OHO Had More Than 50,000 Overtime Hours Last Month But Still Lost Ground
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19 comments:
Anonymous
said...
Yeah no kidding because they nuked the ROs into oblivion and we can get zero support with complex cases or the other functions they would perform and HO staff are literally doing everything. It’s only going to get worse.
Lost ground? Dispositions are up despite significant losses of staff. That’s not losing ground. That’s making gains despite being sabotaged and undermined, and OHO should be damned proud.
OT is flowing like water at our FO. It's finally allowed us to reach the level of "breaking even". Which, apparently was noticed at a higher level, because our attaboy came in the form of "here, help with this other FO's backlog since you guys are doing so good".
It's like they study guides on how to de-motivate people.
We simply do not have the staff to do the job. I am a staff member at an OHO, I have two ALJ units, plus font desk shifts and the occasional VHR shift if Stratcomm doesn’t show up. I can only work up cases on OT, which I work every Saturday if offered. Other staff members refuse to work OT, constant burn out, constant work coming from other offices, it’s just too much. There is little motivation to work harder, there are almost zero promotion opportunities after the Legal Specialist position, and if they ever pull the trigger on RTO for OHO, 25% ( at least ), will retire immediately. When they were hiring, they started people at the GS 5 pay grade, and with the new “merit standards”, anyone with any legal background will avoid it like the plague. I can only do so much in 8 hours, and I will never work at the office on a weekend. I used to get a lot of satisfaction from my job, and truly enjoyed helping the claimants who didn’t understood the system. Now, I am too busy to take the time to do much of anything than the basics.AI will never be able to help these claimants, they are by definition, disabled. A lot of homeless, people on the margins. Extra difficult to get them compliant and move cases smoothly though the system. My thoughts are that they will send T16 cases to the states and those folks will be at the will of whatever the state they live in will help them (not much), and T2 cases may just end up at the District Court. It will eliminate a whole SSA component. Frank will love that. Deny, deny, deny until they die. The administration only cares about people that can be part of their profit machine. The disabled aren’t part of that.
I think he just means that the 'closing pending' is higher than the 'opening pending' figure. It's like if you increase your income but your net worth is still lower than before. No one is doubting OHO's dedication to the workload.
Hearing offices are brimming with licensed attorneys. It has always extremely rare to need help from the RO for “complex cases.” Aside from personnel issues, RO staff are essentially no different than HO staff attorneys.
You need to take care of yourself. The list is long of all the SSA employees with work stress and turn to food and alcoholism. Management doesn’t believe in a work and life balance so you should do your job and don’t dwell on the job. Easier said than done when so many are depending on you.
I suspect FO and OHO won't go nearly as far as in prior years if it's being paid to HQ staff reassigned to frontline components. Why? Two reasons: first, they're learning or re-learning the job in some cases and aren't that productive, and 2. with salary retention their OT is likely off the charts. Something I'm sure the team considered when reshuffling the deck chairs. I'm sure it'll all work out eventually.
That’s always been the SSA way. Instead of raising the expectations for everyone, just continually demand even more from those who are doing their jobs well.
No, the SSA way has always been to tell everyone to work faster and faster, even if it means we end up wasting hundreds of man hours adjudicating the same claim incorrectly ten times in a row until the claimant gives up or goes to Congress or the news media, with no patience for anyone to do the work correctly. THAT is the SSA way.
That’s reassuring being a firm that represents claimants and having a ton of fee petitions hanging in limbo because of their restructure. 🥴 What a nightmare.
The increased receipts a likely dueling part to the focus on clearing initial disability claims. More disability claims processed leads to more appeals. Wait until SSA focuses on the pending reconsoerations; the pending ALJ hearings should increase faster.
19 comments:
Yeah no kidding because they nuked the ROs into oblivion and we can get zero support with complex cases or the other functions they would perform and HO staff are literally doing everything. It’s only going to get worse.
Lost ground? Dispositions are up despite significant losses of staff. That’s not losing ground. That’s making gains despite being sabotaged and undermined, and OHO should be damned proud.
OT is flowing like water at our FO. It's finally allowed us to reach the level of "breaking even". Which, apparently was noticed at a higher level, because our attaboy came in the form of "here, help with this other FO's backlog since you guys are doing so good".
It's like they study guides on how to de-motivate people.
OHO lost how many employees? This is what happens with the DOGE boys are running the show. Is this government efficiency?
Adjusted receipts went up by 8000 cases in May. Productivity Index increased as well.
We simply do not have the staff to do the job. I am a staff member at an OHO, I have two ALJ units, plus font desk shifts and the occasional VHR shift if Stratcomm doesn’t show up. I can only work up cases on OT, which I work every Saturday if offered. Other staff members refuse to work OT, constant burn out, constant work coming from other offices, it’s just too much. There is little motivation to work harder, there are almost zero promotion opportunities after the Legal Specialist position, and if they ever pull the trigger on RTO for OHO, 25% ( at least ), will retire immediately. When they were hiring, they started people at the GS 5 pay grade, and with the new “merit standards”, anyone with any legal background will avoid it like the plague. I can only do so much in 8 hours, and I will never work at the office on a weekend. I used to get a lot of satisfaction from my job, and truly enjoyed helping the claimants who didn’t understood the system. Now, I am too busy to take the time to do much of anything than the basics.AI will never be able to help these claimants, they are by definition, disabled. A lot of homeless, people on the margins. Extra difficult to get them compliant and move cases smoothly though the system. My thoughts are that they will send T16 cases to the states and those folks will be at the will of whatever the state they live in will help them (not much), and T2 cases may just end up at the District Court. It will eliminate a whole SSA component. Frank will love that. Deny, deny, deny until they die. The administration only cares about people that can be part of their profit machine. The disabled aren’t part of that.
I think he just means that the 'closing pending' is higher than the 'opening pending' figure.
It's like if you increase your income but your net worth is still lower than before.
No one is doubting OHO's dedication to the workload.
Is that you Leland? Shouldn’t you be in a deposition meeting?
May was a 5-week month. This isn’t surprising. Productivity index is a joke of a metric.
Hearing offices are brimming with licensed attorneys. It has always extremely rare to need help from the RO for “complex cases.” Aside from personnel issues, RO staff are essentially no different than HO staff attorneys.
No, that was not Leland, who is largely responsible for said sabotage and can go f*** himself.
You need to take care of yourself. The list is long of all the SSA employees with work stress and turn to food and alcoholism. Management doesn’t believe in a work and life balance so you should do your job and don’t dwell on the job. Easier said than done when so many are depending on you.
I suspect FO and OHO won't go nearly as far as in prior years if it's being paid to HQ staff reassigned to frontline components. Why? Two reasons: first, they're learning or re-learning the job in some cases and aren't that productive, and 2. with salary retention their OT is likely off the charts. Something I'm sure the team considered when reshuffling the deck chairs. I'm sure it'll all work out eventually.
Shut up Leland.
There were very few attorneys at RO aside from the LR/ER staff.
That’s always been the SSA way. Instead of raising the expectations for everyone, just continually demand even more from those who are doing their jobs well.
No, the SSA way has always been to tell everyone to work faster and faster, even if it means we end up wasting hundreds of man hours adjudicating the same claim incorrectly ten times in a row until the claimant gives up or goes to Congress or the news media, with no patience for anyone to do the work correctly. THAT is the SSA way.
That’s reassuring being a firm that represents claimants and having a ton of fee petitions hanging in limbo because of their restructure. 🥴 What a nightmare.
The increased receipts a likely dueling part to the focus on clearing initial disability claims. More disability claims processed leads to more appeals. Wait until SSA focuses on the pending reconsoerations; the pending ALJ hearings should increase faster.
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