Evicted!

This Friday I'm being evicted.

From my cubicle. And my job.

I've mentioned previously that I'm currently on a rotation (or "detail" as the Feds say) to another office. I was given a 4 month stint working as a representative of my FederalEntity to the Politicos. It's been a pretty cool experience - I've met some powerful people, learned some interesting things, schmoozed with the bigwigs for a bit. Unfortunately, my 4 month rotation is being cut a month short. On Friday, it's back to my old job...

These rotations are designed to be "learning experiences". They're intended to help breed well-rounded, experienced Federal employees for future management roles. Why then would they cut my developmental experience a month short?

The Answer: The summer intern they just hired needs a place to sit.

I am not even kidding you here, they need to free up a cubicle for the summer intern so they're ending my rotation a month early and kicking me to the curb. It's beyond frustrating. I went on rotation hoping to learn as much as I could. To have my learning experience cut short is a bummer. To have it truncated for such a lame reason - well, it kinda makes me want to quit...

Like a lot of things in the Federal Government, that's just the way it is. The summer intern is the son of a bigshot here at FederalEntity - of course he gets priority over me! As you can see from this official diagram, I am at the very bottom of the totem pole:

The Biggest Waste of Time?

There have been three “events” at work in the past few weeks that have been a bit puzzling. I’ve been trying to decide which one is the most pointless, the biggest waste of time, and the most egregious use of taxpayer dollars. It’s a pretty close call:

1. Community Involvement Day! Last month, our office had a “get involved in the community” celebration. Half of our staff went to help at an elementary school; the other half went to clean up a park. These events ran from 8 am to 1 pm (6 hours of free pay!), and I’d venture to say that nobody did any work when they got back. As a taxpayer, I can’t say that I’m happy that so many employees were blatantly not doing their jobs for an entire day and still getting paid. The silver lining: I’ll admit, I had fun cleaning up the park (picking up garbage is more fun than being stuck in the Federal Wasteland).

2. Relaxation Workshop! Imagine 50 government workers sitting around a large conference room table, taking an hour long nap. This was the scene at the relaxation workshop. Another office at my FederalEntity hired an alternative medicine guru to run a meditation program for their employees. There were extra spots so my coworkers and I attended. For the first 10 minutes I couldn’t stop laughing, that’s how ridiculous the scenario was (the guru kept telling us to “relax our genitals”). One guy fell asleep almost immediately and started snoring! After 30 minutes, I too found my Zen place and dozed off for a bit. It was totally relaxing, but I’m not sure if it was a wise investment of taxpayer dollars, especially since this particular seminar was part of a six class series! The silver lining: if I’m ever caught sleeping at my desk, I can just say that I’m “implementing the meditation strategies learned at the relaxation workshop”.

3. Management Retreat! Twice a year, the high level managers get together for 2-3 days to discuss why our office is a sinking ship. The answer, of course, is “bad management”, but they never seem to reach this conclusion... Hmm… The retreat is not held in our building, nor is it held in any of the thousands of hotel conference centers in Washington, DC. Oh no, these are the big time brass, they hold their retreat at a facility that’s a 3 hour drive away. That way, they get to spend the night, they get per diem pay, and they get reimbursed for mileage. And let me tell you, the places they hold these retreats at are more like resorts than hotels! I think I’m more jealous than angry. I want to get paid to sit around all day doing nothing! Oh wait… well… I want to get paid to sit around all day doing nothing at a resort! The silver lining: the management retreat is this week, so it’s been very quiet in my office. No pointless assignments, no unnecessary meetings, just plenty of time for me to implement the skills I learned at the relaxation workshop!

The CC: Wars

In the past two days, I've been caught in the crossfire of two cc: wars. CC: of course is net slang for "carbon copy" or "courtesy copy" on an email. When I write an email, I try to send it to as few people as possible - only those directly involved in the issue. Many of my coworkers choose to cc: everyone they know on almost every email they write.

My one coworker Henry is the worst offender - he's responsible for one of the two cc: wars this week. Henry will write an email to someone and cc: pretty much our entire staff. The recipient will inevitably respond (by hitting "reply-to-all" - how are they to know that everyone else is pointlessly cc'd?), starting the cc: war! Henry will respond in turn, again hitting "reply-to-all" to fan the flames. The volleys continue on for days, sometimes weeks while everyone on the cc: list just sits there silently as their inbox gets massacred.

There are three main reasons why people here overuse the cc: 1. to prove to everyone that they're "doing work", 2. they don't understand how use email, and 3. to shirk accountability.

Reasons 1 & 2 aren't surprising based on the monkeys I work with. Reason 3 is tied to the hierarchical structure of all FederalEntities. Nobody wants to be held accountable for anything, ever. Nobody wants to have their name attached to a decision. Workers pass issues to their staff directors, who raise them to their directors, who send them to the big bosses, who convene workgroups to gather as much input from as many sources as possible -- all hoping that the issue will just die or resolve itself before a decision has to be made. Even "experts" don't use their expertise freely - nearly everything gets sent through the chain.

The best bosses can streamline the b-s, smothering the smaller issues and only elevating the really important stuff. But my office (nay, the Government) is full of horrible managers. Everything becomes an "important issue" that requires someone else to make the call. Everything requires feedback from a million different sources. Nobody wants to take the fall if things go bad so when an issue comes up, they cc: a thousand people on it hoping that it will help to spread the eventual blame.

My friend Ben works in the private sector as a contractor to the Federal Government. He's repeatedly mentioned to me that decision-making is the opposite there (not always, but as a general rule). In the private sector, managers are trying to carve out their niche. They want to claim their territory. Project leaders love their power, and try to shield it from others so they can reap all the glory (bonuses?) that comes with success. There's a real sense of ownership to the work, and it's all done in an effort to get ahead - to climb the ladder. Here at FederalEntity, ownership only leads to blame and retribution, and moving up the ladder is hardly based on accomplishments - whats my motivation to attach my name to any decision??

Ben gets maddeningly frustrated when he works on a contract for any FederalEntity. He'll make some small decisions, show them to the Federal project officer for concurrence, and that project officer will send it up the chain, making a mountain out of a molehill. Working with the Federal Government must feel like driving on the Autobahn stuck behind a car going 35 mph.

Henry's cc: wars will undoubtedly continue unless I do something drastic (and it needs to be more creative than replying-to-all with "unsubscribe."). My coworker John came up with a good solution to the cc: madness. A few months back his staff director yelled at him for NOT cc'ing her on an unimportant email chain, upset that he wasn't keeping her "in the loop". For the next week or so, he cc'd her on every single message he sent. She promptly changed her opinion.

The Purchase Card Issue

I'm sure you've all heard about the recent GAO report that investigated Government Purchase Card mis-use and abuse. There's been this big uproar over the use of Government purchase cards by Federal employees who used your tax dollars to pay for all kinds of ridiculously inappropriate items, from lingerie to gambling debts and car payments.

(If you've been living under a rock, you can catch up on the debacle by reading this.)

I have a Government credit card, but I do not have a purchase card. My Government credit card is used for travel purposes only. I put my flights and hotel expenses on it, and not much else. It's a restricted use card - it only works at specific types of vendors (hotels, airlines, restaurants) so I couldn't use it to say, buy a prostitute over the internet. Even if I did buy something non-work related on it, the monthly bill comes to my house in my name and I'm responsible for paying it off (travel reimbursement shows up automatically in my paycheck, I then write a personal check to the credit card company). That way, I'm accountable for whatever I buy on it.

Purchase cards are different. Purchase cards bill the FederalEntity directly, not the person placing the order. The holder of the card obligates the Government to pay for the goods or services requested as soon as the card is swiped. Theoretically, these purchases are signed off on by managers, but as the GAO report found, the oversight is crappy at best.

My coworker Frank (see description to left) holds the purchase card for our office. Scary thought, isn't it? He's an honest, good-hearted man and would never do anything absurd like order Russian caviar for a retirement party, but there's basically nothing to stop him if he wanted to. One time, a coworker needed two AA batteries for a desktop calculator. She asked Frank to order them with the purchase card. For some reason, Frank bought 500 batteries. It was an honest mistake, but there was nobody in the approval chain who thought to question why our office needed hundreds of dollars worth of AA batteries. The purchase was authorized, the government paid the bill, and an entire shelf in our supply closet was filled with batteries that we had no use for. (Side note: people began stealing the batteries for personal use, so they are now locked up in the Director's office).

I've been reading all of the articles on this purchase card issue, including the responses from Congress ("This must be stopped! We had no idea! Blah blah blah!"). By far, my favorite snippet is this:

"Another fraud case involved the U.S. Postal Service, where an unidentified postmaster used his card to charge $1,100 over a 15-month period for "various online dating services" while he was under investigation for viewing pornography on a government computer. The employee worked out an agreement to remain on sick leave until he retired in 2007 and paid back the money spent on the dating services, according to the GAO report and a Postal Service spokesman."

He looked at pornography while at work, got caught, was placed under investigation, then had the cojones to pay for online dating subscriptions with his Government purchase card! Got caught for that... and he DIDN'T EVEN GET FIRED!!! Talk about job security.

Workplace Safety

Ever have one of those days where you're so stressed out and frustrated that you come close to lashing out at your coworkers? Ever have the fear that your supervisor might catch you at a bad moment and trigger a psychotic episode? Ever have brief lapses of sanity at work where you almost quit on the spot, smash your computer, flip off your boss, and storm out the front door? Well, what if there was an office warning system - a way to inform those around you that you're about to explode so they don't unknowingly trigger a "workplace incident"?

Thanks to my coworker Mac, now there is. I present to you the "Federal Employee Threat Level Advisory System":

(click the image for a higher-res. version that you can print!)

Mac spent the past 8 months stuck in a situation many Feds are all too familiar with - working for absolutely horrible bosses. In Mac's case, his bosses were "spinners". Spinners are bosses who have no clue what's going on, but whenever an issue arises they spin around really fast in a circle, stirring up tons of paper, and making a lot of noise so that it looks like they're doing something. In reality they're just making a huge mess of the situation. They create endless hoops for their staff members to jump through and generally piss off everyone who DOES understand what's going on.

Having incompetent bosses is enough to drive one to the verge of quitting. Having incompetent bosses who can never be fired and will likely be promoted... that's enough to make one go Postal. (Sidenote: Isn't it interesting that the phrase to describe the most extreme act of flipping out on your coworkers, going "Postal", is derived from Federal employees who actually flipped out on their coworkers??). Mac thought it was only fair to inform his coworkers and bosses how close he was to lashing out.

So Mac created the Federal Employee Threat Level Advisory System, and put it right outside of the entryway to his cube. He would mark his status with a magnet, and he would update it throughout the day based on how he was feeling. Normal resting status was "elevated", and quite frequently I saw it reach the "severe" level. It was an amazingly effective way of telling his bosses just how annoyed he was with them. And if a boss saw that he was at "severe", they probably thought twice before pestering him with a pointless assignment.

After 8 months of being managed by a group that was "dumber than monkeys" as he put it, Mac fled to another office. His legacy remains though, as several of my coworkers have adopted the Federal Employee Threat Level Advisory System. And now I'm passing it on to you, gentle reader. Print it out and give it a try! If you're a Fed, you'll find that it works wonders! (Warning: If you work in the private sector, you'll probably be reprimanded or fired.)

Remember, safety is everyone's responsibility!

Invincible.

Thanks to all the new readers! Keep spreading the word! And to all you Feds who are reading this, get back to work!

I'd like to share with you the story of my coworker Pauline. Now, there are lots of people here who don't do much work and get paid lots of money. But Pauline's Salary:Work ratio is by far the best (conservatively $135,000 to 0.000001). And she's invincible. Allow me to elaborate.

Pauline was hired as a staff director about 7 years ago. She was a manager of 4-5 employees and was in charge of some pretty high-profile stuff. Trouble was, Pauline wasn't good at her job and she was a terrible manager. She messed up every project she was given. She tortured her staff members. She created havoc for other managers who had to work with her. It was not a good scene. All but one of the employees who worked for her jumped ship after the first 6 months.

The head boss in our office realized that Pauline had to be dealt with. No one throughout the ranks could stand to work with her. So her bosses started going through the motions and collecting the proper information to start the "termination" process. Pauline found this out and ran straight to the Union and the Equal Employment Opportunity folks to file a workplace grievance. Apparently the EEO office and the Union bought the "I didn't do anything, everyone else in the world just hates me!" excuse, and they jumped in to fight for her.

Once the Union and EEO folks get involved, forget about it. The process becomes so bogged down in mediation sessions and union proceedings that the person becomes untouchable. If you fire them, the FederalEntity gets hit with a lawsuit and usually a 6 or 7 figure settlement payout.

The Union negotiated for Pauline and instead of being fired, she was reassigned as a "special assistant". She would continue to work on projects in the office, but would have no managerial responsibilities. And just to avoid future conflicts, they negotiated a clause into Pauline's settlement wherein she could reject any work assignments that she didn't want to do (in case her bosses tried to assign her horrible projects as revenge).

Seven years later, Pauline still works here! She has her own office with a door (which is always closed), but sometimes I see her in the halls. She comes to every holiday party, loads up on food, and then leaves. I'd estimate that she comes in no more than 10 hours a week. The bosses don't give her any work to do because a) she'd just mess it up and b) she would probably just refuse the assignment anyway. Absolutely NOTHING is expected of her. How can she fail when the bar is set at zero? She's invincible!

Don't worry, American taxpayer, she still receives her managerial level GS-15 salary. Actually, be very very worried.

You're Fired!

In my time at FederalEntity, I've encountered over 100 people who I've felt should be fired immediately. From sleeping under desks to selling bootleg DVDs; from looking at pornography while at work to not even coming to work at all - I am surrounded by a sea of underachievers who would have been given the boot ages ago if they worked in the private sector. It's nearly impossible to fire a Fed, though. In 2.5 years, we've successfully gotten rid of 2 people on my staff (out of 20 who deserve it) and believe me, the process is long and painful. Their stories are below:

1. Sarah the Crazy Secretary - Sarah was a secretary on in our division. I only met her once, and fortunately never had to work with her. My coworkers John and Jessie were not so fortunate. Apparently Sarah wasn't just crazy, she was vicious. Even a simple hello would elicit a mean response. If you asked her to do some basic aspect of her job (filing, for example) she might snap at you. She probably did it to frighten people - thinking it would keep them from asking her to do anything (it worked). The tasks she did take on were completed incorrectly and past deadline. She had behaved this way for years, but this wasn't enough to fire her.

Keep in mind, doing your job poorly isn't grounds for being fired. Maybe the expectations weren't clear? Maybe you were never provided the necessary skills or resources to complete the task? Maybe you can attribute it to "everybody makes mistakes!"? Of course, those are all BS excuses, but they actually work in the Federal Government. You may not have done your job correctly, but at least you tried! How can you fire someone for trying??

From what I've gathered with Sarah the Crazy Secretary, she was finally done in for two reasons. First, she eventually stopped trying. When she was given a task by her manager, she would outright refuse to do it. As in "no, I will not even attempt to do the most basic elements of my job". This is not easy to prove, however. Staff members had to document when they had assigned her work and if the work was completed correctly / at all. This went on for months and months before they had enough "proof" that she wasn't doing her job!

The second reason she got fired: She was crazy and created an unsafe work environment. This next part is going to sound like a lie, but I promise it's not. Sarah would post biblical passages outside of her cubicle. The passages she posted were the ones where God enacted his fiery revenge upon evil sinners. But she would replace the names of those sinners with the names of her bosses. Imagine being a boss and seeing your name in a re-written biblical passage outside of your secretary's cube!

("And God smote Bill Johnson, sending him to the eternal fire pits of Hell to be tortured for an eternity!")

Towards the end, she would go into her boss' office and just scream at him. She was heard on more than one occasion calling him a "plantation owner". Yeah, it went there. They fired her a few days before Christmas. Armed security guards came to her desk with an empty box, gave her 20 minutes to pack, and then escorted her out of the building. Her picture was posted at every entrance of the building so that all of the security guards knew not to let her in. That evening, the guards escorted her boss to his car as a precaution, lest she be lurking in the bushes.

I wish that's where the story ends, but it isn't. Sarah appealed her firing - saying that it was racially motivated. The Union jumped in to fight for her. Despite the mountains of evidence against her, Sarah won her appeal and had the "firing" expunged from her record (it now just looks like she quit). I'm not sure if she won any money in the settlement, but it's a very real possibility. Even scarier, she may very well be working at another FederalEntity.

2. Firing #2 is shorter and less interesting. I don't even remember the guy's name (doesn't matter, all the names/genders on this blog are made up anyways). He sat in a cubicle sort of near mine - it was down the hall and around a corner. He always came to work, but I could never figure out what his job was. I think it had something to do with ordering office supplies. There were rumors that he had gotten into screaming matches with several bosses, but I always found him to be quiet and pleasant. He was the #1 fan of my motivational mirror!

It was a known fact that he had severe mental health issues and he took long periods off for "health" reasons. I think it eventually got to the point where his mental state was preventing him from doing anything. My staff director had been diligently gathering evidence and when the case was strong enough called a meeting with him. The proposition was laid out: "Here are the facts. I'm about to file the papers to start your termination process. If you don't want to go through with all that, you can quit and it won't show on your record that you were 'fired'". The guy knew that he hadn't been doing his job, so he agreed to "quit" and that was that.

After recounting those two stories, I'm actually a little depressed. It's so hard to hire good people. It's nearly impossible to fire the worst people. If that's not the recipe for a sinking ship I don't know what is...

There are, of course, a number of offenses that can get you fired right away - stealing Government property, physically assaulting someone while at work, selling secrets to a foreign country, etc. but unfortunately the people who deserve to get fired know better than to do any of those.

I guess the question that remains to be seen is: can I be fired for writing this blog? It would be an interesting court case, that's for sure. Just to be on the safe side, do me a favor - if you think you know who I am or where I work, keep it a secret when you send the blog to your friends. Thanks!