List of Toxic Federal Agencies

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DEA

why?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DEA

why?

A lot of the law enforcement agencies are all-around terrible, and it is mainly due to the man-child culture of the organizations.

Someone else mentioned upthread about the IRS coming down on people who made a mistake as demoralizing to the employees. The inverse is also true, where an IRS employee discovers that a company has been cheating the system, and they are told to just let it go because someone in power doesn't want to make an enemy. I know someone who works on the corporate side, and they talk about going into meetings where the other side has 10 lawyers from top-tier law schools, and the IRS employee has no backup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DEA

why?

A lot of the law enforcement agencies are all-around terrible, and it is mainly due to the man-child culture of the organizations.

Someone else mentioned upthread about the IRS coming down on people who made a mistake as demoralizing to the employees. The inverse is also true, where an IRS employee discovers that a company has been cheating the system, and they are told to just let it go because someone in power doesn't want to make an enemy. I know someone who works on the corporate side, and they talk about going into meetings where the other side has 10 lawyers from top-tier law schools, and the IRS employee has no backup.

Except for the law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok. I'm very curious. What makes USAID OIG so toxic? Way too many people have listed it. isn't the OIG supposed to model integrity and accountability?

Excellent question. Not sure if it is toxic, but it certainly could use improvement. One of the issues is the constant revolving door of people coming and going, management changes often, and not always for the better. When new management come in, they want to make the place better immediately so lots of change happens and it is mostly mismanaged and poorly communicated. It would probably be better if the SES used an actual change management model to help this along. First level managers don't have the ability to build highly functioning teams because of the retention issues. Also, GC is so far in the weeds on the day to day work that they basically are the ones giving direction to the operational units, which is odd because in other OIGs, the GC sections are usually there just to ensure the publicly release work product is legally sufficient.

Every year there are about 3 surveys that come out, there is a nearly 80% response rate which typically says that there are problems. The results are communicated to the staff after they have gone through a lot of review by the SES. Unsure if they are sanitized, but the common theme here, year after year, is the SES and 15s need to do better. Problem is the SES and 15s tend to throw blame on the staff and first line supervisors, yet the first line supervisors are receiving highly rated scores. Perhaps that makes it toxic, I don't know.

All I can say is if you want to work in the development community, this is a good place to get that exposure. If you have a huge ego and are always right, you will find that you have good company, much like the culture at State. If you enjoy micromanagement from the highest levels, constantly changing directives, gaslighting around every corner, and a staff that is here one day and gone the next, go to USAJobs and sign up, there are always announcements out there.

USAID OIG is definitely toxic. It is also a very corrupt organization. Let me get in on this fun! I work in the Office of Management within the OIG. We are a train wreck! My colleagues are not the brightest, but they also are not completely dumb. We have been beaten down by leaders and managers for 15 years. Our morale is in the toilet. Nobody cares about us and blame us for every single failure in the organization. We only do what we are told by our division leadership, but they pass the blame on to us. And the other leaders somehow believe individual employees have gone rogue. No, we were given bad direction and guidance from our division leadership.

The current AIG for management is an atomic bomb. She literally yells at people. She doesn't listen. She ask questions AFTER she berates you and when she realizes she might be wrong, she blames you for not speaking up. The only reason we continue to survive under this toxic leadership is because we work from home during the pandemic. If we were face to face and she talked to us like that, I'm quite sure someone would literally slap her. You can't talk to people like they are trash. She talks about having our back but when our customers complain, she comes directly for our neck. she doesn't even ask us for our version of the story. She launches into 30 minute tirade.

The last IG was a really nice and personable leader, but she hired all of her friends into the leadership positions. None of them took the time to understand the organization. They came in with grenades and blew everything up. We might be more dysfunctional than under her predecessor. If this wasn't bad enough, the former IG brought in these toxic consultants (more friends). They turned this place upside down. They wrote policies that confused everyone and proposed reorgs every six months (I'm not exaggerating). And how about this for integrity-- one of the consultants was asked to temporarily leave the contract and come back to federal service as acting HR director. She served in this role for a year and then went right back into our consulting role without a break in service. Is this ethical?

If you ever see a USAID OIG job on USAJOBS, please ignore. Do not come here. It is a dead end organization. I often feel like the only escape is either retirement or death. I have 3 more years before I'm eligible to retire. I'm just praying I make it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DEA

why?

A lot of the law enforcement agencies are all-around terrible, and it is mainly due to the man-child culture of the organizations.

What does this mean in practice though, man child culture? The federal law enforcement agencies are part of DOJ..

[Anonymous]

Some federal law enforcement agencies are at dhs. Also bad culture

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Ok. I'm very curious. What makes USAID OIG so toxic? Way too many people have listed it. isn't the OIG supposed to model integrity and accountability?

Excellent question. Not sure if it is toxic, but it certainly could use improvement. One of the issues is the constant revolving door of people coming and going, management changes often, and not always for the better. When new management come in, they want to make the place better immediately so lots of change happens and it is mostly mismanaged and poorly communicated. It would probably be better if the SES used an actual change management model to help this along. First level managers don't have the ability to build highly functioning teams because of the retention issues. Also, GC is so far in the weeds on the day to day work that they basically are the ones giving direction to the operational units, which is odd because in other OIGs, the GC sections are usually there just to ensure the publicly release work product is legally sufficient.

Every year there are about 3 surveys that come out, there is a nearly 80% response rate which typically says that there are problems. The results are communicated to the staff after they have gone through a lot of review by the SES. Unsure if they are sanitized, but the common theme here, year after year, is the SES and 15s need to do better. Problem is the SES and 15s tend to throw blame on the staff and first line supervisors, yet the first line supervisors are receiving highly rated scores. Perhaps that makes it toxic, I don't know.

All I can say is if you want to work in the development community, this is a good place to get that exposure. If you have a huge ego and are always right, you will find that you have good company, much like the culture at State. If you enjoy micromanagement from the highest levels, constantly changing directives, gaslighting around every corner, and a staff that is here one day and gone the next, go to USAJobs and sign up, there are always announcements out there.

USAID OIG is definitely toxic. It is also a very corrupt organization. Let me get in on this fun! I work in the Office of Management within the OIG. We are a train wreck! My colleagues are not the brightest, but they also are not completely dumb. We have been beaten down by leaders and managers for 15 years. Our morale is in the toilet. Nobody cares about us and blame us for every single failure in the organization. We only do what we are told by our division leadership, but they pass the blame on to us. And the other leaders somehow believe individual employees have gone rogue. No, we were given bad direction and guidance from our division leadership.

The current AIG for management is an atomic bomb. She literally yells at people. She doesn't listen. She ask questions AFTER she berates you and when she realizes she might be wrong, she blames you for not speaking up. The only reason we continue to survive under this toxic leadership is because we work from home during the pandemic. If we were face to face and she talked to us like that, I'm quite sure someone would literally slap her. You can't talk to people like they are trash. She talks about having our back but when our customers complain, she comes directly for our neck. she doesn't even ask us for our version of the story. She launches into 30 minute tirade.

The last IG was a really nice and personable leader, but she hired all of her friends into the leadership positions. None of them took the time to understand the organization. They came in with grenades and blew everything up. We might be more dysfunctional than under her predecessor. If this wasn't bad enough, the former IG brought in these toxic consultants (more friends). They turned this place upside down. They wrote policies that confused everyone and proposed reorgs every six months (I'm not exaggerating). And how about this for integrity-- one of the consultants was asked to temporarily leave the contract and come back to federal service as acting HR director. She served in this role for a year and then went right back into our consulting role without a break in service. Is this ethical?

If you ever see a USAID OIG job on USAJOBS, please ignore. Do not come here. It is a dead end organization. I often feel like the only escape is either retirement or death. I have 3 more years before I'm eligible to retire. I'm just praying I make it.

WOW. I once had a supervisor scream at me. I screamed right back at him. He never did it again!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The federal law enforcement agencies are part of DOJ..

Don’t tell them that. FBI in particular hates being reminded that they’re under DOJ. The man baby thing is dead on.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The federal law enforcement agencies are part of DOJ..

Don’t tell them that. FBI in particular hates being reminded that they’re under DOJ. The man baby thing is dead on.

But what does this mean for the workforce, if you are not an agent?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:USAID OIG. STAY VERY FAR AWAY FROM THIS ORGANIZATION! The all-caps is VERY INTENTIONAL

Does anyone think highly of any OIG, though?

[Anonymous]

So, so. glad I left the gov!!

[Anonymous]

I struggled the most in agencies outside of DoD after starting out as a contractor for the Army. I found working with only women to be very challenging, as a woman. I struggled with being segregated on an all-female team. It's like crabs in a bucket. Women bullying other women is real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I struggled the most in agencies outside of DoD after starting out as a contractor for the Army. I found working with only women to be very challenging, as a woman. I struggled with being segregated on an all-female team. It's like crabs in a bucket. Women bullying other women is real.

Yes it is, unfortunately.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DEA

why?

A lot of the law enforcement agencies are all-around terrible, and it is mainly due to the man-child culture of the organizations.

Someone else mentioned upthread about the IRS coming down on people who made a mistake as demoralizing to the employees. The inverse is also true, where an IRS employee discovers that a company has been cheating the system, and they are told to just let it go because someone in power doesn't want to make an enemy. I know someone who works on the corporate side, and they talk about going into meetings where the other side has 10 lawyers from top-tier law schools, and the IRS employee has no backup.

Honestly that's pretty standard. When I go into meetings with companies (I'm with a different agency, not IRS) they usually have a team of lawyers, and it's just me across from the table. I know they're all trying to intimidate me and just want to up their billing hours for the month, so it doesn't bother me at all. I'm good at my job and know what I'm doing. I don't need backup.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:USAID OIG. STAY VERY FAR AWAY FROM THIS ORGANIZATION! The all-caps is VERY INTENTIONAL

Does anyone think highly of any OIG, though?

Love the one I work for. Some are toxic, some aren’t (just like the agencies they oversee).