Social Security's front line employees often complain that high level agency managers don't understand problems in the field, that no one listens to them. Whatever else you think of him, Martin O'Malley is getting out into the field. I'm attaching some photos posted on Twitter from his recent visit to the Jacksonville, FL field office.
By the way, O'Malley seems no more proficient at taking selfies than I am! Also, by the way, note that image of a motorcycle up on the screen in that last photo. I wonder if the employee was asked to get something up on the screen that had no PII. Could it even be an artificial image added later by Photoshop to avoid the PII problem?
8 comments:
[Cue several aanonymous comments from purported employees bashing Commissioner O'Malley, while remaining silent about how the former guy Saul did absolutely zero employee outreach or engagement whatsoever...]
We don’t need outreach - we need employees . Great O malley listens . With 55k Ees we have not moved back on any workload. Employees in constant stress. The only reason Saul gets a pass is bc things were not this bad when he was here . We are a disaster…..don’t believe me …visit any office
@8:49 you are absolutely right. Saul did no outreach and it allowed AFGE to paint a picture of who he was because we had no other way of knowing.
I will say there was critique of the agency during one of the stimulus payments and our coordination with the IRS. He made a very profound statement defending employees and that single action has stuck with me the most.
“There is no one more committed to serving the public than the employees of this agency, and there should be no doubt whatsoever that they are striving each day to serve the vulnerable populations to whom they have committed their careers. I find any insinuation to the contrary to be unacceptable.“
The motorcycle picture is the desktop background on that machine with no applications running on that particular screen.
We are allowed to change the desktop background to whatever we want. I used to use various images from the old Spitzer Space Telescope as well as Hubble/JWST on mine. Other employees used things like pictures of their kids, etc.
Saul was bad, O'Malley isn't great. Here's the thing, you can visit and get the PR tour all day and it doesn't mean a thing unless you make changes. The changes being made aren't helping the field. And in terms of listening to employees, the employee's have provided thousands of pieces of written feedback that are being gleefully ignored. So if he actually cared he'd be addressing what's he's already been given instead of making photo ops in carefully curated encounters. He's been told, he's done nothing, it's just smoke and mirrors and nothing changes.
@8:49 must be a YUGE fan of politicians. Notice O'Malley is always there for the photo opp? I'm sure we'll get another slickly produced video out of it too. But actual changes? Zilch. Other than quick band-aids here or there that he runs out and goes on 60 Minutes over.
Meanwhile he's forced MANY working mothers to quit by heartlessly demanding they return to the office with minimal notice (but hey he's got a 22-minute commute!). He's pulled TSCs off to work the 800 number, to trade backlogs. And he's wasting our budget on opening new offices to bring employees back who don't want to be there, all the while NOT paying Field Office employees much-needed overtime to get ahead. Oh and while we're at it, he blew off all the EngageSSA ideas and shot down the top-rated idea of half-day Wednesdays for workers to catch up.
But please, drool over his fancy Twitter account and social media presence.
Hey, at least he (tries) to take his own pictures. I remember when Noel Wall (i.e. Mr. "1/2 of 1%" himself) was the Dallas Regional Commissioner. The man didn't step outside his office to go anywhere without a couple of personal photographers literally welded to his butt-cheeks to promote everything he did or said.
Absolute disaster.
I worked four more hours today. No life other than work and then having work consume my soul.
How do I get out seriously
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