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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]DOGE and Elon are fixated on SS and not understanding that SBA stands for Survivor  Benefit Annuity NOT Small Business Administration.  And even though it’s been explained they are doubling down because the folks who are constantly wrong have a hard time admitting that.

Oh and trying to take over USPS so mailing a letter can become more costly.[/quote]

I’m at SSA.  The work environment is so incredibly toxic—  we have a dozen attorneys who write agency decision that need to stand up in Court and don’t interact with the public or even their co-workers regularly,  even when in person, and just need the quiet to concentrate and write complex things  (and were 60% telework back to at least 2010 because of this). They have our building at 2-3x  normal capacity, and are in a hotel situation where 1/3 of people get actual desks, so close together they almost touch.   Everyone else sits around a conference room table in small, airless, incredibly noisy room conference rooms— without the ability to charge everyone’s laptop. While some people in the room do talk to claimants as part of their job and are on the phone all day. Disturbing everyone else and revealing PII to the whole room.

There are no wrist pads for the key board or mouse, or a sturdy, stable chair, or any other basic ergonomics.  Our employees are taking sick days and mental health FMLA leave al over the place, filing workers comp complaints and OSHA complaints (when you can’t even trust the water to wash your hands, because the office has Legionella. And they can’t test to determine if it’s still there, because the credit cards frozen at $1 so they can’t get test kits).  People are filing workers comp complaints  for physical problems showing up based on crap ergonomics and for stress related issues and going out on WC. So many people are filing union on grievances there is an ongoing wait to get the appointment to file yours.  So many people are sick leave, FMLA, WC, annual leave that it feels like no one is working more than about 3 days a week.  It’s unusual for half the people not to be on some form of leave (but lucky, because otherwise, we’d literally be sitting on each others laps).  I’m out today on FMLA leave.

And with production grinding to a halt because employees need a second monitor to review records while writing decisions, and we all trying to patch into spotty WiFi (which keeps dumping them off) to work because there are no dedicated docking stations.  Morale so bad people are showing up in their yoga pants and t-shirts because no one is treating them like professionals so f—k professionalism. If you are so close to your neighbor in a hot conference room that you bump elbows while typing, you may as well be comfortable.  The frustration and anger about being unable to do the job and the absolute heartbreak from mission oriented people watching the agency be destroyed means people are starting to give up trying, and just checking the “bare minimum,” boxes.

Returning people to this environment, where most employees don’t have an appropriate space to work productively. is cheered by MAGA. But, our backlogs were insane before Trump.  And have been since I joined SSA in 2010. No POTUS or Congress has wanted to give us the money to staff appropriately.   And now productivity has tanked. You just can’t be as productive on a single screen in loud packed conference room as at home. Or even in an actual cubical with the correct equipment. And red state people are waiting over a year for people to get to their case too.in fact, more claims per capita anre from red states.  And the backlog is just growing.

And  the and the damage to our claimant is, it’s not the biggest problem. Up to the point Elmo actually breaks us, we can recover down the road. It will take 5-10 yeas and an infusion of new spending. But it can be done with hiring and mentoring and people like me (17 years at SSA) taking on the SME roles.   AS THINGS STAND TODAY. And I’m hoping the anger and press even in red districts, and US GETTING A NEW COMMISSIONER CONFIRMED BY THE SENATE AND NOT THE GS-15 DOGE RUBBER STAMP LEAKER WHO WAS ABOUT TO BE FIRED FOR LEAKING YOUR PII TO DOGE when he was elevated, will at least stabilize us, even if he’s conservative from a policy standpoint. That maybe the chainsaw stops and further cuts use a scalpel. And we get some common sense and focus on backlogged workloads.  Because, if they stopped the f#ckery now, it would take us 5 years to stabilize and ten years to get back to where we were two years ago. Because the employees who left did so under VERA, and were our institutional knowledge. In my team 12 out of 40 left last week— all out most knowledgeable, most productive people.  Elmo may well lose more than the 7000 he wanted just through making the agency toxic and offering a VERA and VSIP stacked.

SSA is incredibly complex from a regulatory standpoint. If you work 40 years at a W2 job and retire at 65, you might not realize this. But many, many people have 1099 income, self employment income, under the table income, are on a divorced spouse’s earnings record, but have no access to their post divorce earning record. And RSI is only one program. Disability?  Incredibly Complex. Plus SBA (not small business loans Elmo— minor children with dead parents), implanting WEP, and on and on. Lots of programs. Many with complex regulatory schemes. But, we could rebuild in time (you know, if we had a budget  :roll: ).

The bigger problem is actually the data. It surprised me how high my security clearance need to be— to work at SSA.   Seemed odd. But then I realized.  We’re a clearing house. We get data from so many agencies and know absolutely everything about absolutely everyone, except maybe their FBI file. We even have ALL your PP and data and ALL the medical records on 70 million people. Yes, a Judge said stop and delete. But Elmo plugged his personal devices into our systems. Whatever he deletes is not the only copy he has. I 100% guarantee it. And that data is gone. Copied, recopied, in the cloud, on personal devices. Able to be hacked, ready for Elmo to funnel though AI. Once it left our servers, we can never secure it and get it back. And we, as a country, cannot  recover from that eventually.  It’s not just just SSNs here. Every job you worked, every place you lived, your parents and there information, your immigration info, your demographic info (your mother’s maiden name, a common security challenge), student loans info, info from the asBA, BA, FHA, Fannie/Freedie, Treasury, the IRS, and on and on. It’s all in Elmo’s hands. And most distressingly, the loss of medical records showing therapy sessions, HIV status, STIs, pictures from your colonoscopy, people who have had abortions, THC and illegal drug use showing in drug testing, rehab stir its, involuntary commitments, every med you have ever taken, education record— we have it all on everyone whomever applied for Kids SSI, DWB, SSI or SSDI— whether they got benefits or not.  We have your 2 month olds data, FFS. And now, so does DOGE. This does not end well.

I would strongly encourage everyone who lives in a red/purple state or Congressional District to contact your Reps and tell them to stop dismantling social security and get real about the data loss. And develop a plan to protect all Americans from the blackmail (does your spouse know you had an abortion 10 years ago?) and the catastrophic affects of this data being leaked or weaponized.

And, if, like me, you live in a district where Kaine, Warner and Connelly are already all over this and don’t need more call, ask your family, friends, social media contacts, etc— everyone you know who lives ain a red or purple state or Congressional district to call their Reps. And retirees have time on their hands and care a lot about SSA.  Ask them to ask their friends and contacts to calll their Reps— on both the dismantling of the agency (because we will break and miss checks at this rate. The issue is whether it’s in 1 month or 4 months) and the data breach. Pressure on R Reps and Congressmen is the only thing that can help. And this shouldn’t be partisan. 95% of America want to be able to access social security and does not want Elmo running their personal data through AI for G-d knows what reason. Right?[/quote]

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