20, 2022 06:52
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Justus posted:Same, and I have the same reaction every time. I scan the email looking for the phrase “59 minutes” and yeet that poo poo in the trash if I don’t see it. Give me 59 minutes or go to hell. I’m not helping you manufacture the impression that leaders care about these issues and are working to improve them without something tangible in return. Wut
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Jul 20, 2022 14:10
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Toshimo posted:Wut Ah, I guess 59-minute early release is mostly a DoD thing? Basically, supervisors can grant a 59 minute early holiday any time with fairly little effort because if it’s an hour or longer it requires far more approval and paperwork. In most agencies I’ve worked for, it happens almost automatically the work day before every federal holiday unless there’s a pressing mission need, and my current agency likes to use them as incentives for their pet projects, ie - fill out our agency-level survey and we’ll grant you a 59-minute early release any day of your choosing the week you fill it out. I’m cynical about the surveys, but I’ll do it for treats.
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Jul 20, 2022 14:24
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Justus posted:Ah, I guess 59-minute early release is mostly a DoD thing? Basically, supervisors can grant a 59 minute early holiday any time with fairly little effort because if it’s an hour or longer it requires far more approval and paperwork. In most agencies I’ve worked for, it happens almost automatically the work day before every federal holiday unless there’s a pressing mission need, and my current agency likes to use them as incentives for their pet projects, ie - fill out our agency-level survey and we’ll grant you a 59-minute early release any day of your choosing the week you fill it out. Oh, wild. We just do whatever here because nobody is micromanaging our minutes, so we just do the survey whenever.
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Jul 20, 2022 14:29
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