The U.S. Federal Government Jobs Megathread: Next time... be more careful!

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > The U.S. Federal Government Jobs Megathread: Next time... be more careful!

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

GD_American posted:

It's the Corps of Engineers, so at least that's better than (shudder) the liason at where I work now. Good god, imagine being the person who deals with Congressionals full-time as your job at SSA.

We had 2-3 people that did nothing but handle congressional inquiry cases at the DDS I was at, and lol those poor folks didn't get paid nearly enough. Maybe 45-50k at most.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2021 03:38

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# ¿ May 5, 2024 01:48

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

GD_American posted:

I'm not hugely a fan of the customer contact part of my job (especially now with the phone overload paralyzing our daily work), but I'd take this over a DDS job 10 times out of 10. In my state, they're paid about 60% of that.

Yeah, a not insignificant portion of our staff was impacted by the state minimum wage hike (in Florida). 45-50 was about the very top end for examiners, because the people doing inquiries were long time folks.

I'd never in a million years new able to do an examiner's job though, holy poo poo. Luckily I'm in systems.

# ¿ Oct 16, 2021 07:14

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

semi important to note that most of the dental plans have a yearly cap on the amount they will cover, and there's only a few that don't have that. I think Humana's epo was one of the uncapped ones.

# ¿ Dec 10, 2021 18:45

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

Howard Phillips posted:

So what are the secrets to helping my dad get SSA disability?

Being old.

(Literally not even joking, over 55 the allowance rate is far higher because it's considered impractical to re-train for a different job if your disability prevents you from doing your current job).

fe: another tidbit that I looked up while I was at a state DDS is that cases that were represented by an attorney both took longer and had lower allowance rates, so, can't say if that's correlation (People who know they have more marginal cases get lawyers) or causation (Lawyers piss off examiners and drag things out to get a larger back dated payday), but don't necessarily head straight for an attorney maybe? I was not an examiner, just a systems database nerd.

Gwaihir fucked around with this message at 00:35 on Jan 19, 2022

# ¿ Jan 19, 2022 00:28

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

Yeah, all of that. We also saw people that I guess true to put a good face on what they could do when interviewing or filling out activity of daily living forms. Like. Don't overstate what you can do! That's the reason you're here, is because you can't do stuff, and if you say you can do all (these things), well, you can get a job that requires (these things)

# ¿ Jan 19, 2022 00:49

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

GD_American posted:

Those "please apply for this job" emails we get that's usually for poo poo like Alaska or Idaho, where relocation expenses are authorized? I got one today for 2 OS jobs open in the Pensacola, FL field office. I asked around as to why in the gently caress they were so desperate for managers, and all I got was a lot of "bad vibes in that office" but nothing specific.

Would explain why we're getting so much of their overflow phone traffic.

This is funny, I used to be with the Florida DDS and our office in Pensacola was also miserable for turnover thanks to a crazy office manager too. Must be something in the water over and above normal FL levels of baseline crazy.

# ¿ Feb 16, 2022 07:17

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

Leon Sumbitches posted:

I applied for an OMB job on 2/1, the day before the job application period closed. I have an e-mail saying they've received the app, but no further communication. According to USAJobs they are still reviewing applications.

How long does this process last? According to a timeline I saw, they should have finished the application review w/in 4 weeks. Do they alert people if they're not going to move forward in the process, or is it like the private sector where you just have to read into the prolonged silence that you've been rejected?

My current job was one I applied for on July 4th. Got an email notifying me of referral to the hiring manager on August 23rd, and an offer of employment on September 16th. I have since heard from my current boss that our division HR rep is terrible at their job, so, maybe that is a bit of an outlier in terms of time taken, but there's one data point for you.

# ¿ Mar 21, 2022 15:32

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

We had to re-do our "normal" telework paperwork for post March 30th, but they're letting us stick with 5 days a week of it, so effectively no difference really. :confuoot:

# ¿ Mar 25, 2022 02:56

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

Endless Mike posted:

Separating home and work became much easier when I moved into a house with my now-wife so we could have a whole room as an office. It was definitely harder to do when I was living alone in a one-bedroom apartment, so I certainly understand the problem. The minor downside is I have almost zero interest in PC gaming anymore since I don't want to sit at my desk during my free time, but given video card prices, this isn't that big a deal.

This was a huge issue for me, too, before I got a new place with space for separate office desk. I used to have my PC desk in my bedroom and just got absolutely sick of being in the same spot for so long, and it definitely killed my interest in gaming to a large degree as well.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2022 02:33

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

IDK if it's just the new site or if I've been feeding it something odd but I can't get anything other than this after going through the last step of choosing a username and password.

Site just goes totally blank. Guess I'll just keep trying it and maybe eventually something works!

# ¿ Jun 3, 2022 05:26

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

The new one is so loving bad. It's unreal. I had to call (and wait for 2 hours..) to confirm that they're actually processing my rollover because there's literally nowhere on the site to see confirmation of documents that you've sent them, what the status is, if there were problems with them, etc. Absolute trashfire design.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2022 18:41

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

GD_American posted:

Lol my component is 392 out of like 417. Our OIG is buck naked last.

big lols that absolutely no one wants to work for our internal snitches division.

# ¿ Jul 13, 2022 19:51

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

GD_American posted:

Kinda funny I never noticed but yeah the only people OIG ever seem to arrest are employees

It's really funny drilling down to the sub categories:

Satisfaction with supervisor: 85%
Satisfaction with senior management: 20%

# ¿ Jul 13, 2022 23:13

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

heated game moment posted:

There are many, many reasons that could happen yeah. A brief summary of the massive dysfunction in hiring going on at my agency right now:

-The new contract says we (management) only has to interview a person once per announcement. However, our business unit is broken up into areas each with their own interview panels and selecting officials as they have independent management chains. They put multiple PODs/areas on a single announcement, which has resulted in an absolute nightmare where if someone applies to more than one area, we have to figure it out and plan who will interview the applicant and then 'share notes' instead of interviewing the person who might have applied to your office, as they only get 1 interview. In practice this means if you get interviewed for the first area to claim you and they want you then that's where you will go, otherwise you are probably not getting hired anywhere. In the past you'd interview for each area and they would make an independent decision. In my opinion it is deeply unfair to both parties and I have no idea why the union agreed to it, or management even wanted it. Naturally, even deciding who will interview for which location has required spreadsheets and many, many emails for something that was never relevant before.

-The personnel function is so backed up that we don't have direct contact with them and they won't respond to us. Instead, we have a business unit point of contact, who communicates it to like 6 other people, who then communicate it to another middleman, who then supposedly communicates it to personnel. There is no accountability at all to the system so if something doesn't work all I can do is send an email to start another chain going.

-Due to the complicated system and like 20 people involved in the process after I make a selection, it's taking 3-6 months or more to bring people on as an INTERNAL hire. Previously this was handled by an email.

-Many of the announcements were opened and then canceled due to errors in the posting on USA Jobs

-The education/experience requirements for our primary technical position, which ranges from a grade 9 to a grade 14 but does completely different things at each level, is written such that we have vastly over/under qualified people in the applicant pools. No one seems to have the ability or inclination to fix it

-It's rare we will ever pull an external cert because if a veteran applies to a position we have to hire them 99% of the time no matter how unqualified they are. They can technically be bypassed if its egregious enough but it takes a lot of work and goes up like 3-4 levels of management - not entirely unheard of but very uncommon. The order goes internal, external veteran, external everyone else. There's probably less than 10% chance we request external at all instead of just doing a non-selection if no one we want to hire makes the list. Last year, a veteran applied to every single announcement location in the country and tied the process up for weeks on end since we had to get their written declination for each one. This is besides the fact that we are put in a position to have to hire someone who is almost guaranteed to fail at the job.

-Due to the above, if you are a highly qualified external applicant who doesn't have a veteran's preference the chances I'll ever even see your name are slim to none. Even if we do get the external list, if there are too many names on it we might just non-select instead of doing interviews, because if we do 1 interview we have to interview everyone which is incredibly time consuming if we are only interested in 1 or 2 candidates (this also applies to internal lists but there are usually only 4-5 names so not as big of a deal).

Also, regarding making the BQ list in the first place.

Candidate A works on my team and is a known quantity. They are a great worker and very technically proficient, and clearly ready to move up to the next level. Candidate A is also very honest and when faced with a choice where it could be misinterpreted as dishonesty or exaggeration, will always choose to be more conservative and be on the safe side so as not to 'over-sell' themselves. Has a 4.6+ rating.

Candidate B works elsewhere - could be another business unit entirely with no experience in the job. But, they are very aggressive when it comes to checking those boxes on the application and figure the more the merrier, even if they haven't actually performed the function or duty being asked about on the application. Also has a 4.6+ rating.

In this situation, Candidate A is probably not making the BQ list because there are a lot more Candidate Bs, and who can blame them? We aren't allowed to ask questions about their responses! So, in such a case we might interview and then non-select because Candidate B will probably have an awful interview anyways. And the whole process starts over. I can't tell you how many times I have had good employees call me in tears because they didn't make the BQ and have no idea why, but then I look and some random person who doesn't even work in our business unit did.

dang do you work with us at ssa too????
(For real though, good post)

# ¿ Jul 28, 2022 16:39

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

Not for us in SSA office of systems at least. We've been 100% at home for the last few years. A few folks in my division come in to the office every other Wednesday for a big stack of meetings, but that's optional.

# ¿ Feb 2, 2023 22:34

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

Cowslips Warren posted:

What is a gs05? Military rank?

Fed employee positions fall in to the GS rating system which is a fancy way of saying "Pay-band". There's nothing military about it in terms of like "A GS5 has to take orders from a GS7". It's just a salary table:
https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/23Tables/html/DCB.aspx

# ¿ Mar 17, 2023 14:57

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

Yeah, I don't even have an assigned desk. My branch just has a couple clusters of cubes and a conference room that gets used every couple weeks when a bunch of our tech 14s pile all their meetings in to one day.

# ¿ Apr 2, 2023 02:52

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

Nothing in there was "we're pouring everyone in the office 50% per pay period."

It's a lot of extra bureaucratic speak for evaluating performance metrics to balance operational performance, customer service satisfaction poo poo and recruiting and retention ability. An extension of what's already being done, at least in my office.

# ¿ Apr 13, 2023 23:15

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

We got an email this afternoon that was basically "we've already been doing this stuff, nothing is changing from current status quo"

# ¿ Apr 15, 2023 06:59

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

Sacrist65 posted:

Interviewed for a GS-11 role last week. It went okay. I'm a little light on the experience so I won't be phased if it doesn't come through, but how long does it typically take before I am notified of the result?

My current position, that I've been in since August '22, still shows up on USAjobs as "reviewing applicants" and I never actually got an official email from HR about it. (It was an internal posting and I found out I got it via my current manager going "so buddy guess you're leaving us, eh?").

HR is a gently caress.

# ¿ Jun 23, 2023 17:13

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

I was able to postpone my start date because I was trying to arrange for moving, etc. I'd be surprised if it's a deal breaker after how long literally everything else in hiring takes. I think the only thing that has really been an issue is places that are trying to get hires locked down before the end of the fiscal year, but that probably doesn't even matter so long as you've already signed paperwork before then. .

# ¿ Jul 10, 2023 18:42

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

wolfs posted:

FEMA sent me an iPhone 12 to replace my agency issued iPhone XR, vaguely wondering if I’ll get a 14 in another year or something. Maybe the budget version of the 14 if one exists by that point.

XR was 2018, 12 is from 2020, i onboarded Q1 2021…

I already had to send back my original Dell laptop for another (worse, non touchscreen, larger, slower - but newer production) Dell laptop earlier this year..

e: I vaguely recall in a big component meeting maybe a year ago that getting iPads was a possibility. I really hope we don’t. Charging cord management is terrible.

My work phone is an iPhone 7 lmao

# ¿ Sep 6, 2023 02:02

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

Nick Soapdish posted:

Hey goons, I just received a tentative offer for GS-11 step 1. I'm not a current federal employee but will be buying back military time. Is it possible to negotiate a higher step or should I just be happy I got the offer. Thanks!

If they won't do a step (very possible that since it's the end of the FFY they have a hard limit on that) you could try getting your past service time credited towards leave accumulation (to start at like 6 hours per pay period instead of 4).

# ¿ Sep 15, 2023 20:13

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

Midjack posted:

Different role with better upward mobility opportunities, same pay.

This, getting out of a dead end division.

# ¿ Sep 22, 2023 00:24

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

GD_American posted:

I'm trying to picture the 13% of SSA they did furlough. Do-nothing non-supe 14s in Baltimore that said "yeah lay me off I need boat time"?

I think it's mostly like, development staff in systems- I'm in ODIS and we only have 5-6 people out of our whole division that are expected to stay on working.

# ¿ Sep 23, 2023 20:22

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

Same for SSA, they're forcing everyone back 2-3 days minimum depending on component, I guess what was supposed to be a union agreement through 2025 still ultimately ended up being "until some political appointee wanted to look good to Congressional shitheads."

# ¿ Feb 15, 2024 23:00

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# ¿ May 5, 2024 01:48

Gwaihir: Dec 8, 2009; Hair Elf

No one really wants to hear the details about the latest stomach bug you picked up, just stick with "out sick/not feeling well" imo. I had a couple people in my last office that felt like they had to explain on the phone, at length, the depths and severity of every one of their various ailments and it's just like, buddy, no one needs to know that, just tell me you're gonna be out and out the time on your timesheet.

# ¿ Apr 17, 2024 13:58

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Ask/Tell > Business, Finance, and Careers > The U.S. Federal Government Jobs Megathread: Next time... be more careful!