ABC News has obtained an audio recording of the meeting that Frank Bisignano had with Social Security staff yesterday. They have posted excerpts. It sounds like it was a rambling performance. I'll offer a few quotes here but if you weren't part of that meeting you probably want to look at the whole ABC piece.
... "So, I get a phone call and it's about Social Security. And I'm really, I'm really not, I swear I'm not looking for a job," Bisignano said, according to an audio recording of the meeting obtained by ABC News. "And I'm like, 'Well, what am I going to do?' So, I'm Googling Social Security. You know, one of my great skills, I'm one of the great Googlers on the East Coast."
"I'm like, 'What the heck's the commissioner of Social Security?'" said Bisignano, who now oversees one of the largest federal agencies that's responsible for distributing retirement, disability, and survivor benefits to more than 70 million Americans.
"Put that as the headline for the Post: 'Great Googler in Chief. Chief in Googler' or whatever," said Bisignano, who throughout the meeting repeatedly bemoaned media leaks from within the agency. ...
"Are we having fun yet? Are we OK?" he asked those on the call. ...
Bisignano told the managers that they needed to believe that DOGE was "helping to make things better" even if "it may not feel that way." ...
"Did you guys know there was a protest against me? Who knows there was a protest against me?" he said. "I like that protest -- I want to prove them so wrong, man, this is going to be most fun I ever had." ...
By the way, does anyone know whether Bisignano had any briefings from career people at Social Security between the time he was nominated and confirmed? I don't have any experience with these things. I would like to think that would be standard but Bisignano sounds like he came into the job cold.
41 comments:
"...sounds like he came into the job cold."
He appears to be the only COSS (or ACOSS) in a least the last 50 years to have no civil service background whatsoever. The only other one came from a background in academia rather than business.
They fired everyone who could've briefed him on the job or written him coherent prepared remarks.
Managers describe him as very Brooklyn and a Texas-sized personality. My office can’t wait to begin working with him. He will make coming to the office fun.
He’s remote teleworking 4 days a week for work life balance while telling the rest of us to go in 5 days a week. Plus he was not familiar with SSA components. Needs to get back to his google searches.
I’m not sure why everyone is so upset. Frank is working seven days a week in the office to fix things. He could be retired on a beach. Can we give the man a chance?
I’m willing to give him a chance. I hope he is successful.
I bet Frank didn’t have to Google how to privatize Social Security. Shouldn’t he be in a private island with his jet? Has anybody asked him why he wanted to be Commissioner of Social Security?
Who cares? Some positions like ALJ are much more productive and happy when teleworking. If COSS is more productive working from home why do people complain?
How do you know he teleworks 4 days per week? He works at home at 4:00 a.m. and weekends. That doesn’t mean, weekdays he’s not in the office at 8:00 a.m. The telework comments are overdone.
Frank is clueless. Now is the time to take advantage of him and his DOGE crew by pitching every shiny AI object to improve service and cut cost. Perfect time to make a boatload of contract money off of him.
For the sake of posterity, it will be a disaster within 6 months. Please archive this comment for future reference.
Well, he has a town hall for the whole agency coming up on the 27th, so plenty more chances for him to embarrass himself publicly on audio
May 27? I wasn’t invited!
Got the email today and I just want to puke. I have dogs that could do a better job, at least they heard me talk about work when I was able to work from home.
ABC didn’t even release the juicy parts! He sounded like he was on something for the whole rambling mess. Also said if he decided the agency could get the job done with 20k workers only, he’d be fine with that. Emphasized multiple times how great hard work was and how hard work never killed anyone. And he’s a laborer and a worker just like us!
He said he was going to give us all his phone number so we could call him…
Embarrassing that the COSS had to google what this job is. This is the savior of the agency? Lord help us.
Mr. Bisignano, I hope you are reading this. Voluntary reassignments were done under duress and as such are not legally binding. All should be null and void and SSA need to go back to pre-January internal structure, then first find out what everyone does and where cuts could be made. A small Region like Boston with 60 small offices has no way to understand and support the 350+ offices in the Philadelphia and New York Regions and the unique populations in those areas. Support of the RO staffs are vital and need to be restored now. We are dying out here in the field. Please help us!!!
He should make his phone number public since he works for the taxpayers. He has no idea what he’s getting himself into.
Like us? Do you know any other SSA employee worth over 800 million in net worth?
I see you got the Frank Bisignano talking points. Your days are numbered before AI replaces you.
Each office should make sure that the popcorn and iPhones are readily available on May 27th staff meeting. I wonder if he will be taking questions from his staff outside of headquarters. If not, why not?
Frank, go home, you’re drunk.
Questions for the town hall are due on the 27th. The town hall date is TBD.
"You're competing with experiences that people have with Amazon, right? So if I could get something done at Amazon, why can't I get something done the same way with Social Security? That's how people think."
He thinks the issues SSA reps address are akin to a sweater being returned to Amazon.
Say what you want but if you don’t work here you don’t know how horrible it has become. Telework was helping people keep their heads above water. Instead buildings were closed, offices culled, and people are jammed into HQ like cattle. Frank referred to SSA staff as his “disciples”. He is here to help himself.
Is a link to the full 90 minute audio available somewhere?
Another Trump clown
Here is another thing that’s embarrassing. I have tried for weeks to find out who supports websites internally now at the agency and nobody will respond. I need to publish updates to some internal sites to comply with policy changes and nobody is responding. Does anyone know who to contact? It’s sad that this is where I’m at asking in here but I’m desperate. Operations is dying because we can’t get them connected to the people they need.
Nobody is responding because there isn’t anyone left to do that job!
That’s a telling quote. It’s not like Amazon is renowned for its customer service. I see zero similarities between what SSA and Amazon offer in terms of “product.” He really has no clue what SSA does, does he?
Yeah, his phone number that connects to AI Frank, which will be the SSA version of the Jolly Rodger Telephone Company. Except, the telemarketers will be replaced with SSA customers.
https://jollyrogertelephone.com/
Amazon customer service is so bad now that it is a laughingstock of the industry. It is a wonder they can even keep customers. If you don't believe me, try to return something to them and see what happens.
Even if there was, all you'd do by listening to it is dangerously raise your blood pressure.
100% agree. They’ve already called back some people. Time to call back everyone else and start over. The people who reassigned were the hard workers and people with institutional knowledge. Many (not all) of the ones that stayed are slackers. Maybe that was Dudek’s plan - to jumble up everyone and leave a weak staff behind in key areas. Time to right the ship. Once you have things back to the way they were then you can look at overstaffing, restructuring and deadweight.
Amazon also has over one million employees!
I think we all would have preferred that!
Commenter at 11:04, I agree with your suggestion that the organizational structure should go back as close to January as possible. Unfortunately, with all of the retirements, resignations, and DRP, the set up of the regions are not going to change. The truth is, the Philadelphia and New York regional commissioners took the DRP. In addition, most of the ORC, MOS, XO’s, and CD’s left both of those regions. The Boston regional office executive leadership remains intact (ie: they did not put their tails in between their legs and run away at the first sign of trouble).
The fact that Boston was originally a small region has no bearing to the fact that Boston leadership is now overseeing the entire northeast region. You state that Boston does not “understand or support” NY or Philadelphia. That is absolutely a false statement. Not only does Boston leadership understand and support the entire northeast region, but the Boston executive team (along with the few NY and Philly leaders) have taken on an immense amount of work to ensure that the Northeast region is successful.
You’ve commented in the past your distain of having primarily Boston leadership. Instead of complaining about it on this blog, why don’t you step up to the plate and provide some leadership where you find it is lacking.
To 12:05 commenter. You are apparently a Bostonian and as such you do not know what are unique issues/concerns to those FOs operating in West Virginia or in the central New York areas or in any large FOs and PSCs of the Pennsylvania, New York or New Jersey metropolitan areas. Your RO only supported basically a few smaller offices in smaller New England states and had a very small staff compared to Philadelphia and New York Regions. I am sorry, but for West Virginia FOs to try getting a historical level of RO staff support is not possible. Based on calls with counterparts in other merged Regions, they are experiencing the same issues and lack of critical support. We need the former RO staffs to be reconstituted period.
Yes, I’m Bostonian. There is obviously a misconception regarding current northeast regional leadership. The RO staff that is left in Philadelphia, New York, and Boston Regional offices are doing their best to support the entire northeast region. So even West Virginia with its “unique” concerns has representation from what was the Philadelphia regional office.
The regional offices have all been gutted by DRP, retirement and reassignment. There is minimal regional support because there is a fraction of RO staff left! Even if they reinstate regional office positions, it still will not go back to the staffing levels before January. Trust me, I would love to see people in the regional offices and headquarters get their prior positions back. But unfortunately, it will never be the same again.
One person can not do what a staff of 15 used to do. Only a fool would believe such nonsense. You obviously have no clue what is happening here in the field. You apparently have a low level job and do not know what it takes to run a large organization. You believe SSA is like amazon and AI can handle a complex operation like following SSA law and various court orders. So sad for you.
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