I wouldn’t tell my worst enemy to take a job with this agency, and plan to leave soon myself if management doesn’t get off the pot and start facing reality. Management must be high as kites if they think I’ll stick around when I can do the same job at BVA and get better pay as well as the freedom to move outside the 120-mile radius of the office I haven’t even had to set foot in for three years now.
I've been with the Agency a long time. It used to be a great place to work, we were encouraged to really focus on the needs of the claimants and the employees had much better labor contracts. Something started changing around 2000 and it has gotten steadily worse. I blame it on the focus on automation and numbers because management no longer cares as long as we make our numbers and automation is what facilitates that focus. There was also an increase in really riding the employees, dishonest management actions and the rise of a LMR mindset never to settle, never to admit that managers could be wrong and to purposefully go after employees who advocated for change. The Agency I started working for was so much better but now puts numbers over claimants and treats its employees like shxt.
Totally agree it's been about 20 years in the making. I used to have walk in days as a CR where I'd have 2 people. I could work my claims vs answering phones or doing SR work because the other employees were capable and could handle their jobs. There was time to discuss difficult claims. The priorities were paying claimants and getting DIB claims to DDS timely. Now any spare moment is spent doing other people's work. When I get my evaluation at the end of the year it's based on my work, the work I rarely get time to work. Problems include poor training (online), management with no idea what the agency priorities are( not CDRs and overpayments), hiring only veterans (some are great but the pool is too small) and policies that encourage trainees to leave so soon. 40 years ago it was rare for a CR to quit. Some transferred or were promoted. Now, it's less common to have a trainee stay 5 years than have them leave before 2 years.
voted yes ,,10:34 got it right our brightest and best new hire transferred to Border patrol after 18 months. Young man now riding horses at the Border !! SSA has served me well for many, many years, but it is shell of its former self. Biggest culprit in my mind is online/ virtual training of new hires. You cannot learn how to interview by looking at a screen!
Really confuses me that so many of you are apparently voting “yes” even though you don’t actually think this agency is a worthwhile place to work. Did you not understand the question?
I wouldn’t wish this job as a CS on anyone…friend, relative, enemy…no one. The current climate of the against and the completely inadequate training is just not worth it.
As a 20+ year PC employee, telework is the only motivating factor that keeps me working work. If telework is decreased or axed again, I won't be giving a damn if the work is done or not. I'm giving up. Ride it out until retirement in a few years, attempt to jump to another agency with telework or private industry, if I get that desperate. As the person said above, this agency is filled with "useless managers". In my 20+ years, I've seen incompetent employees promoted to become incompetent managers (and most all had relatives in upper management). In other words, workers who couldn't do the work are now in charge of it.
Unfortunately that is all too common. The promote the most useless employees in the field offices into management because they can’t fire them. It’s demoralizing.
I was an ALJ (and made my "goals," btw) and I wouldn't go back to any job in SSA for twice the money. Absolutely the worst and least professional place I have ever worked. Run my intellectually challenged, incompetent, spiteful, numpties. I left for another federal agency and couldn't be happier. Should have done it years sooner.
I think this question should be clarified to say “would you recommend someone working in the field or a PSC/TSC. I am in my 30’s and started in the field right out of grad school and it was tough. I worked in the ADO for a short time, and then did 6 years in a regional office before taking a spot at HQ. My time in the RO and HQ is so vastly different than the FO experience and it’s sad that operations has turned into this. I genuinely am not stressed and have time for my family. The field is is rewarding but isn’t worth the stress when you have a family. My point is, if positions outside the front lines are not so bad, then the issue is and always has been with operations and the DCO management. I’m curious if any other non-field or non-operations employees feel the same way.
Field offices are run by AFGE. It should be no surprise field office employees are miserable. If AFGE would stop protecting poor performers and get out of the way, field office morale would improve overnight. Instead we have a commissioner whose mission is to further empower all things AFGE. No chance this way of thinking will lead to improvement. If AFGE we're sincere about making things better, they would stop thug behavior from their representatives. Bad employees need to go. Instead they are protected. Yuck.
Puhleeze. So tired of hearing this myth of poor performers, outside of management. The truth is, if the agency is able to hire and retain good people, it's just training, adequate support and a decent work life balance. Unions have less and less power to do anything against this right wing BS. Meanwhile, the agency is drowning in useless managers and management support
I wonder how many of you loving your jobs in HQ, RO, OHO, etc would feel the same way if your telework days were decreased or eliminated?
Even after Saul had Grace Kim cut telework for operations employees, RO employees in my region got some of there telework days reinstated.
Operations employees (FO, PSC, TSC) are the backbone of this agency. They do the actual work (process claims, answer phones, etc), but are treated the worst. FO employees really catch the hell.
On December 30, 2022 Grace Kim sent a DCO Broadcast email to all employees stating that OPM would be soliciting employees to participate in a survey or focus group for "Human Capital Management at SSA". As of today, I have not heard of a single operations employee (at least in my PSC) being solicited to participate. Wonder why that is?
Hi, OHO decision writer here (not 9:39 but also happy with my job). I'd be perfectly fine with reduced telework. I'd be miffed if they eliminated it altogether, but not so miffed that I'd threaten to leave.
It's very different, though, because my job involves zero public contact (aside from CEO calls).
Glad you’re having a good time. As for me, a reversion back to in-office work would be the final straw. I’m beyond sick and tired of doing more and more work year after year to cover for the laziness of others in the agency being paid far more than me to do work they aren’t even pretending to do. If not for the full-time telework and my own belief in the agency’s mission, I’d already be gone.
I voted yes, but that's because I work in DCS. All the other components are nightmares and I wouldn't move to them for any type of promotion or enticement. As a member of systems, I do my best to support the other components to the best of my ability, but there's nothing I can do about their staff shortages, ridiculously out of date applications, and horrible management chains. I help where I can though.
Well, according to my manager, the agency has finally rescinded early out retirements this year and now has active hiring authority to add over 8,000 employees this FY. He, of course, wouldn't tell me how many of those positions are designated as management positions....
I, of course (being a rehired annuitant who has no fear of him) told him I'll believe it when I see it. I also pointed out that he personally hasn't hired a single person in the last 5 years that lasted over 24 months before quitting. A couple of them didn't even make it through training and one even didn't even bother to show up to get fingerprints done for the criminal background check.
For some reason, he took offense to this as an affront to his superior management skills (I wonder why?) and stomped off to his office like a child throwing a temper tantrum.
I really should just resign and go back to retirement but the public deserves to have at least one person in the office who knows the job and will try to help them to resolve their issues. God knows none of my coworkers (most of whom are SSI) have any intention of learning it. I can't even get them to properly complete the Title II claims they take....
@1:18 this is 9:46. I’m not disagreeing with you. When I was in the RO we lost telework under Saul before it was generously restored to one day per pay period. But even without telework the environment is so much better. I’m certainly glad the RO got it back during the pandemic and I’m also thankful HQ has it. But again here is my main point. The issue is the way operations is treated. I met Grace Kim in the RO. She seems nice and is very intelligent but could make better choices for the morale and retention of field office employees. Until there are more competent, trained CS and CSR, it will still be miserable as management doubles down on the hard workers to try to make impossible quotas. DCO leaders and OPSOS should be looking for every possible way to build up the morale and percs of the frontlines. We all realize you are the most important and also the most overburdened. Increasing telework where possible, bringing back the vision plan, offering time off awards for high performance, adjusting QSIs are all things that could help but haven’t been tried.
I'm not a DW, but management support. HOMS if you're familiar with the office hierarchy. To be honest, I could probably live with leaving the house a bit more often than I do. I don't want to, but I also wouldn't quit either.
I'm afraid that the morale ship in field operations has sailed, and then management sunk it with a torpedo in the Mariannas Trench before dropping depth charges on it to ensure that it wouldn't come back.
Nothing management does at this point is going to regain the trust that you lost with field operations employees. Absolutely nothing.
The management people will eat it up, but then again most of them are morons who don't have a clue as to exactly how their employees process workloads. I don't know a single one of them in our office that I'd even trust to direct traffic at the front reception window. If it ain't on a WAC list, they don't know 'nuthin bout it.
Things are never going back to anywhere close to where they were before because we have learned the hard way that we can't trust you or your bosses or your underlings and their good 'ole boy management network in any way. Combine that with how generally worthless AFGE is as an organization, and you get us to the point where we are now.
All the really good field employees I know (i.e. the ones you want to retain at all cost because they know how to do the job and are good at it) are absolutely disgusted at the way they have been (and continue to be) treated and are actively working to leave the agency. I personally know almost 20 in my area alone that were heartbroken to find out early outs wouldn't be offered this year (they had actually gone so far as getting together back in December in groups to help each other complete their retirement packages in hopes they would be offered again). Our cluster management team treated the one rehired annuitant they managed convince to come back so badly that he has told me already has his resignation prepared and will submit it this later this year after less than 2 years back on the job. Which will be absolutely awful for us, because this is a guy with a college math degree who literally knows just about EVERYTHING there is to know about Title II. All because of a supervisor whose sole ability to work for SSA is predicated on his limited ability to (sometimes) be able to interpet a WAC list.
You talk about how nice Grace Kim is, but niceness doesn't correspond to trustworthiness . She didn't hesitate to backstab every single one of us in the field to protect her career once that entitled idiot Saul became commissioner. Typical lawyer behavior. And, because of that, we won't and don't believe any words that come out of her mouth because we know she won't hesitate to do it again in the future if it strikes her fancy. Heck, I don't even bother to read anything sent out with her name (or the names of any members of management above my cluster management, for that matter) on it anymore.
Maybe you can salvage something with the new hires, though given SSA's recent inability to retain its hires I'm not holding my breath.
No, it's one mess of an agency. While we have Management, we have 0 leadership.
For those hoping to transfer to another component or another agency, think again. Not without the blessing of management will they sign off to let you go. Our office has lost 30% of out staff to retirements since Covid. We are finally able to post vacancies, nobody applies. At least no one qualifies who does apply. We offer some workloads for overtime and no one signs up to work it.
I have my time in this summer so I'll be gone, too.
I started as a CA right out of college. Casework is obviously the heart and soul of the agency, but I personally found the work repetitive and mind-numbing. I was miserable and considering going back to college and/or switching careers. Fortunately, I was selected for a position in HQ after just a few years, and it has worked out beautifully for me. I know how lucky I am when I say this, but I'm honestly happy with my job--interesting and complex work, easy-going coworkers and supervisor.
I know my experience isn't a common one, but still. I'm not sure how many other jobs offer even the potential to catapult a recent grad from a GS-7 to a GS-14 in just 10 years. And at the end of the day, I think the Social Security & SSI programs are some of our country's brightest accomplishments. I'm proud to support the mission.
So yes, I'd strongly recommend that a friend accept a position with SSA. With one big caveat: Only if they live in the Baltimore area. I wouldn't have lasted with the agency if I had to keep doing casework for my entire career. Even though HQ is starting to offer remote positions, I'm not sure there's a ton of potential for upward mobility (or even just taking on a different type of work!) if you're working in another part of the country.
I used to love working at SSA and enjoyed coming to work everyday. Now, my gentle spirit, as it approaches the workday, arrives broken and battered.
They may have called Astrue a tyrant but he was focused on SSA’s mission, getting the appropriate funding, and making sure we had competent and capable leadership. Now, we are as listless and rudderless as the Andrea Doria.
We cared about what we were doing, we enjoyed what we were doing, and most importantly we knew what we were doing.
SSA went from being in the Top 10 of places to work to the bottom of the list. Instead of management effectively addressing it, they engage in the genesis of work workgroups, newsletters, screensavers, and challenge coins. Yet, the exodus continues in great numbers, however those in high tower continue to ignore and revelations.
I’d rather chew broke glass and wash it down with some hemlock than recommend this Agency. It is telling that some areas of SSA HQ couldn’t even get 5 people to go to a recruitment fair. I guess they couldn’t tell a lie.
No one has commented from a DDS. I work in a DDS, and I would absolutely NOT recommend my job. Production goals that cannot be met, zero morale, poor leadership with no communication- it's a nightmare. We don't have a lot of public interaction, and telework is decided by the state, not federal. But it's completely unrealistic to degrade us for how a claim has been in the office when it sat in an office backlog for OVER 365 days. That's right- our backlog is over a year. But Heaven help you if your claim is over 60 days without action. Never mind my 180 claim caseload. Please tell me how to get one of those RO/HQ jobs. The stress is unbelievable and intolerable.
9:18 To each his own.. I too was hired as a CA (now CS) right out of college. I don't find casework repetitive or mind numbing at all. Every case is different. It is challenging to apply complex laws and regulations, such as the different state rules about workers compensation. Plus a feeling of accomplishment to be helping individual claimants, rather than sitting in meetings all day.
Payment center CS overtime is just about always there for he taking. With overtime I make as much as a GS-14. .
I can be my own boss in this CS job. I like working independently.
I haven't applied for anything else in 23 years and I plan on doing this CS job until I retire.
I started at OHO, which was ODAR at the time, at the end of FY10 and the very end of a decision writer hiring blitz. Aside from the AFGE newsletter bemoaning all the attorneys hired for decision writing (as opposed to simply elevating every FKA SCT/LSCT into the "paralegal" position), I felt very good about the Agency.
My first six years or so we're golden. I really took to the job and excelled without trying too hard, but even folks who weren't as built for the solitary, plodding nature of the work did fine if they actually tried. We got two weeks of in person training to start, and in my office at least we had plenty of mentoring and starting slow to get going.
I always remember one colleague who started with SSA as like a GS-2 file clerk straight out of some high school pipeline program up in NY in the early 80s. She talked a lot about how that HS pipeline program was very rigorous and there was still a robust exam they had to pass before becoming a CS or whatever that entry level FO job was back then, with more robust tests for each promotion. They focused on training and bringing people along so that they could actually help people no matter how unusual or complex their issues.
Now FO new hire training is virtual, short, and a joke; the real training is all OTJ.
You wonder why things are so bad in the Operations field? It's because SSA's various benefits are exceedingly complex and there are literally years worth of learning and resultant knowledge required for an FO person to be able to independently handle 95% of what might come their way in a given month (and know who/where to go to handle that pesky very unusual 5%) without a ton of research or wasting a lot of experienced old timers' time. This coworker, the long time operations rock star who came to ODAR? She could go off the dome on literally anything you could ask her about and only rarely needed to consult with POMS or the regs or whatever and only for a detail or two. And she'd be the first one to tell you she wasn't particularly great compared to her old Operations colleagues. They were all very competent.
Operations is not keeping nearly enough new employees nearly long enough (let alone providing the hefty up front and continuing training and time to actually work through the hard stuff) to ever sniff that level of competency across its FO employees and it never will for a lot of reasons. Unless they can somehow automate things such that the FO employees only have to type in a few pieces of clear, objective data to process things, it's going to be a dwindling class of competent older folks and a never ending quickly churning crop of newbies who only rarely get to 25% competency before they're gone.
The field is toast, it would take wholesale rebuilding of the new workforce, and the Agency doesn't have the money to allow for that even if it did have the management to actually pull it off (it doesn't).
Leadership leads by example by giving themselves full time telework while employees and managers go into the office. The new commish has no clue how OHO works so she turned it over to Gruber’s right hand crony - a glad hander who is keeping a grin on his face and pushing nice communication rather than manager/employee accountability (better to have everyone like you than worry about public service). Managers have had a lot dumped on them during the pandemic and now have no help from leadership. Most Employees are struggling with an employer who has no benchmarks or goals for them to meet - public service is an afterthought despite blow hard messages from leadership… SSA needs a clean sweep at the top, then maybe managers and employees might have some respect for leaders…instead of people who pretend to be their friends because they ask you to call them by their first name…
SSA has the most ignorant people as managers- no wonder SSA is in such trouble. The managers have no idea what the employees that supposedly work for them actually does. I don’t know how it can be corrected since the idiocy comes from the top. I will say this - if someone wants a job to do NOTHING and get paid then this is the place for you. If you have any integrity then go somewhere else- integrity is not what SSA management is looking for. It’s pathetic that the government allows this behavior.
I don't know whether I would recommend or not. An employee has demonstrably done no work in the past 5 years and management seems to be uncomfortable taking the logical next step.
I wouldn’t tell my worst enemy to take a job with this agency, and plan to leave soon myself if management doesn’t get off the pot and start facing reality. Management must be high as kites if they think I’ll stick around when I can do the same job at BVA and get better pay as well as the freedom to move outside the 120-mile radius of the office I haven’t even had to set foot in for three years now.
ReplyDeleteVoted yes, they are a desperate agency, get in get hired and transfer immediately to another agency.
ReplyDeleteCan't recommend this agency. Miserable workplace for everyone, except for its incompetent leadership and layers of useless managers
ReplyDeleteI've been with the Agency a long time. It used to be a great place to work, we were encouraged to really focus on the needs of the claimants and the employees had much better labor contracts. Something started changing around 2000 and it has gotten steadily worse. I blame it on the focus on automation and numbers because management no longer cares as long as we make our numbers and automation is what facilitates that focus. There was also an increase in really riding the employees, dishonest management actions and the rise of a LMR mindset never to settle, never to admit that managers could be wrong and to purposefully go after employees who advocated for change. The Agency I started working for was so much better but now puts numbers over claimants and treats its employees like shxt.
ReplyDeleteTotally agree it's been about 20 years in the making. I used to have walk in days as a CR where I'd have 2 people. I could work my claims vs answering phones or doing SR work because the other employees were capable and could handle their jobs. There was time to discuss difficult claims. The priorities were paying claimants and getting DIB claims to DDS timely.
DeleteNow any spare moment is spent doing other people's work. When I get my evaluation at the end of the year it's based on my work, the work I rarely get time to work.
Problems include poor training (online), management with no idea what the agency priorities are( not CDRs and overpayments), hiring only veterans (some are great but the pool is too small) and policies that encourage trainees to leave so soon.
40 years ago it was rare for a CR to quit. Some transferred or were promoted. Now, it's less common to have a trainee stay 5 years than have them leave before 2 years.
I concur!!!
Delete
ReplyDeleteI voted yes. I'm in a SSA Congressional unit and I get treated well by management.
Little pressure for production as they want the Congressional cases to be be worked correctly. (Even if it takes a long time)
Also I get to stay home and telework 4 days per week. All in all, I love my job and find it challenging and fulfilling.
If I were in a FO I may feel differently.
voted yes ,,10:34 got it right our brightest and best new hire transferred to Border patrol after 18 months. Young man now riding horses at the Border !! SSA has served me well for many, many years, but it is shell of its former self. Biggest culprit in my mind is online/ virtual training of new hires. You cannot learn how to interview by looking at a screen!
ReplyDeleteReally confuses me that so many of you are apparently voting “yes” even though you don’t actually think this agency is a worthwhile place to work. Did you not understand the question?
DeleteI wouldn’t wish this job as a CS on anyone…friend, relative, enemy…no one. The current climate of the against and the completely inadequate training is just not worth it.
ReplyDeleteAs a 20+ year PC employee, telework is the only motivating factor that keeps me working work. If telework is decreased or axed again, I won't be giving a damn if the work is done or not. I'm giving up. Ride it out until retirement in a few years, attempt to jump to another agency with telework or private industry, if I get that desperate. As the person said above, this agency is filled with "useless managers". In my 20+ years, I've seen incompetent employees promoted to become incompetent managers (and most all had relatives in upper management). In other words, workers who couldn't do the work are now in charge of it.
ReplyDeleteUnfortunately that is all too common. The promote the most useless employees in the field offices into management because they can’t fire them. It’s demoralizing.
DeleteI was an ALJ (and made my "goals," btw) and I wouldn't go back to any job in SSA for twice the money. Absolutely the worst and least professional place I have ever worked. Run my intellectually challenged, incompetent, spiteful, numpties. I left for another federal agency and couldn't be happier. Should have done it years sooner.
ReplyDeleteI think this question should be clarified to say “would you recommend someone working in the field or a PSC/TSC. I am in my 30’s and started in the field right out of grad school and it was tough. I worked in the ADO for a short time, and then did 6 years in a regional office before taking a spot at HQ. My time in the RO and HQ is so vastly different than the FO experience and it’s sad that operations has turned into this. I genuinely am not stressed and have time for my family. The field is is rewarding but isn’t worth the stress when you have a family. My point is, if positions outside the front lines are not so bad, then the issue is and always has been with operations and the DCO management. I’m curious if any other non-field or non-operations employees feel the same way.
ReplyDeleteCompletely agree. I did 6 years in the FO, and then went to the RO. The RO is a great place to work. Nothing like the FO.
DeleteField offices are run by AFGE. It should be no surprise field office employees are miserable. If AFGE would stop protecting poor performers and get out of the way, field office morale would improve overnight. Instead we have a commissioner whose mission is to further empower all things AFGE. No chance this way of thinking will lead to improvement. If AFGE we're sincere about making things better, they would stop thug behavior from their representatives. Bad employees need to go. Instead they are protected. Yuck.
ReplyDeletePuhleeze. So tired of hearing this myth of poor performers, outside of management. The truth is, if the agency is able to hire and retain good people, it's just training, adequate support and a decent work life balance. Unions have less and less power to do anything against this right wing BS. Meanwhile, the agency is drowning in useless managers and management support
DeleteLove my GS-12 OHO job. Pretty broad brush here.
ReplyDeleteI wonder how many of you loving your jobs in HQ, RO, OHO, etc would feel the same way if your telework days were decreased or eliminated?
ReplyDeleteEven after Saul had Grace Kim cut telework for operations employees, RO employees in my region got some of there telework days reinstated.
Operations employees (FO, PSC, TSC) are the backbone of this agency. They do the actual work (process claims, answer phones, etc), but are treated the worst. FO employees really catch the hell.
On December 30, 2022 Grace Kim sent a DCO Broadcast email to all employees stating that OPM would be soliciting employees to participate in a survey or focus group for "Human Capital Management at SSA". As of today, I have not heard of a single operations employee (at least in my PSC) being solicited to participate. Wonder why that is?
Hi, OHO decision writer here (not 9:39 but also happy with my job). I'd be perfectly fine with reduced telework. I'd be miffed if they eliminated it altogether, but not so miffed that I'd threaten to leave.
DeleteIt's very different, though, because my job involves zero public contact (aside from CEO calls).
Glad you’re having a good time. As for me, a reversion back to in-office work would be the final straw. I’m beyond sick and tired of doing more and more work year after year to cover for the laziness of others in the agency being paid far more than me to do work they aren’t even pretending to do. If not for the full-time telework and my own belief in the agency’s mission, I’d already be gone.
DeleteI voted yes, but that's because I work in DCS. All the other components are nightmares and I wouldn't move to them for any type of promotion or enticement. As a member of systems, I do my best to support the other components to the best of my ability, but there's nothing I can do about their staff shortages, ridiculously out of date applications, and horrible management chains. I help where I can though.
ReplyDeleteWell, according to my manager, the agency has finally rescinded early out retirements this year and now has active hiring authority to add over 8,000 employees this FY. He, of course, wouldn't tell me how many of those positions are designated as management positions....
ReplyDeleteI, of course (being a rehired annuitant who has no fear of him) told him I'll believe it when I see it. I also pointed out that he personally hasn't hired a single person in the last 5 years that lasted over 24 months before quitting. A couple of them didn't even make it through training and one even didn't even bother to show up to get fingerprints done for the criminal background check.
For some reason, he took offense to this as an affront to his superior management skills (I wonder why?) and stomped off to his office like a child throwing a temper tantrum.
I really should just resign and go back to retirement but the public deserves to have at least one person in the office who knows the job and will try to help them to resolve their issues. God knows none of my coworkers (most of whom are SSI) have any intention of learning it. I can't even get them to properly complete the Title II claims they take....
@1:18 this is 9:46. I’m not disagreeing with you. When I was in the RO we lost telework under Saul before it was generously restored to one day per pay period. But even without telework the environment is so much better. I’m certainly glad the RO got it back during the pandemic and I’m also thankful HQ has it. But again here is my main point. The issue is the way operations is treated. I met Grace Kim in the RO. She seems nice and is very intelligent but could make better choices for the morale and retention of field office employees. Until there are more competent, trained CS and CSR, it will still be miserable as management doubles down on the hard workers to try to make impossible quotas. DCO leaders and OPSOS should be looking for every possible way to build up the morale and percs of the frontlines. We all realize you are the most important and also the most overburdened. Increasing telework where possible, bringing back the vision plan, offering time off awards for high performance, adjusting QSIs are all things that could help but haven’t been tried.
ReplyDelete@ 8:44
ReplyDeleteI'm not a DW, but management support. HOMS if you're familiar with the office hierarchy. To be honest, I could probably live with leaving the house a bit more often than I do. I don't want to, but I also wouldn't quit either.
11:08am,
ReplyDeleteI'm afraid that the morale ship in field operations has sailed, and then management sunk it with a torpedo in the Mariannas Trench before dropping depth charges on it to ensure that it wouldn't come back.
Nothing management does at this point is going to regain the trust that you lost with field operations employees. Absolutely nothing.
The management people will eat it up, but then again most of them are morons who don't have a clue as to exactly how their employees process workloads. I don't know a single one of them in our office that I'd even trust to direct traffic at the front reception window. If it ain't on a WAC list, they don't know 'nuthin bout it.
Things are never going back to anywhere close to where they were before because we have learned the hard way that we can't trust you or your bosses or your underlings and their good 'ole boy management network in any way. Combine that with how generally worthless AFGE is as an organization, and you get us to the point where we are now.
All the really good field employees I know (i.e. the ones you want to retain at all cost because they know how to do the job and are good at it) are absolutely disgusted at the way they have been (and continue to be) treated and are actively working to leave the agency. I personally know almost 20 in my area alone that were heartbroken to find out early outs wouldn't be offered this year (they had actually gone so far as getting together back in December in groups to help each other complete their retirement packages in hopes they would be offered again). Our cluster management team treated the one rehired annuitant they managed convince to come back so badly that he has told me already has his resignation prepared and will submit it this later this year after less than 2 years back on the job. Which will be absolutely awful for us, because this is a guy with a college math degree who literally knows just about EVERYTHING there is to know about Title II. All because of a supervisor whose sole ability to work for SSA is predicated on his limited ability to (sometimes) be able to interpet a WAC list.
You talk about how nice Grace Kim is, but niceness doesn't correspond to trustworthiness . She didn't hesitate to backstab every single one of us in the field to protect her career once that entitled idiot Saul became commissioner. Typical lawyer behavior. And, because of that, we won't and don't believe any words that come out of her mouth because we know she won't hesitate to do it again in the future if it strikes her fancy. Heck, I don't even bother to read anything sent out with her name (or the names of any members of management above my cluster management, for that matter) on it anymore.
Maybe you can salvage something with the new hires, though given SSA's recent inability to retain its hires I'm not holding my breath.
No, it's one mess of an agency. While we have Management, we have 0 leadership.
ReplyDeleteFor those hoping to transfer to another component or another agency, think again. Not without the blessing of management will they sign off to let you go. Our office has lost 30% of out staff to retirements since Covid. We are finally able to post vacancies, nobody applies. At least no one qualifies who does apply. We offer some workloads for overtime and no one signs up to work it.
I have my time in this summer so I'll be gone, too.
I started as a CA right out of college. Casework is obviously the heart and soul of the agency, but I personally found the work repetitive and mind-numbing. I was miserable and considering going back to college and/or switching careers. Fortunately, I was selected for a position in HQ after just a few years, and it has worked out beautifully for me. I know how lucky I am when I say this, but I'm honestly happy with my job--interesting and complex work, easy-going coworkers and supervisor.
ReplyDeleteI know my experience isn't a common one, but still. I'm not sure how many other jobs offer even the potential to catapult a recent grad from a GS-7 to a GS-14 in just 10 years. And at the end of the day, I think the Social Security & SSI programs are some of our country's brightest accomplishments. I'm proud to support the mission.
So yes, I'd strongly recommend that a friend accept a position with SSA. With one big caveat: Only if they live in the Baltimore area. I wouldn't have lasted with the agency if I had to keep doing casework for my entire career. Even though HQ is starting to offer remote positions, I'm not sure there's a ton of potential for upward mobility (or even just taking on a different type of work!) if you're working in another part of the country.
I used to love working at SSA and enjoyed coming to work everyday. Now, my gentle spirit, as it approaches the workday, arrives broken and battered.
ReplyDeleteThey may have called Astrue a tyrant but he was focused on SSA’s mission, getting the appropriate funding, and making sure we had competent and capable leadership. Now, we are as listless and rudderless as the Andrea Doria.
We cared about what we were doing, we enjoyed what we were doing, and most importantly we knew what we were doing.
SSA went from being in the Top 10 of places to work to the bottom of the list. Instead of management effectively addressing it, they engage in the genesis of work workgroups, newsletters, screensavers, and challenge coins. Yet, the exodus continues in great numbers, however those in high tower continue to ignore and revelations.
I’d rather chew broke glass and wash it down with some hemlock than recommend this Agency. It is telling that some areas of SSA HQ couldn’t even get 5 people to go to a recruitment fair. I guess they couldn’t tell a lie.
Now, we all pray for Deliverance!!
No one has commented from a DDS. I work in a DDS, and I would absolutely NOT recommend my job. Production goals that cannot be met, zero morale, poor leadership with no communication- it's a nightmare. We don't have a lot of public interaction, and telework is decided by the state, not federal. But it's completely unrealistic to degrade us for how a claim has been in the office when it sat in an office backlog for OVER 365 days. That's right- our backlog is over a year. But Heaven help you if your claim is over 60 days without action. Never mind my 180 claim caseload.
ReplyDeletePlease tell me how to get one of those RO/HQ jobs. The stress is unbelievable and intolerable.
ReplyDelete9:18 To each his own.. I too was hired as a CA (now CS) right out of college. I don't find casework repetitive or mind numbing at all. Every case is different. It is challenging to apply complex laws and regulations, such as the different state rules about workers compensation. Plus a feeling of accomplishment to be helping individual claimants, rather than sitting in meetings all day.
Payment center CS overtime is just about always there for he taking. With overtime I
make as much as a GS-14. .
I can be my own boss in this CS job. I like working independently.
I haven't applied for anything else in 23 years and I plan on doing this CS job until I retire.
I started at OHO, which was ODAR at the time, at the end of FY10 and the very end of a decision writer hiring blitz. Aside from the AFGE newsletter bemoaning all the attorneys hired for decision writing (as opposed to simply elevating every FKA SCT/LSCT into the "paralegal" position), I felt very good about the Agency.
ReplyDeleteMy first six years or so we're golden. I really took to the job and excelled without trying too hard, but even folks who weren't as built for the solitary, plodding nature of the work did fine if they actually tried. We got two weeks of in person training to start, and in my office at least we had plenty of mentoring and starting slow to get going.
I always remember one colleague who started with SSA as like a GS-2 file clerk straight out of some high school pipeline program up in NY in the early 80s. She talked a lot about how that HS pipeline program was very rigorous and there was still a robust exam they had to pass before becoming a CS or whatever that entry level FO job was back then, with more robust tests for each promotion. They focused on training and bringing people along so that they could actually help people no matter how unusual or complex their issues.
Now FO new hire training is virtual, short, and a joke; the real training is all OTJ.
You wonder why things are so bad in the Operations field? It's because SSA's various benefits are exceedingly complex and there are literally years worth of learning and resultant knowledge required for an FO person to be able to independently handle 95% of what might come their way in a given month (and know who/where to go to handle that pesky very unusual 5%) without a ton of research or wasting a lot of experienced old timers' time. This coworker, the long time operations rock star who came to ODAR? She could go off the dome on literally anything you could ask her about and only rarely needed to consult with POMS or the regs or whatever and only for a detail or two. And she'd be the first one to tell you she wasn't particularly great compared to her old Operations colleagues. They were all very competent.
Operations is not keeping nearly enough new employees nearly long enough (let alone providing the hefty up front and continuing training and time to actually work through the hard stuff) to ever sniff that level of competency across its FO employees and it never will for a lot of reasons. Unless they can somehow automate things such that the FO employees only have to type in a few pieces of clear, objective data to process things, it's going to be a dwindling class of competent older folks and a never ending quickly churning crop of newbies who only rarely get to 25% competency before they're gone.
The field is toast, it would take wholesale rebuilding of the new workforce, and the Agency doesn't have the money to allow for that even if it did have the management to actually pull it off (it doesn't).
Leadership leads by example by giving themselves full time telework while employees and managers go into the office. The new commish has no clue how OHO works so she turned it over to Gruber’s right hand crony - a glad hander who is keeping a grin on his face and pushing nice communication rather than manager/employee accountability (better to have everyone like you than worry about public service). Managers have had a lot dumped on them during the pandemic and now have no help from leadership. Most Employees are struggling with an employer who has no benchmarks or goals for them to meet - public service is an afterthought despite blow hard messages from leadership… SSA needs a clean sweep at the top, then maybe managers and employees might have some respect for leaders…instead of people who pretend to be their friends because they ask you to call them by their first name…
ReplyDeleteSSA has the most ignorant people as managers- no wonder SSA is in such trouble. The managers have no idea what the employees that supposedly work for them actually does. I don’t know how it can be corrected since the idiocy comes from the top.
ReplyDeleteI will say this - if someone wants a job to do NOTHING and get paid then this is the place for you. If you have any integrity then go somewhere else- integrity is not what SSA management is looking for. It’s pathetic that the government allows this behavior.
I don't know whether I would recommend or not. An employee has demonstrably done no work in the past 5 years and management seems to be uncomfortable taking the logical next step.
ReplyDelete