The Next President is...

[17D_guy]

10 minutes ago, Stoker said:

You can flatten the rank structure if you increase the pay. It isn't surprising we don't track good talent to be GOs when an O-7 makes less than a 3rd year FO at mainline. Our military pay structure hasn't been "designed" in any meaningful way in decades - we've just done percentage increases across the board, and it isn't reasonable to expect people to serve out of self-denying patriotism absent an ongoing existential war.

More leadership positions is a long trend in military history. I'm sure Alexander had some folks complaining about paying for front and rear file leaders in the phalanx, when the Athenians used to get away with just front file leaders.

Welp, I'm sure they'll figure it out with this coming - Trump administration orders Pentagon to plan for sweeping budget cuts

Also getting rid of probationary means people that have moved positions as well, and a ton of vets. So, if you had a shit hot tech person that moved into a supervisory position last year -- thanks for your service your performance isn't good enough and you're out.

Personal anecdote, wife's gig hired a new tech lead last year...still on probation, the old tech lead got a new position higher up to better inform leadership of test capes for F22...still on probation. 

Same thing they just did to VA nurses (2 year probationary period), seasonal firefighters (def won't be a problem here in the West...), etc.

Meanwhile my state leg is trying to get rid of mail in voting because...well no reason. They've got an R super-majority but apparently some foreign influence campaign is going to flip UT blue next election? Also setting the standards for ballot initiatives even harder than legislators have, and to get rid of the FOIA agency and make it a single person accountable only to the Gov. You know, anti-representative democracy stuff.
 

5 hours ago, Blue said:

Yeah.  Saying that the EOs intent was "only the Pres and AG can interpret the laws" is a shitty take.  Didn't stop all of social media from running with it yesterday though. 

Yea, haven't read it yet. Like I said before, while we disagree on a lot I still value the input here. The tax and home examples a few pages back were fucking money for discussion.

[Stoker]

3 minutes ago, 17D_guy said:

Also getting rid of probationary means people that have moved positions as well, and a ton of vets. So, if you had a shit hot tech person that moved into a supervisory position last year -- thanks for your service your performance isn't good enough and you're out.

Don't worry, everyone unlawfully fired will eventually be getting full back pay, which should help with the deficit somehow. And we'll have to increase federal civ salaries in the future, because a lot of their total compensation was job security, and that's gone.

I'm honestly somewhat confused that the administration didn't even try to cover their tracks and pretend to do things lawfully - like, you'd think with some of Musk's patented AI they could have invented some BS that actually alluded to a reason to be fired. Firing every single probationary employee for "poor performance" means you're just bunch of liars. Which, I guess, is the point - if you're willing to lie and fire people who you hired, you're probably loyal enough to say the sky is green if the boss says so.

[brabus]

How is firing/laying off probationary people illegal? Serious question. 

[Guest nsplayr]

44 minutes ago, brabus said:

How is firing/laying off probationary people illegal? Serious question. 

https://www.justsecurity.org/107230/federal-employee-rights-probationary-faqs/

This is a pretty good summary. BLUF it's likely not illegal.

It's just unusual/unjust/unwise vs doing cuts based on performance or targeted cuts per agency as the mission dictates. You can and do have some awesome employees who are probationary due to recent jobs changes, promotions to become a supervisor, etc. that will be needlessly shitcanned but you'll retain some bump-on-a-log folks who have full civil service protections who truly are the ones you would want to trim if that was your goal.

Saying you're firing people for poor performance when they have documentation showing otherwise may open up grounds to appeal, but this admin has also canned a ton of IGs and other internal guardrails, so you'd likely be appealing to a recent Trump appointee who is going to tell you to pound sand because that's the party line. Folks might be able to sue but that'll take forever and you may or may not win.

I'm not a federal government employment lawyer or a judge, YMMV.

Edited February 20 by nsplayr

[Lord Ratner]

2 hours ago, 17D_guy said:

Meanwhile my state leg is trying to get rid of mail in voting because...well no reason. They've got an R super-majority but apparently some foreign influence campaign is going to flip UT blue next election?

Good. Mail in voting is absurd, outside of it's original intent, and should not be conflated with early-voting, which is a good thing. 

Military and out-of-state only. 

[Sua Sponte]

2 hours ago, brabus said:

How is firing/laying off probationary people illegal? Serious question. 

Federal employee supervisor here. Firing an employee with causation (e.g., poor performance, not maintaining a security clearance, etc.) while on probation is perfectly legal. Firing an employee due to “poor performance” where there is no documentation from the supervisor chain of poor performance is illegal. Some employees who have been terminated for “poor performance” haven’t even had their first performance appraisal, had a highly rated performance appraisal, and/or didn’t have any documented performance issues or a performance improvement plan implanted. Federal employees also aren’t “at will.”

[brabus]

3 hours ago, nsplayr said:

will be needlessly shitcanned but you'll retain some bump-on-a-log folks who have full civil service protections who truly are the ones you would want to trim if that was your goal.

Yes, unfortunately that will happen. But the fed civ corps is so insanely out of control that scalpel surgery isn’t feasible - I’ve seen that tried and failed for 19 years. Unfortunately full blown chemo is necessary and that’ll have some undesired side effects, but it will ultimately save the body in the end. And to all those crying about the poor gubmint workers and how will they feed their children! Welcome to everyone else’s life who doesn’t have a gov job. Time to stop sucking on the gov tit and do something useful in the civ sector. The good ones that we unfortunately lose will do just fine on the civ side. It’s the useless sacks of shit that’ll wine incessantly because they know the gov is the only place they can suck so bad and stay employed (up until now at least).

[brabus]

@Sua Sponte Yep, all makes sense. The hard thing, as you’ve probably seen, is firing those shitty workers. It is a mountain to climb to build the requisite documentation for poor performance history, make the improvement plan, document them not meeting the plan, etc. A shitload of work to fire horrible workers - very frustrating. 

[Guest nsplayr]

13 minutes ago, brabus said:

And to all those crying about the poor gubmint workers and how will they feed their children! Welcome to everyone else’s life who doesn’t have a gov job. Time to stop sucking on the gov tit and do something useful in the civ sector. The good ones that we unfortunately lose will do just fine on the civ side. It’s the useless sacks of shit that’ll wine incessantly because they know the gov is the only place they can suck so bad and stay employed (up until now at least).

I hope to god you don't supervise anyone with an attitude like this man. And why are uniformed service members so different? Are MSG towel handlers really that different? MX? Pilots? Why don't they "stop sucking on the gov tit and do something useful in the civ sector?"

Jesus Christ the just dripping animosity for our own government that you yourself are a part of is wild.

I really hope the leopards from the "Leopards Eating Peoples Faces Party" don't eat your face, but please don't be surprised when they do.

Edited February 20 by nsplayr

[Sua Sponte]

6 minutes ago, brabus said:

@Sua Sponte Yep, all makes sense. The hard thing, as you’ve probably seen, is firing those shitty workers. It is a mountain to climb to build the requisite documentation for poor performance history, make the improvement plan, document them not meeting the plan, etc. A shitload of work to fire horrible workers - very frustrating. 

I was told today that I had 15 minutes to provide data to justify two GS-07s jobs that work for me. When I sent the data in, the exec (some Major) didn't send it in time, and so the response didn't include the data when they wanted it. Now I'm expecting to have both employees terminated by Friday, and I can't hire anyone to replace them. 

[Guest nsplayr]

12 minutes ago, brabus said:

@Sua Sponte Yep, all makes sense. The hard thing, as you’ve probably seen, is firing those shitty workers. It is a mountain to climb to build the requisite documentation for poor performance history, make the improvement plan, document them not meeting the plan, etc. A shitload of work to fire horrible workers - very frustrating. 

"Ya know it's really annoying to follow this legal process, so instead of improving the process let's just all draw numbers from a random number generator and anyone with an odd number, pack your shit!"

There are proposals like Schedule F that while I don't agree with some of the details, bring some needed reforms to civil service. The full-control GOP Congress can and probably will pass that, and there could be an orderly process to improve the way our government works.

But going full chemo and nuking our own organs is, let's put it mildly, not the strategy I would employ. You're killing off people's careers at random and having the gall to justify it as "stop sucking on the government tit, the good ones will be fine in the civ sector."

Edited February 20 by nsplayr

[Guest nsplayr]

3 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

I was told today that I had 15 minutes to provide data to justify two GS-07s jobs that work for me. When I sent the data in, the exec (some Major) didn't send it in time, and so the response didn't include the data when they wanted it. Now I'm expecting to have both employees terminated by Friday, and I can't hire anyone to replace them. 

That sucks to hear. And never trust a Major haha. Just like Roman statues, we cover our pricks in gold (2d Lt and Maj) 😅

Edited February 20 by nsplayr

[Sua Sponte]

8 minutes ago, nsplayr said:

That sucks to hear. And never trust a Major haha. Just like Roman statues, we cover our pricks in gold (2d Lt and Maj) 😅

I was enlisted, a good majority of officers are retarded. 

[Guest nsplayr]

6 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

I was enlisted, a good majority of officers are retarded. 

I am in the Tennessee Air National Guard…that checks 😆👍

[Sua Sponte]

1 minute ago, nsplayr said:

I am in the Tennessee Air National Guard…that checks 😆👍

Nah, I know the Knoxville -135 unit. Great bros. Now the Birmingham ANG......

[Guest nsplayr]

9 minutes ago, Sua Sponte said:

Nah, I know the Knoxville -135 unit. Great bros. Now the Birmingham ANG......

 Not mutually exclusive, I know many great bros who are severely regarded. Some of the best in fact!

Edited February 20 by nsplayr

[Guest nsplayr]

 

Say what you will about congestion pricing in NYC, he and his team created this image, this is not an actual magazine cover.

Does he know what happened to the last King of America??

 

Edited February 20 by nsplayr

[17D_guy]

3 hours ago, Lord Ratner said:

Good. Mail in voting is absurd, outside of it's original intent, and should not be conflated with early-voting, which is a good thing. 

Military and out-of-state only. 

Working fine for Oregon and Utah. But you can hate it reasons?

 

Also see you avoided the rest of that comment.

[Lord Ratner]

13 minutes ago, 17D_guy said:

Also see you avoided the rest of that comment

Am I required to comment on your every thought? 

 

I'm not nearly as interested in staffing or FOIA. 

 

The government spends more money, has more employees, and does more things than it ever has. Funny how people act like it's always operating right at the minimum. But we did less before, we can (and should) do less again.

[SocialD]

8 hours ago, brabus said:

@Sua Sponte Yep, all makes sense. The hard thing, as you’ve probably seen, is firing those shitty workers. It is a mountain to climb to build the requisite documentation for poor performance history, make the improvement plan, document them not meeting the plan, etc. A shitload of work to fire horrible workers - very frustrating. 

 

 

You know the system is fucked when it's much easier to fire a technician by non-retaining them militarily.  

[brabus]

11 hours ago, nsplayr said:

hope to god you don't supervise anyone with an attitude like this man. And why are uniformed service members so different? Are MSG towel handlers really that different? MX? Pilots? Why don't they "stop sucking on the gov tit and do something useful in the civ sector?"

You’re trying to compare the GS-X who sits on his ass all day producing nothing (except roadblocks to mission) to mil members who deploy, fight, directly support warfighters, etc? Completely invalid.

 I know you’ve worked with civs, not saying you haven’t, but your breath of experience is extremely shallow on this subject, or you just DGAF about all the waste, one of the two.

11 hours ago, nsplayr said:

That sucks to hear.

I agree with you on Sua’s situation. That’s primarily bullshit because Maj dipshit is at fault, but it’s not bullshit he was asked for justification. @Sua Sponte Highlighting the Maj’s fuck up to leadership won’t buy at least a review of what you provided?

 

11 hours ago, nsplayr said:

so instead of improving the process

Which has been shouted about and tried for our entire careers. Brick wall after brick wall. You act like nobody has thought of that. Shit is so wildly out of control, big action must be done now, not “let’s just keep trying/talking about it and maybe doing the same thing will yield different results in 10 or 15 years!” The problem has become so massive and widespread that we are way past scalpel territory. That is very unfortunate and I wish it wasn’t, but “we” created this monster and let it get out of control - the shit show wasn’t going to last forever (thank God) and now there will be some good people caught up in it. This applies to the entire fed gov,  not just DoD.
 

 

Edited February 20 by brabus

[brabus]

10 hours ago, nsplayr said:

Say what you will about congestion pricing in NYC, he and his team created this image, this is not an actual magazine cover.

Dumb move, I agree with you. File this in the category of “WTF were you thinking?!”

[Smokin]

Unfortunately, I doubt that the inability to fire government employees will be fixed ever.  There are so many intertwined rules, regulations, and laws and enough activist judges that feel no problem inserting themselves into things they have business being involved in.  You would almost have to can the entire system and start from scratch, which would probably be a good thing.

I know of GS employees that have been repeatedly caught falsifying time cards, yelling at their boss, showing up to work more than an hour late on a routine basis, and even overtly refusing to do their job because someone upset them.  One guy in my old unit was finally getting fired until state leadership found out that the employee was black.  State ordered the employee to be reinstated even after they were involved and approved of the all paperwork to fire him.

[brabus]

Here’s a good, quick explanation for why Trump is doing what he is WRT taking out the bureaucrat garbage, and why it’s legitimate. 

 

[BuddhaSixFour]

Cool. I expect republicans will 100% stand by this the next time a Democrat wins because they fully believe that civics lesson in their heart of hearts.