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Mar 8, 2022

The First Step -- Admitting You Have A Problem

      A tweet from Social Security:

We are currently having problems with our local offices and 800-Number phone systems. You may experience service issues, including poor call quality, dropped calls, and long wait times. We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience and we appreciate your patience.

15 comments:

  1. If you want to know how America feels, read the comments on the SSA Facebook post announcing the outage. The complaints of poor service are not limited to the attorneys and representatives that read this blog. The American public is fed up.

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    Replies
    1. Than increase SSAs budget so it can hire more workers

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  2. I wish that outrage would be redirected at Congress for starving SSA for so long.

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  3. LIS dropped because SSA said they did not get the information that was faxed twice, mailed three times and dropped off at the office. Prescription for the client came due yesterday, now $700 because of the lack of the LIS that could have been handled in person in less than 15 minutes for someone that has had the EXACT same information for the last 10 years. NOTHING CHANGED BUT THET ARE NOT THERE TO FIX IT CORRECTLY.

    What little tiny bit of respect and empathy I had for agency and its workers is long long long long long gone. I hope they suffer the same fate as the people they have been torturing for 2 years with their ineptitude all because they dont want to dress up and drive to the office like the rest of the country. Please insert all seven dirty words you cannot say on broadcast television here.

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    Replies
    1. Some have dressed and gone in but they didn't have the power to open the office.
      SSA should have reopened ages ago but employees in field offices and payment centers have no say in that, even though some have posted ridiculous ideas about reopening.
      Part of the joy of working for the government is dealing with people like you that blame GPO or WEP on the representatives in the office.

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  4. 2:30pm, why blame the peons at the bottom of the pyramid? Call your congressperson about the budget and staffing.

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  5. I have posted on here before. We had 20 FO workers when I came to my office. Over the years it has dwindled to a fraction on that. After retirements and people quitting during Covid, we had 4 people left and 3 new hires.

    Now we’re down to 3 experienced workers and 2 new hires (one quit already).

    It’s not going to get better when we open back up.

    This just isn’t sustainable.

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  6. @12:08

    Maybe SSA should stop bragging to Congress about how their administrative costs is only 3%.

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  7. Makes you wonder what exactly the agency spent the almost $700 Million of special appropriation money they were given in 2017 towards IT Modernization on?? Not to mention the separate operating funding spent on the new 800 telephone number service. In the private sector this would never be acceptable and the people who were responsible (i.e Executive Management) would be held accountable. Instead here they get accolades and performance bonuses.

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  8. 2:30 While you may have lost respect, I have no respect for people who denigrate SSA workers out of ignorance and jealousy.

    Thousand of lives were saved by having SSA offices closed and no, everyone else has not returned to the office. Many companies have pivoted to 100% remote, and those who have reopened almost all have a hybrid model with some work at home. Get your facts straight.

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  9. 3:38

    While I agree with your first point about not laying blame on lower level SSA employees, your second point is not factually correct. The vast majority of the US economy has returned to in-person work. Just look around in your daily life. Large tech firms and high income white collar firms are not an appropriate comparison to a federal agency with poor IT infrastructure. Also most of those large private firms were never public facing. All firms with a public facing work force have been back to in-person work for over a year now. SSA field offices need to reopen. OHO and non-public facing parts of SSA are a different story.

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  10. I'm suspicious. Is this a Russian hacker job?

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  11. As the Beatles told us so long ago:

    Get back, get back
    Get back to where you once belonged
    Get back, get back (yeah)
    Get back to where you once belonged

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  12. Rumor mill at PC7: SSA scheduled reopening is now in up in the air, uncertain, due to the international crisis and gasoline situation. (This uncertainty may just apply to PSC)

    Keep tuned for the next unconfirmed but likely true info: same time, same station.

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  13. Wow any excuse they can grab. How pathetic.

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