r/firedfeds

Anyone else feel stuck in this kind of gray area because of where you live?

Most of my relevant experience is with CMS/HHS, but I live more than 50 miles from an office, and unfortunately there aren't any regional offices anywhere near me. Most of the CMS job openings I see are centered around Woodlawn, which would be about a 3-hour drive each way for me.

With the push to return to the office, I feel like my location alone makes it nearly impossible for me to even be considered for positions that match my experience. Remote work gave people like me access to opportunities we otherwise simply don't have.

Where I live, the majority of nearby jobs are industrial work, warehouses, gas stations, fast food, and similar positions. Moving isn't really a realistic solution either. It's hard to save enough to relocate when the jobs available locally often don't pay a sustainable living wage in the first place.

I haven't been on here in a while, but I wanted to come back and say that even more than a year and a half later, the impact is still being felt by some of us.

It's honestly discouraging to look through job postings and repeatedly realize that either the position is too far away to reasonably commute five days a week, or the local jobs available pay nowhere near enough.

Taking away remote work doesn't affect everyone equally. For people who live far from major employment hubs, it can completely shut the door on careers they're qualified for.

Anyone else dealing with this?

I was wrongfully terminated from a federal agency after about 15 years of service. NTEU fought it through grievance and arbitration, and after roughly 1.5 years the agency admitted it was wrong and offered a settlement that included money and removal of the termination from my record.

Then the Executive Orders stripping NTEU bargaining rights hit. I was not part of the later RIFs, but the union changes directly affected my case. My arbitration stopped, the settlement disappeared, and my case got caught in the larger NTEU court fight.

It has now been nearly another 1.5 years, and the D.C. Circuit still has not issued a decision.

For anyone following the NTEU litigation, how does it look for the union at this point, and how much longer could this realistically drag out?

Also, if I apply for federal jobs again while the termination is still on my record, am I basically dead on arrival? I have been told agencies will usually choose a similarly qualified applicant with a clean record over someone with a termination. Is that generally true in practice?

Finally, I have about 15 years under FERS and worked my way from roughly GS 5 to GS 12. If I never return to federal service, what would that roughly translate to for a pension based on my high 3, and what age could I start collecting without taking a major reduction?

At this point I am trying to figure out whether I still have a realistic path back into federal service, what happens with the NTEU case, and what retirement benefit I still have left.

Hi everyone. I found out two days ago that my job is being eliminated, and honestly, it really sucks. I work with students in campus ministry at a small Christian university, so I'm really upset that I'll have to leave them. My supervisor told me: "You're not fired, and technically this isn't a layoff, we just don't have funding for this role anymore." So... Yeah. My job is gone.

He also asked me not to tell the students or my coworkers that the position was eliminated, or that I'm leaving because of funding. Do I have the right to tell the students that I'm not choosing to leave, but that the school ended my role? A lot of the students I work with already struggle with the idea of adults coming in and out of their lives. Several of them have literally asked me: "You're not going to leave too, right?" And I always answered with something like: "Not unless they force me to!" So I feel like it's wrong to let them think I decided to move on somewhere else by choice, when that's not what happened.

I don't want to make a scene or turn it into a problem, but at the same time I don't want to lie by omission to students who trusted me.

Thanks for reading.