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Stuntcat posted:I really am in Posh Corps. I am unashamed. We have a different set of hardships! I shouldn't speak before I'm in country, but I just learned that there is an Ikea in Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. That kind of puts things in perspective. I'm guessing that PC would probably frown on my decking out my shack with efficient Swedish furniture. The number of friends/family who were iffy about visiting me in the PC suddenly transformed into a tidal wave of interest and enthusiasm when they learned I was going to be in a country with plenty of cheap resorts.
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Feb 22, 2013 19:25
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Just wanted to check in and say that I'm currently going through training in the Dominican Republic, if anyone has questions. For all of the talk in need background in Spanish to qualify for Latin America, there are plenty of people in our cohort who entered with Level 1 Spanish, which is to say, they didn't even know how to say "hola." I'm guessing that they tried to fit people according to their language and experience, but when the deadline is close they fill the remaining slots with who they can, regardless of their language background. There are also a few people in our group who are native Spanish speakers, for what it's worth. I actually feel sort of bad for them, because they don't get to learn a new language here (unless they get a chance to work with speakers of Haitian Kreyol). It hardly matters anyways, because Dominicans speak the craziest Spanish I've ever heard. Even some of the native speakers get really confused here. My wife and I can't wait to get done with training and be living on our own. ~1 month left of training and then 3 months with a host family at site...
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Apr 15, 2013 22:35
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CronoGamer posted:Anyone who thinks PC Mongolia is Posh Corps is either outta their mind or just bitter that they're stuck in sub-saharan Africa. You guys are nuts up there. I´m serving in the Dominican Republic, and during training more than one person explained to us how we had lucked out with our assignment, because "we could have ended up in Peace Corps Mongolia." We like to joke about how we are in Posh Corps here, but the truth is that most sites are pretty rough rides, which I'm sure is the case for the vast majority of volunteers the world over. Some people have fairly sweet setups in apartments in cities with big supermarkets nearby, but most are in living in podunk villages. I think there is always a volunteer who has it better and one who has it worse. On the other hand, when there is electicity, I blend some pretty awesome fruit smoothies (at other times I have to content myself with just eating delicious fruit). And if I have money, within the span of one day I can travel to absurdly beautiful caribean beaches. For the record, we can get horses if we wish, and I'm currently looking into it... because why not? Going price for a lightly-used horse from Haiti seems about $50. Question: Are any of you guys allowed to ride on the back of a motorcycle? We've been told that we are one of the few PC countries that allows it because it tends to be very dangerous, but it wouldn't surprise me if that's not ture. The issue here is that almost everyone travels by motorcylce because it's an island. We are all issued motorcycle helmets and if you're ever caught or reported to not be wearing one, you are immediately kicked out. Just happened to a person in my cohort. I just read that the DR is now ranked the most dangerous country in the world for drivers... mmhmm.
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Sep 17, 2013 21:20
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HAIL-eSATA-n, you should definitely contact Washington about any fuckups on the medical side. Check this email out that we received in my country:quote:From the Medical Office: Slaan posted:And the DR beat out India for world's most dangerous roads? Bon Chance! http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2013/jul/22/dominican-republic-road-safety-law
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Sep 18, 2013 19:22
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Tequila Sunrise posted:I agree that PCMO is mostly worthless. Luckily I don't have a lot of medical problems, but I have friends that do and I know just how little they help. I've had a lot of luck with the PCMO in my country. They are very responsive and caring, and as far as I know other volunteers here feel that way. They definitely err on the side of caution and would rather bring you in for a few days to check things out if they have reasons to suspect there is something wrong with you. Maybe the Caribbean tends to attract and keep better staff than other countries 
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Sep 23, 2013 03:06
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Tequila Sunrise posted:The capital city here just got a Cinnabon AND a KFC. I haven't been to the KFC yet, but I've heard several people tell me that they went there and the guy behind the counter said, "Sorry, we're out of chicken". Poor bastards. Santo Domingo has giant super fancy malls with all of the consumer pleasures and western brands that a PCV could ever desire. Last time my wife and I made the trek to the capital we went to IHOP... and it was as good as we had imagined. Just trying to rub it in here
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Oct 2, 2013 00:29
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Do you guys not have to live with host families when you get to your sites? In the Dominican Republic it's been 3 months (after finishing 10 weeks of training), but they just upped it to FOUR months for the new group. Apparently Washington wanted them to make it 6+ but they bargained them down. It's for security reasons, I'm told, as the robbery/theft situation here is said to be worse than most other countries. I know some countries have mandatory host families for all 27 months. That would suck (but I'm married, so maybe it'd be better for single volunteers). Also: let no spider live, under any circumstances, in your house or next to it. I have a machete exclusively for that purpose (and the cockroaches). Let the lizards have the bugs. I also unload probably a full can of bug poison into my house every two weeks.
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Dec 16, 2013 03:43
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I despised my host family at site. So many reasons to hate them! 7 year old girl they basically treat like a slave (she looks Haitian, so all the more reason to hate her!) and yell at all the time while showering love on their little boys. Constantly trying to impress us by telling us how powerful and influential they are as they construct a nouveau-riche banana republic style mansion, yet we live in a shack and they can't be bothered to fix all of the broken poo poo everywhere in their house. Part of the unfinished roof is open to the rain due to lack of planning and house gets filled with water when it rains. But that's ok, we can just have the Haitian slave child mop the floors for hours! Host dad tried to take me to a strip club (jokingly?) while I was in the car with his wife and him, and his children, asking us how he would order prostitutes in the United States... such terrible people. Any the food was poo poo, too, and served on a very irregular schedule. 9pm? Guess it's time to start boiling water for boiled bananas! Breakfast? No. Any supplies in house? No. Left the house for the day leaving behind the volunteers and the 7 year old slave girl without any food or information? Sure! We'll cook for your kids, you pieces of poo poo. /end host family rant Moved out early with a "married couple exception" that our APCD kind of made up for us. Our host families during training were pretty cool, though.
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Dec 17, 2013 03:04
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People in my town in the Dominican Republic are always asking if I can teach them English or when I am going to start an English class... I always tell them "No/Never." You should teach English if you want to or if it's your primary assignment. Apply this rule applies to everything you do, actually. A lot of volunteers I know seem to do it because they get pressured into it. Find out what's needed and you can handle doing, and then don't worry about doing everything else.
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Jan 10, 2014 22:07
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Monkey Fury posted:and now that you apparently get some say in where you go, it should be even easier to have a better idea of what you're getting yourself into. What?! Is this true? What kind of "say" do you get in the application now? For the record, for those of us in the PC now, you got to select a preference region/s, which you were repeatedly told they were under no obligation to fulfill. There was also a strong vein of "if you have strong preferences about where you want to go, maybe the Peace Corps isn't right for you."
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Mar 28, 2014 00:23
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Back in the USA after my service ending unexpectedly early. Found out that my spouse is pregnant, which has made for interesting life changes in more way than one. Learned the news one day in country and was back home approximately a week later. Things happen quickly, and it's all kind of surreal. I received an "interrupted service" and my spouse a medical separation. An honorable discharge, all in all. The PC pretty much told us to pack our things and be ready to leave ASAP, because it sounds like they don't give you much wiggle room now on pregnancies. Apparently in the past they'd let you stick around a while, depending on the country. Now I think they are more concerned about the liability of something going wrong if you stay at your site. I'm happy to answer questions if anyone has any.
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May 15, 2014 15:24
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N. Senada posted:You were serving with your spouse then, right? Not coming off too strong! I had all of the same questions when we were applying. We were in the same sector so we trained together. We got to see each other all of the time, because we lived together, trained together, studied together, socialized together, etc. We happened to be in the same language classes too, because we were at the same level. If we weren't, we wouldn't have been together for a good number of hours of language training. We were in a small town in the Dominican Republic. My pregnant spouse is in fact a woman. I would say that she was treated pretty well during our service. Women in the DR are subject to a lot of sexual harassment, but it was actually a lot easier for my wife than for single female volunteers. Whenever we were together, it was rare that people would make cat calls or approach her. She still had her fair share, however. (Dominicans aren't particularly faithful or worry too much about whether a person is married.) Although the DR is a sexist/machista country, women are involved in public life and I wouldn't say that her ideas or actions were dismissed or undermined much. I know that it would happen in subtle ways by men in positions of power, but it wasn't like she couldn't get work done. Again, this may have been less of an issue because we were often working together, so it's hard to say how it would have been different if it were just her. Overall, we spent pretty much all of our time working together and otherwise just together. Some married couples seem scared by this prospect and encourage you to spend time apart or pursue separate projects. I think it depends on your own relationship with your spouse. Some people can't handle spending that much time together or don't work well together. We and other PC couples I know work well together and opt to spend as much time together as possible, so it was actually a positive thing for us. I remember being advised by a volunteer to demand separate sectors, or at minimum, separate projects. We ended up with the same sector and project (as did the other married couples in our group), and I don't think this was an issue for us. With that said, we had slightly different focuses in our work due to our different strengths, and we could have pursued different projects had we chosen to. In summary, if you are in the same sector with your spouse, you will probably spend a LOT of time together. This could be super awesome for you or put stress on your relationship, all depending on your particular situation. Similarly, the way a married woman is treated in her work will depend widely on your host country/culture. I think we ended up with a really laid back site in those terms, but I know some people are in cultures where gender relations are really different and less flexible. Thesaurus fucked around with this message at 17:25 on May 15, 2014 |
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May 15, 2014 17:21
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Youth volunteers run lots of youth groups. In training they'll give you a handful of materials for running different groups. Camp GLOW (Chicas Brillantes) and Supermen were two popular programs in my country for girls and boys, respectively. Another one was for teenagers and was mostly about sex stuff and making good decisions. Some people did a sports/AIDs thing, Grassroots Soccer. I was always a little jealous of the youth volunteers, because I felt like we all ended up gravitating to that stuff anyways, and working with youth groups is probably the only sure fire success for most people's service. Since I was in Education/Literacy, I would joke that it was like the youth sector with the fun parts taken out ("Hey kids, let's learn basic literacy!"). All the kids wanted to do was be in a fun club anyways, and you could better convey a lot of the same literacy/education stuff through that informal channel without kids realizing it. Get comfortable embarrassing yourself in front of assorted groups of people. That's basically what PC boils down to.
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Jun 18, 2014 16:44
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huhu posted:Question to couples who met in PC, and maybe married couples as well. What do you guys do for fun? I'm getting a little tired of meeting up in the regional capital and getting a hotel room. Honestly, my wife and I (met before PC) would lay low, watch stuff on our computer, and maybe wander around our podunk town a little and have a beer on weekends. We liked to take long walks through the campo, which was the main form of entertainment. Wish I had a better answer for you--PC can be boring. I imagine it's more so for single volunteers. Since we were in the Dominican Republic, we tried to hit the beach every other weekend or so. We were actually some of the PCVs farthest from the beach, for what it's worth. I think the others were beaching it much more regularly. I know a lot of the single volunteers would have to coordinate their R&R days to meet up, which could get expensive. We had the advantage of always being able to share a cheap hotel room.
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Jul 30, 2014 20:39
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Oh shi.... http://www.cbsnews.com/news/peace-corps-volunteers-in-liberia-isolated-for-ebola-exposure/ Two volunteers quaranteened in Liberia for exposure to Ebola. Volunteers from Libera, Sierrea Leone and Guinea being temporarilly evacuated  Anyone here in those countries?
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Jul 30, 2014 22:15
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Congrats on COSing. Don't forget to take advantage of your non competitive eligibility (if you're interested in those sorts of jobs). I wouldn't have gotten my government job without it. Also check out the RPCV groups wherever you live. The one in my state us cool and huge. Having had to do "interrupted service," I'm always a little sad I didn't get to make it to the COS conference with my cohort. (Still got my rpcv perks, though!) Already thinking about a second tour in a few decades for an early retirement. I wonder what the PC will look like then?
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Sep 10, 2014 15:44
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Tautologicus posted:Thanks for the post. I am slowly getting the impression, which was always my doubt about the Peace Corps actually, that if I don't know how to do anything that I could imagine would be useful to a small village somewhere in the middle of nowhere in the world, there's nothing the Peace Corps is going to supply me with to make me useful to them, like disbursing resources to the village in some way. I have to bring something tangible to the table. I'll either find a way to work on that or withdraw my application. Right now I've got IT and a lot of soft skills, none of which I see being used in the jungle somewhere. Think of your project as a general guideline if what you will spend a part of your time on. The amount of time you spend on it and the projects you pursue will depend in part on your abilities and interests, but more importantly those of your community. Don't get hung up on the idea of a specific project. Maybe you know how to do water projects and see a need for it in your town. Great, but if you can't get people on board with you then you're screwed. Maybe they want a library and you don't know anything about that. I guarantee that you know more than pretty much everyone in your community about how to plan it out and where you might learn more about it and pursue resources via the internet, grants, etc. All I'm saying is don't stress about your project, because that's more of a jumping off point than what determines your service. Also, training will give you a handful of project ideas, probably those that have been successful in the country. They will also give you guidebooks, etc, so don't worry about whether you have a lot of ideas of what you can contribute. Peace Corps is about determined volunteers who know their community's needs, not just placing specialists abroad (that also has its uses, of course). You know what most developing communities struggle with? Preventable illnesses, teen pregnancy, basic education, etc. To solve these problems you don't need an expert, just someone with a base of knowledge who gets out there to teach people. You don't have to be very skilled to teach people the importance of washing their hands with soap or how to prevent HIV or the importance of reading with your children. However, this is the kind of stuff that people often don't know and a PCV can teach successfully. It's not as glamorous as the big projects, but it's very important and within reach. Thesaurus fucked around with this message at 23:17 on Oct 17, 2014 |
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Oct 17, 2014 23:11
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Yeah, it took my wife and I a year and a half between the time we applied and shipped out... Impressed to hear how fast people are going out now. After we submitted our medical stuff we didn't hear a single word for over four months straight, only to be told that we'd need to get more tests.
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Dec 8, 2014 20:46
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Definitely talk to your APCD. They might be able to give you a site transfer or potentially just help you come up with ideas/motivation. I suppose this might vary depending on your administration, but my APCD was super receptive to making changes so that volunteers could thrive. A few people in my cohort moved sites. With 8 months left you don't have as much time, but it's a possibility. Alternatively, just do what you can and take it easy. Don't beat yourself up about it. You're in Panama, I think, so try to take some cool trips or something. Go to the beach if that's possible. My town was kind of a poo poo show. There was stuff to do, but it was a situation where they requested a volunteer for vague reasons of self-importance. They didn't have much interest us us doing work there, so we branched out into different areas and did the work we could (youth groups, latrines, etc). When we were burned out, we took some side trips to the beach (a bonus of being in the Dominican Republic). I would avoid ETing unless you're truly miserable or have a big opporunity on the horizon you need to take advantage of. And if you're miserable, talk to the PC staff first.
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Jan 2, 2015 19:46
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mrgoodtrips posted:A number of job openings were released on the website, but the ones that interest me (Ecuador, Dominican Republic and Panama) have a language requirement that I don't quite meet. My Spanish is rudimentary at best, but I do have two semesters of college credit (albeit nearly ten years ago). I should research Albania and Armenia more. Has anyone been invited or placed in a country that wasn't listed on the website? I was an "educator" (technically Community Literacy Promoter) in the Dominican Republic, and I wouldn't sweat the language requirement too much. In my training group, approximately a third of the recruits spoke basically no Spanish. Some had very bad high school Spanish, and some literally knew nothing (hola/gracias). On the flip side, some people who had studied Spanish for years seemed to be terrible at the language. I was in the middle for my ability--entirely self-taught, so I had a lot of gaps, especially when it came to my colloquial speaking. I don't know how they do the math when signing people up, but I imagine that they sometimes just need to fill slots with people who have generally an appropriate background, and langauge is negotiable. The language training is awesome and will get you up to speed if you have at least an average capacity for language learning. However, beware that Dominican Spanish is about the hardest accent you will encounter. We had some native speakers in our group who were sometimes confused by what Dominicans were saying to them. quote:I'm trying to be flexible and minimize expectations, but if I spend 27 months of my life serving as an educator, I'd like it to be in a place where the people are generally pleasant and the climate isn't oppressively humid. The Dominican people are very pleasant in an outgoing let's-party-and-take-it-easy kind of way. The climate, however, is often oppresively humid and hot (I, however, was in the mountainous part of the country, so I avoided the worst of it). Counter-point: world class beaches everywhere. Thesaurus fucked around with this message at 16:48 on Feb 12, 2015 |
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Feb 12, 2015 16:41
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totempoleman posted:I recently got my invite for Armenia. Slogging through the medical and dental stuff now. Had a dental exam and the dentist signed me off on everything, but he gave me the wrong kind of xrays... Looks like I will need to go back to a different dentist to get another set. I'm sure this is just the first annoying step that medical clearance will throw my way. You probably know this already, but you can find some dentists who will do Peace Corps exams for free. You should still fill out the reimbursement forms for them so they get something, but it's free for you.
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Feb 13, 2015 15:10
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ShaggiusPrime posted:Just a little tip, but there are literally thousands of schools in those countries who would be happy to have a gringo teach English (guessing that's what you would do with PC, since you said you'd be an educator). No English is taught by PCVs in the Dominican Republic. I taught basic literacy skills in Spanish and did community organizing stuff in Spanish. Your point is generally true for people interested in short term stints. For longer term the Peace Corps offers a lot of concrete advantages.
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Feb 15, 2015 04:49
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I got my masters and then joined the Peace corps. In my case the MA was in English literature so it didn't have much to do with my experience, other than that I had a few years of experience teaching college classes. I joined PC because I became disenchanted with the PHD track I was on and wanted to change directions. PC was definitely helpful for that. So, um, do what feels right?
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Feb 16, 2015 17:31
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Any of you poor bastards in Vanuatu? If so, I'm guess you're online right now because it sounds like all of the volunteers were evacuated to Sydney, Australia. Also, Jordan's program was closed. A small one,but I think that just leaves Morocco for Arab countries.
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Mar 18, 2015 14:33
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Are you looking at jobs that request non-competitive eligibility? Check the Peace Corps job board. That's how I got my federal gig. A lot of those jobs you can just directly email your resume etc without having to use USAJobs. I didn't have much luck with the job board, but I got a quick response from the job that I applied to directly with my NCE.
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Apr 16, 2015 15:31
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Slaan posted:I haven't been because most of the job I see show up on there are well below my pay grade. With a Masters, I should be getting a GS-7 or -9 at entry, but most of those are GS-5 or private non-profit positions which pay under 40,000 a year. I have student loans to pay. Yup. I have a master's and I started at a GS-5, which is pretty weak. Promotion potential to 11, however.
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Apr 16, 2015 17:41
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A couple of us had master's degrees, but I think that was more of a random fact than something that got us into our program. I taught during my MA, which is probably why I ended up in education. But I have no idea how the process works now. My understanding is that now you go whereever you want and do whatever you want  The confusion regarding the "recruiter contact" thing above is that it used to be that by the time you actually knew where you were going, you had basically reached the end of the whole process (over a year for me and my wife!) and had been in touch with actual PC HQ humans.
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Jun 2, 2015 03:46
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huhu posted:You both work/live in the same community. Generally in the same sector but we had a couple who worked in two different sectors. I feel like that's about all you need to know?. Married RPCV confirming this statement. You'll be treated more seriously by locals but probably get less free food and invites because you don't seem as helpless. Also, everyone will continuously ask you how many children you have, when you're having children, and why you don't have children yet? If you're a man and your wife leaves your site for a few days for a conference or something, people will come bring you food because they assume you will literally starve to death without a woman to cook for you. Any explanation that you actually know how to and do cook will be ignored. Until the end, if someone saw me put rice in a pot or something they'd be amazed and comment on my hilarious skills. On a related note, I was hosting a trainee at my site for a few days and I discovered that she, a college educated 23 year old, literally had never cooked an egg in a frying pan before and didn't know how to do it, so maybe the locals are onto something... Thesaurus fucked around with this message at 16:33 on Jul 16, 2015 |
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Jul 16, 2015 16:22
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Definitely the PC job board. I managed to get hired for two federal jobs in my one year of NCE (the last one was in the last week of eligibility). Never heard anything from the USAJobs listings I applied to. For the two fed jobs I got, I just emailed my resume directly to the office directors (the top dog and person who makes the hiring decision), and they caled me personally within a week to schedule an interview. It was almost easier than getting hired in the private sector. A couple RPCVs I worked with at my first agency also leveraged their NCE to switch agencies during that year (jumping from an OK job that they could get after getting back to their preferred position). It makes it so much easier for the hiring staff. I'm sure if we had applied a week after NCE expired we would have been screwed, even though we were all obviously qualified either way.
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Nov 11, 2015 16:28
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Has PC returned to any other countries they've evacuated in the recent past? All if the post-Ebola countries, right? I know they make a distinction between temporary withdrawal and shutting down operations entirely. I just always seem to hear "volunteers being evacuated" but when they return it's with less fanfare. Is Myanmar still in the works? Personally, I'd love to see Cuba be brought online, but that's probably not going to happen politically (plus I think the Cubans are much more proud of their development record). I think I initially had the option of Tunisia, but I think that country fizzled out before anything got off the ground due to Arab Spring stuff.
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Aug 26, 2016 20:14
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One advantage of going as a PCV is the bomb rear end free healthcare. Also factor in the free training and ~$7k in relocation pay when you end. There is a monthly stipend to cover stuff, but no, you shouldn't go into PC as a way to make money. It's more of an ideological thing with a lot of perks. Re Senegal: what are regional houses?
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Sep 2, 2016 04:14
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I was estimating that they'd up it again by the time that guy was serving. We didn't have any regional offices in the Dominican Republic, just HQ in the capital. Most volunteers were probably within six hours by bus, though, so no biggie. We needed an official reason to be on the capital if we wanted them to reimburse our overnight. It was just a sanctioned cheap hotel, too--nothing strictly for the volunteers. I think a lot of volunteers would just meet up at other people's places or the beach somewhere if they wanted to connect with people and have some down time.
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Sep 4, 2016 03:39
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In the Dominican Republic (are you there??) when they "consolidated" everyone for some hurricane they just got sent to a nice hotel all expenses paid for several days and it was a huge crazy party. So I guess my advice is to enjoy?
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Oct 2, 2016 03:54
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Dude, adequate bathrooms in general and flush toilets in particular are not the strong suite of the developing world. "Latrines" aka outhouses are pretty much part for the course in a lot of the world. This doesn't mean that you won't have options or that some countries won't be more developed than others, shitter-wise. I dunno, I think it's one of those things that you will probably be adjusted to within a month. I had to throw my dirty TP in a waste basket instead of flushing, which sounds horrific until youve done it for a week and dont think about it anymore. I had a flush toilet but used plenty of Latrines of all levels of classiness. The water would always go out in my country, and when it did it was actually a lot easier to have a latrine because you didn't have to waste valuable stockpiled water on fairly ineffective bucket flushes. I cannot answer any Africa questions... but my feeling has been that the Peace Corps Experience TM us what the NGOs will be mostly interested in. You can also do all sorts of projects on the side to diversify if you'd like. Thesaurus fucked around with this message at 03:44 on Oct 4, 2016 |
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Oct 4, 2016 03:39
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quote:pooping in holes Also, to prep for Peace Corps I recommend that you listen to this song daily. I'm only half joking. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=koUWaAr-itY I thought "pooped in a hole on the reg cred" was half the reason people signed up in the first place?
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Oct 4, 2016 03:49
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Just do it. Being a Peace Corps volunteer isn't about having internet access. Running water and elelectricity are negotiable. Honestly, if having internet is a deal breaker, then the PC probably isn't for you. It's not that you might not have it somewhere, but you are exactly right about needing to prioritize interactions with your community. Even if you live in a total poo poo hole, you'll probably be able to get rudimentary internet at a nearby city or something to get your fix. How did people exist before the internet, electricity, plumbing, or modern appliances? Most people still live that way, and PC allows you to gain at least some insight. Thesaurus fucked around with this message at 06:42 on Nov 30, 2016 |
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Nov 30, 2016 06:19
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I agree. The general advice I received as an applicant was to not tell them anything at all wrong with you during the medical stage because otherwise you'd be plunged into the bureaucratic abyss, perhaps never to emerge. Obvious exceptions are if you will need specific ongoing care in country or for them to provide you with certain medications.
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Feb 3, 2017 05:08
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If you wanted to do something that isn't English teaching, you could get the volunteer experience to qualify for another sector (eg business, agriculture, health, etc) and then give it a go. Unless things have changed, the bar isn't too high, usually a few semesters worth of volunteering in something vaguely related to the area (like organic gardening for agriculture). It would be an adjustment but they basically teach you everything you'd be expected to know. There were always people placed into programs they didn't have any real experience in
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Mar 19, 2017 21:12
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I can't remember if this came up, but if you're an RPCV working in the federal government there are some bureaucratic hacks you can do to potentially get a big advantage on your pension and lower deductions on your paycheck, not to mention creditable seniority for leave accrual. If this is news to anyone, let me know and I'll provide more details.
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Apr 21, 2017 04:17
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| # ¿ May 14, 2024 07:50 |
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Ok, first off: The time you spent in P,C, minus training I think, should automatically have been factored in to your seniority for the purpose of annual leave calculations. So as a brand new fed who completed 27 months of peace corps, you already have two years of seniority. This is big because at the three year mark you get a bump from 4 to 6 hours of leave per pay period. I haven't heard of RPCVs having problems with this part, but it's worth double checking your SF50 to see if they correctly backdated your "leave calculation" date. Second, you can buy back the time you were in PC (excepting training, so post swearing in) for your pension. We didn't have pension contributions deducted from our PC pay, but you can retroactively pay it and get those two years credited towards your retirement. The cool part is that you only contribute a small percentage of your salary, which in our case was basically nothing. I only had to pay back less than $200 or something. This means you could potentially retire two years earlier or with a higher pay out. Since the pension is calculated using your highest three years of earnings (usually the end of your federal career), the super small contributions from PC won't disadvantage you. It's best to buy the time back sooner rather than later because they give you a two year window or something where you don't have to pay extra interest. After that, they can tack on a little bit. I forget the name of the form to use, but your HR would know. It's the same process that post-military people follow to buy back their military time for the pension. Third, and most complicated, you MAY be overpaying for your pension because you were mistakenly placed into the wrong FERS retirement/pension category. This is most likely the case if you started the PC at any point before 2014. The percentage of your pay you contribute to get the pension used to be 0.8% (FERS). In 2013, congress upped it to 3.1% (FERS-RAE). In 2014, they upped it again to 4.4% (FERS-FRAE). These are higher deductions for the SAME pension, because they were trying to make it more solvent. The catch, however, is that the higher deductions only applied to people newly hired by the feds after 2013 and 2014, respecively... In other words: If you were in the Peace Corps BEFORE 2013, then you should only be paying 0.8% towards your pension. If you were in the PC between 2013 and 2014, then you should only be paying 3.1%. This is an issue for any RPCV hired by the feds after 2013. I started PC in 2013 but was hired by the feds after 2014, so I was default contributing 4.4%. I contacted HR with this info and they'd never even heard of this issue. They eventually got me changed to FERS-RAE (3.1%), but it took a year. I did get paid back for approximately two years of over payments. My friends who started PC in 2012 or earlier got the big boost, because the difference is 3.6% of your pay. I only got 1.3%, but I'm still happy to have it. you get this straightened out, its' a pay raise for the rest of your career. My agency's HR made me buy back the time for the pension before they made the change. However, some RPCVs in other agencies didn't have to do it, but you should definitely buy back the time regardless. If you're in a more "RPCV friendly" agency they may already know about this issue and save you some time. Here's a guide to the changed FERS benefits: https://www.fedsmith.com/2014/04/07/fers-fers-rae-fers-frae-what-does-all-this-mean/ I have some official text regarding how the laws apply to RPCVs if anyone gives you a hard time. Thesaurus fucked around with this message at 00:29 on Apr 24, 2017 |
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Apr 24, 2017 00:21
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