r/FedEmployees

I hope someone will be able to answer this or point me in the right direction.

I paid one month each for Vision and Dental Insurance while still getting interim payments. I was concerned they might inadvertently get cancelled.

I had thought that when my annuity started, these would not be deducted from my first payment—but they were. I have given it some time to “catch up” thinking they’d not yet seen that payment, so them I’d get either a refund or they’d temporarily not take them out of the annuity for one month, but it hasn’t happened either.

What should I do? Would it be best to contact OPM (payment office), or the fede insurance website, or the insurance companies themselves? or wait a bit longer first? It’s not a lot of money so I am not in a hurry, but I would like to get this done.

thanks!

I recently completed my annual DPMAP appraisal and scored fully successful across most of my critical elements. Despite that, OPM’s Level 1 rule mandates that a single Level 1 on any element automatically makes your overall rating a Level 1 — no exceptions, no averaging, no context considered. That’s where I ended up.

What happened

I lost my grandmother on Christmas. I lost my dad a few months later. Most people have lost someone — you know the feeling where you’re physically present but somewhere else entirely. That was me. Except those months happened to fall inside a rating cycle, and I had no leave to grieve. I kept showing up because I had no choice. Grief doesn’t pause for a rating cycle. My PCO applied the standards mathematically literal, one element came in at a Level 1, and the Level 1 rule means, regardless of average, I’m rated a 1.

The system problem

I was fully successful in every other area of my job. But OPM’s rule doesn’t care. One hard season — no matter what caused it, no matter how you performed everywhere else — and your entire year is erased. There is no mechanism in this system for context, for hardship, or for being human.

What I’m trying to understand

Beyond losing my bonus, what does an overall Level 1 actually affect — applications, promotions, transfers? With the new accelerated rating cycle underway, does this follow me or does the next cycle offer a real reset? Has anyone been through this and come out the other side?

Not here to complain. Just trying to understand a system that doesn’t seem built for real life.

My area forces me to interact with NIH/CDC and I am sickened by the way Dr. Bhattacharya behaves. I realize this is not an era of high standards for agency leadership, but I am horrified that Stanford ever allowed this person to float upwards and then his notoriety with the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration somehow gained him the traction for such an important position.

This man has zero experience practicing medicine; he is not licensed. He has never worked as an epidemiologist, never worked as a laboratory investigator, never served in any area of federal service, state service, or public health. He has a PhD in health economics. You know, the process of deciding a human life is worth $50,000 a year and then letting pharmaceutical companies price drugs to the point the "market can bear" it and ensuring government has zero ability to protect veterans, the elderly, or the disabled have protection from it.

In the extraordinary misfortunate situation where I had to listen to this man speak, he as the audacity to speak to career scientists, career public health workers like he is a "bro" on a radio talk show. He quotes films, he quips about things "moving at the speed of bureaucracy" and opines he cannot 'magically sign things into law.' He seems to despise debate, resent any form of feedback, and has issues with data that I would never have expected from someone at Stanford. Is that place a community college now?

What I find particularly reprehensible is this man signed onto the 2020 Great Barrington Declaration and openly, repeatedly attacked public health and health research. He took opportunities during a global crisis to attack and belittle CDC publications and NIH research. He never seemed to understand that... as federal employees there are strict publication and clearance requirements that limit public statements. If he did understand this, he used the very caution that public health depends on to instead attack and diminish career scientists and public health workers. Now that he is in a leadership position he seems to be discovering, to his own surprise, that you can't just author anything with the stroke a pen and a smug look.

I am disgusted that someone like this built an unearned career in public health by attacking an infrastructure he admits he never understood. I am disgusted he has the audacity to say out loud that HHS needs to win back the confidence of the American people. He apparently uses this phrase a lot.

Listen, bro, it wasn't the veterans with 25 years of experience in outbreaks deployments for malaria, tuberculosis, Ebola, and bird flu that were letting the world down. It wasn't the NIH researchers who were pushing out peer reviewed and clearance approved science as fast as they could type that let America down. It wasn't the CDC MMWR staff who you just laid off and eviscerated who were the problem. They were limited in what they could do or say by the bureaucracy you now use a defense for doing nothing yourself.

The people who worked through that pandemic and tried to keep everything working were heroes and were doing it under vicious circumstances of exhaustion. What you did in return was attack them and encourage the public to belittle them. They showed up and then they got attacked by this economist. None of the scientists, epidemiologists, doctors, or nurses I know ever lost the faith of the American public. The faith in institutions was manufactured by the media and destroyed by little scheming men who exploited one of the nation's hardest moments for their own profit.

I am so, so sorry to every single person in HHS who has to meet this man and to all the incredible researchers, editor, and scientists who are suppressed under his lack of expertise. I felt sick in that meeting.

They are setting us up to fail, punishing us for failing, then taking away any recourse for wrong termination. They are systematically dismantling the federal government, agency by agency, staff person, by staff person.

So I applied for the same job that I have been doing for more than 20 years before the RIF only to receive the following email today:

You are ineligible for this position because subject matter experts have determined you do not meet the required qualifications as described in the job announcement.

I have already responded to the agency POC and argued that the subject matter experts were wrong in their assessment. I also specified how I met and exceeded all the required qualifications in the job announcement and recommended that they reassess my qualifications.

But do I have any other recourse assuming they decide to stick with that blatantly unfair rating?

received at 5 rating for my performance review and was told i am getting a quality step increase. i have never received this before and wondering if this basically swaps out the cash award that usually shows up for high performance rating? didn't feel comfortable asking my supervisor if thats how it works, im just curious what to expect or not expect when awards start dropping in the next months. tia.

my agency is now on the verge of banning Mondays and Fridays for a RDO/AWS day off because they are saying they want 80% office coverage.

80% office coverage is the goal, they are also being told to heavily scrutinized people taking leave on Mondays and Fridays.

Are we tired of winning yet?

Has anyone else watched their organization completely go unhinged after leadership changes?

This place has its issues like everywhere else, but now it's starting to get out of control. Over the past year most of our civilian leadership has either retired or was forced out. Everybody keeps their head down now because the second you say anything, you're the problem child.

What’s really messed up is watching technical and cybersecurity concerns raised by civilians get brushed off like they’re inconveniences instead of actual risks. It feels like leadership only wants compliance and silence at this point.

I know every org has dysfunction, but this feels way beyond the norm. What are you even supposed to do when the problems are coming from the top?

I plan on resigning at the end of this pay period. I will give a two week notice. I really want the extra two week's pay. I work at the VA. What are the chances they will honor the two weeks notice?

Thank you NFFE!

RAs cannot be revoked by the agency. They stay with the individual and not the job! If you are impacted by the reorg and have an RA that is threatened, let your Union rep know and notify EEOC. You absolutely should NOT be required to go through the RA process again.

Also, NFFE considers this an "illegal dismantling" of the agency.

I will be resigning from my position Friday 5/22 and received 2 5’s on my appraisal. Looking at old SF-50s the date of bonuses were 6/1.
Will I still receive my bonus even though I’m resigning before that date ?