From a Washington Post article titled Trump administration races to fix a big mistake: DOGE fired too many people:
… At the Social Security Administration’s call center in Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, IT workers were told by managers in mid-April that they needed to request a transfer or face possible firing, said Barri Sue Bryant, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 2809. Nearly all of the 40-plus workers in that office did so, sending their laptops and spare equipment to the agency’s Baltimore headquarters and awaiting a new assignment while the union attempted to explain to leadership how essential these employees were, Bryant said.
“We are critically understaffed in all of our departments,” Bryant wrote in an email to leadership. “Having systems and employees down is not contributing to the goals of this agency.” But management would soon find out on their own.
A specialized scanner that can quickly input forms and scan barcodes broke down and was unusable for a day. A customer service representative who was supposed to answer the 800 number couldn’t take calls for three days while her computer was in disrepair. “It really sent everyone for a loop,” Bryant said.
After three days, the agency told the union the decision had been reversed. The employees got back their equipment and resumed their normal jobs in Wilkes-Barre.
Asked about the IT workers, Social Security provided an emailed statement from an unnamed official, whom it declined to identify. The statement did not address the reassignments but criticized “the fake news media, specifically the Washington Post” for “pushing a false narrative about Social Security. The truth is that President Trump is protecting and strengthening Social Security just like he promised.” …
6 comments:
Any time an agency pushes out an unsigned petty little missive that decries "fake news," you can be certain the reporting has hit the factual target.
The article cited is 100% accurate. WBDOC was left to twist in the wind as a result of this malpractice and incompetent decision to force the IT to request reassignment. After a week, realizing the damage inflicted upon WBDOC customers, Clown Dudeck rescinded the reassignments.
OGC attorneys were threatened w/ RIFS so they moved to OHO attorney jobs and now OGC is short handed and soliciting OHO attorneys for OGC jobs… such a mess
SSA reassigned a ton of people without regard for their background. For instance, there are folks with claims rep experience that are being trained as disability examiners and people with disability examiner experience being trained as claims specialists. The reassignments were all done very quickly and under duress (there were several rumors and articles about immediate RIFs) People are glad to have jobs but angry to see contractors being hired to do their previous “non mission critical” jobs. And in some instances, there isn’t anyone left to perform the work at all. It’s utter chaos.
And many others took the deferred resignation program and/or retired rather than keep dealing with the threats and mistreatment. Not a great move by management to run those people off.
Entire support components, and the regions have been abolished. Let's start there. There is a growing backlog of unaddressed inquiries, software problem reports, public inquiries, congressional inquiries, staff who don't know who is doing what or where to refer issues amid the chaos. Executives reassigned to be staff or managers, and unprecedented breakdowns in communication. On a recent DCO All Managers call, "it was so quiet you could hear a mouse piss on cotton.." Major components like Operations and Mission Support led by the very "executives" that drove the agency into the ground over the past decade. This is no way to run a business -- any business, public or private.
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