r/FederalEmployee

OMG ! It’s gone from bad to worse ! Hundreds of us were notified this week to attend three days of 8 hour training to take on more calls from the national 800 number. The training is like drinking from a firehouse. I have no idea what they are talking about. So many systems,acronyms policy requirements. It’s completely overwhelming and apparently they want us to handle calls from our citizens that we absolutely cannot handle because the we have never heard of or interacted with the systems that the trainer’s know like the back of their hand. I know for a fact that normally people are trained for at least 6 months before they take client calls on their own. We are being set up for failure! It seems like they want us to quit or get fired for poor performance.
In addition, I got a PDF from my supervisor reiterating the fact that all of my phone calls are being monitored and evaluated by a system in place that monitors all calls and is programmed to pickup on key words. I have no idea what those words are or how they are selected.

Hey everyone,

Quick update for anyone following my saga of being stuck in Interim Pay while OPM and my agency (DOJ/GRB) played ping-pong over my "missing" final package.
About a week and a half ago, I managed to get an OPM phone rep to trigger a formal "manager escalation" because I was able to provide the exact date and location showing my package was signed for in Boyers, PA back in January.

I called OPM back today to follow up because I hadn't received an email yet, and I wanted to make sure it didn't just vanish into a black hole. Here is what I found out:

1 The Escalation is Legit: The rep today (Tasha) confirmed that the escalation was approved and logged by management on Wednesday, May 13th. My file is currently flagged and sitting with the management team in the Disability Department.

2 The 10-Day Clock: OPM management gets 10 business days from the date the escalation is approved to take action or reach out. Because of how the calendar falls, my hard deadline for them to review and push it through is next Wednesday, May 27th.

3 Default Coding: She essentially confirmed that when a file is caught in the mailroom backlog, the front-line system just defaults to showing a "missing package" code, which is why the first line of defense on the phones is always "we don't have it yet."

The Takeaway: If you can get an agent to escalate your file, the clock doesn't start the day you call; it starts the day management officially accepts the ticket.

I’m holding out until the 27th to see if they actually deliver on the email or phone call. Has anyone else had their file sent to the Disability Department management team on an escalation? Did they hit their 10-day deadline for you?

Currently work as a GS12 overseas in Germany for IMCOM- Garrison HQ as an Operations Officer in the CUOPS section. I'm the lead.

I've been offered two jobs through DAVRAP.

One is with U.S Army Europe & Africa Command as. Watch Officer the other is an Emergency Plans Officer in Hawaii. I've been really struggling internally on what to truly go with.

UR'AF has already gotten an ETP for me and my stuff was sent to CHRA. Would be just waiting to see a TJO & FJO.

Hawaii has still yet to get there ETP back from HQ but are still pursuing me through DAVRAP.

I have said, yes to UR'AF due to the unknown about Hawaii, and I wouldn't want to give up this opportunity as I am really excited about it.

I know the UR'AF would be better for my career but I've heard so many negative things about being a watch officer. I know it's hard and it's shift work but I'm young in my career & 30. Only on my 6th year. Not prior military so I know this would tremendously help propel my career, but Hawaii would be for personal reasons as my boyfriend is stationed there. I am just skeptical at staying in IMCOM and another Garrison longer...Hawaii was never on my radar before until he got stationed there. It is a place I definitely don't mind going to & honestly I'd love to be going there coming from Germany. I do love working in OPS but I do want to do bigger & better things within my career.

Just thought I'd reach out to see if anyone can speak on experience as a watch officer or maybe you experienced these cross roads before.

Have you tried recently to call OPM? We spent 2 hours trying to talk to someone but they never answered the phone, and they never returned the call that they said they would while keeping our place in line. I blame Trump and DOGE for this. You can't have service without a good staff.

Looking to enroll on my soon to be wife's insurance when we get married in July. We have comparable insurance and she already pays for a family plan for herself and her daughter so we will save the money I'm spending on my self plan.

How does this work? She adds me to her plan and I contact FEHB to discontinue my insurance deductions? How long does this normally take and or am I missing any steps?

So backstory I asked at 12:19 can I shut down my computer. I waited for an answer like I have always done since 2023 with this person. Nothing has changed of how I have done things. I waited for her response to say yes, it’s OK or have the leads tell me it’s OK to shut down while waiting for the AOK to shut down my computer. I was checking why my electronic medical records would not let me sign or do anything I checked because I was working on Google Chrome so I was like OK why isn’t this working so then I checked on Microsoft edge I was thinking something is wrong and I was still waiting for her to respond. Well, I finally gave up and went ahead and shut down and said forget it that was some time around 12 something I don’t know I don’t. I can’t really tell you I know it was after 12:19, but if that crew called my supervisor and the leads, actually really paid attention to when I was online and when I shut down, they would see when I really shut down. but they ran my VPN and said oh 1219 to 1249 that was a 30 minutes that you were missing no I wasn’t missing. You knew exactly where I was because you gave thumbs up at 12:50 30 minutes later that it was OK for me to shut down. You waited 30 minutes to let me know it was OK for me to shut down but by then now I said. by 1250 I was back up and on the phones. By the way, my break is technically the last break is from 1245 to one. I did not take my last break except for four minute. she marked me AWOL from 12:19 to 12:49. She gave me a thumbs up at 12:50 that it was OK for me to go and shut down my computer. Yes, I have the Union involved. I am informed her when I found out what was going on because that was the only thing I could do when I found out it was Google fiber so that’s when I informed her it wasn’t anything to do with my computer or my Internet it was something to do with my neighbors who was getting their Google fiber in and they cut their wire or whatever happened and that’s what happened to me. But I kept her informed the best I could. you see another back story as I took her to HR before we had the Union back supposedly but we really did have the Union back. It was just not well known because well she denied my FMLA so I’m thinking this was and still is retaliation and now because I took her to HR and then she took me to HR. I have now a reprimand on that and have a meeting today at 3 o’clock and I’m frightened. I didn’t do anything wrong. I spoke to one of the worklife people. They told me that she can’t deny FMLA and I told her she did. I have an appointment and yet that worklife person ended up, calling her boss, and I got yelled at by her boss instead of the work her boss lied about his title everything but yet I get reprimanded and so guess what I am getting yelled at braided by this guy get told of his title but his title he falsified and everything but yeah, I’m the one in trouble and I’m the one that he lied about that said, I bully my boss and harassed my boss, but yet no no no no I’m not doing that she’s doing that because if you could see what I see right now wow it’s like wow so many people does this supervisor I don’t know why or how we can if any idea how our leadership can get our supervisor to calm down or change attitudes or something because we have so many people that say she is mean and she is very bitter woman it would be great. It would be nice because I’m sure in a long run she could be a good person.

I’m hopeful 🙌 for VERA.

Has anyone else recently had to submit a debt waiver and did it also take forever to get processed by DFAS? I was told by the HR rep who sent mine through to DFAS that DFAS got hit badly by the DOGE initiatives to cut the federal workforce, because I submitted my debt waiver around Feb. 2025 and am still waiting on it. I have been in contact with my HR rep to check for updates about every month. Sometimes she did have some update like DFAS was asking for more information on the matter, but lately, she has not heard much recently from DFAS.

For context: I was hired in Aug. 2023. Fast forward to Nov. 2024, I was notified by the HR rep who did my paperwork that I was put on the wrong payscale/special rates table, and I had to pay back $12k. Over the course of the next few months (maybe the next year), I received four debt letters (2 at the very start to cover 2 different periods of time during which I was overpaid, 1 to amend one of the letters I had received because it left out another period of time that I was overpaid, and one more for the final period of time that they missed). I had a debt waiver started (since it wasn't really my fault, as I had no control over what special rates table I was put on) and in the middle of being processed by the HR rep's supervisor (the HR rep I mentioned in the above paragraph) and DFAS after paying off the first 2 debt letters I receive the other 2 later, so I had to amend the debt waiver twice. I am now just waiting on DFAS to process this, while only being able to check with the HR rep who sent this up to DFAS. Every time I call DFAS customer support to get information on what's happening, they mostly just tell me, "oh yeah, it has a technician assigned to it, but it hasn't progressed in a while. That's kind of weird." and then they tell me to contact my HR rep to ask for updates.

My RA was approved a year ago but I still don’t feel secure. Everything that has been going on and continues to make me feel I need to jump ship. I was hired remote before all this and now am the only one on my team that gets to work from home. I’ve been looking to leave this job even if it means leaving remote structure. We are being underpaid and overworked with no real growth opportunities. 2026 COLA was 1% and 2027 is 0%. Anyone else feels the same way.

Did anyone else receive a letter or two stated they (DFAS) discovered an overpayment holiday pay, overtime pay weekend pay, etc? I received two of them today for a time period in December 2023, totaling almost $2,000. How is this even possible. It's from about 2.5 years ago.