Anonymous
05/16/2022 06:57
Subject: Re:Best federal agency to work for
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:What is the Commerce telework policy? I ask as a fed who has to go on site only 2 days per pay period - although with older kids I may go to office more often. Flexibility is going to help with retention I am guessing
I'm at NOAA and I've been really happy here until Raimondo came out with the same telework policy that we had pre pandemic, which only allows for two telework days a week no matter what. We had an insulting All Hands about it during which she insisted it was the greatest most flexible policy and that it was time for us to go back to the office and have fun. Offices who got word early rushed to sign more lenient agreements with their employees so now people in the know can enjoy more flexibility at least until FY23. The rest of us schmucks need to start back up in late June. I do believe that NOAA leadership are doing everything they can short of open revolt to get us more flexibility (they've submitted a variance for all ZA staff and there are several others in the works), and I'm confident once Raimondo leaves they'll overturn this stupid policy. Unfortunately we're going to lose a lot of valuable talent before then.
Pretty much exactly this. Word is also that she announced it to senior career staff with no notification and the meeting did not go well. Even better is that this policy has not even be released! They just randomly decided two days a week, even though a Department-wide policy released in December 2021 allowed up to 8 days of telework a pay period. Then there was the pre-scripted all hands where leadership answered pre-cleared and likely prewritten questions that didn’t address any of the actual concerns.
Anonymous
05/15/2022 22:35
Subject: Re:Best federal agency to work for
Anonymous wrote:What is the Commerce telework policy? I ask as a fed who has to go on site only 2 days per pay period - although with older kids I may go to office more often. Flexibility is going to help with retention I am guessing
I'm at NOAA and I've been really happy here until Raimondo came out with the same telework policy that we had pre pandemic, which only allows for two telework days a week no matter what. We had an insulting All Hands about it during which she insisted it was the greatest most flexible policy and that it was time for us to go back to the office and have fun. Offices who got word early rushed to sign more lenient agreements with their employees so now people in the know can enjoy more flexibility at least until FY23. The rest of us schmucks need to start back up in late June. I do believe that NOAA leadership are doing everything they can short of open revolt to get us more flexibility (they've submitted a variance for all ZA staff and there are several others in the works), and I'm confident once Raimondo leaves they'll overturn this stupid policy. Unfortunately we're going to lose a lot of valuable talent before then.
Anonymous
05/15/2022 21:41
Subject: Re:Best federal agency to work for
What is the Commerce telework policy? I ask as a fed who has to go on site only 2 days per pay period - although with older kids I may go to office more often. Flexibility is going to help with retention I am guessing
Anonymous
05/15/2022 21:14
Subject: Best federal agency to work for
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Easy, just look at the rankings. https://bestplacestowork.org/rankings/?view=overall&size=large&category=leadership&
Large Agencies
1 National Aeronautics and Space Administration
2 Intelligence Community
3 Department of Transportation
4 Department of Health and Human Services
5 Department of Commerce
Midsize Agencies
1 Government Accountability Office
2 Federal Trade Commission
3 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
4 Securities and Exchange Commission
5 National Science Foundation
I work in a subagency in the top 50 and it's been light years better than other places I've worked. People are smart, dedicated and hardworking. Bad performers are quickly fired.
Guarantee SEC will fall off that list soon with Gensler at the helm.
Same with FTC.
What is going on at FTC? Seems cushy for attorneys.
I'm not at the FTC, but from what I've heard the new leadership is downright contemptuous of the career staff—thinks they're lazy, etc. The FEVS results absolutely plummeted from 2020 to 2021:
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/what-s-going-on-at-the-ftc-new-employee-9453951/
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!
Couldn’t possibly be their unqualified Commissioner lol. I have to say, I voted for Biden but some of his political appointees have been awful. Raimando and her team at DOC aren’t much better.
+1. I too voted for Biden thinking his appointments would be a breath of fresh air after those of the Trump administration. But I have been absolutely shocked at some of his choices. I think it started with incompetent transition teams who seemed more focused on serving their own interests or those of their friends than in actually getting things done.
Anonymous
05/15/2022 21:00
Subject: Best federal agency to work for
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Easy, just look at the rankings. https://bestplacestowork.org/rankings/?view=overall&size=large&category=leadership&
Large Agencies
1 National Aeronautics and Space Administration
2 Intelligence Community
3 Department of Transportation
4 Department of Health and Human Services
5 Department of Commerce
Midsize Agencies
1 Government Accountability Office
2 Federal Trade Commission
3 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
4 Securities and Exchange Commission
5 National Science Foundation
I work in a subagency in the top 50 and it's been light years better than other places I've worked. People are smart, dedicated and hardworking. Bad performers are quickly fired.
Guarantee SEC will fall off that list soon with Gensler at the helm.
Same with FTC.
What is going on at FTC? Seems cushy for attorneys.
I'm not at the FTC, but from what I've heard the new leadership is downright contemptuous of the career staff—thinks they're lazy, etc. The FEVS results absolutely plummeted from 2020 to 2021:
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/what-s-going-on-at-the-ftc-new-employee-9453951/
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!
Couldn’t possibly be their unqualified Commissioner lol. I have to say, I voted for Biden but some of his political appointees have been awful. Raimando and her team at DOC aren’t much better.
Anonymous
05/14/2022 13:10
Subject: Best federal agency to work for
Anonymous wrote:Even at good agencies there are bad offices and divisions. Same thing at bad agencies -- you can find a good place to land. And then it can go sour when the administration changes. There's no one answer to your question.
This is absolutely true. Also, those at some of the better agencies don’t know how good they have it. Having worked at an “okay” place first, I knew it was better than the crappy one where my Dad worked or the better one where my Mom worked. Then I worked at a better one. People complained all the time. They wanted 15s even when they hadn’t earned them and took for granted their 13/14 level jobs as if they were super low graded. Now I work at an even higher rated agency and people are complaining there too, despite a higher overall pay scale and somewhat less intense working conditions to where I had been prior. I took a downgrade for the job I am in now, with a raise and higher earning potential, so I guess maybe since I’m lower graded than I had been my workload isn’t crushing me and maybe it does crush other people who didn’t do that? I don’t know enough about them to tell. But my point is that people complain everywhere so you need to find your own best fit. The most important lesson to learn in Federal career development is that it’s squarely on you to make the best of what you have available and create a good path for what you want to do.
Anonymous
05/14/2022 11:30
Subject: Re:Best federal agency to work for
USPTO
Still has amazing telework, comp time, paid overtime, non competitive promos to gs-14 and paid grad school. you can be independent with hardly any oversight. You have a unbelieve ably flexible schedule.
Downside, you're on a quota and special pay is almost totally gone.
Still has amazing telework, comp time, paid overtime, non competitive promos to gs-14 and paid grad school. you can be independent with hardly any oversight. You have a unbelieve ably flexible schedule.
Downside, you're on a quota and special pay is almost totally gone.
Anonymous
05/12/2022 15:01
Subject: Best federal agency to work for
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:None of them? There is a difference between best agency and best agency of all the horrible federal agencies.
I'll disagree with you. After 30 years at NASA, I will say that it is a great place to work. Morale is high at NASA and we are productive and enjoy our employment. I know many who have left NASA over the years, including those who left to work in private industry and the struggled to find jobs to return to NASA.
Why do you think that is? Is it because NASA by nature, has clearly defined goals and success indicators? For most fed agencies, success is hard to visualize.
About NASA, I read The Thin Book of Naming Elephants: How to Surface Undiscussables for Greater Organizational Success by
Sue Annis Hammond and Andrea B. Mayfield. The book uses NASA's tragic accidents and Enron's bankruptcy as examples of the price of not having open, constructive dialogue.
Has NASA possibly improved their culture? If so, how have they improved? Does NASA really do anything anymore?
I'm the NASA employee. In my 30 years, I have not actually witnessed the lack of open constructive communication that you or that book cite, so I have no idea where the authors got the information. As far as I am aware, NASA has won the award for best large agency in the federal government 9 of the last 10 years. In addition, for the employee morale and satisfaction survey, NASA consistently has one of the best response rates of any federal agency responding to the survey, so it a pretty strong indicator that there is a lot of employee opinion that is weighed in that rating.
As for if NASA does anything anymore, yes, NASA is still one of the largest technology innovators. There are many innovations that are and have been created at NASA that ends up later being implemented on the free market and becoming commonplace technology adaptations. Additionally, NASA Earth satellites and monitoring systems are used to help monitor and track Earth weather formations. NASA satellites are used to track hurricanes, warn areas that have monsoons, hurricanes, and other weather formations heading their way. They've been used for disaster recovery after natural disaster.
I know that this is a Wikipedia page and not a real source, but this page gives you an idea of some of the many innovations created at NASA that have made their way into everyday life:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NASA_spinoff_technologies
In addition NASA science is made available to many other companies out there. For example, solar research from NASA is used to help the solar power industry. Satellite imagery is used to help find and map items in deep water. In fact, I remember that NASA satellite imagery was critical for finding and repairing the breached floodwall that was underwater. Without the imagery, the Army Corp of Engineers would have taking a lot longer to find, diagnose and start designing the repairs of the floodwall.
Anonymous
05/12/2022 14:45
Subject: Best federal agency to work for
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:None of them? There is a difference between best agency and best agency of all the horrible federal agencies.
I'll disagree with you. After 30 years at NASA, I will say that it is a great place to work. Morale is high at NASA and we are productive and enjoy our employment. I know many who have left NASA over the years, including those who left to work in private industry and the struggled to find jobs to return to NASA.
Why do you think that is? Is it because NASA by nature, has clearly defined goals and success indicators? For most fed agencies, success is hard to visualize.
Because there is a lot of respect for people and their talents here. It isn't just the flight operations that is a good place to work. I've moved between the Earth science directorate, the Space science directorate, the Engineering directorate and the Flight Missions directorate over the years. People here respect each other and their expertise. People here generally try to do their best to accomplish not only the agency's mission, but what is best for the work force. People take employee morale and employee's well being into account when making decisions. I have friends that work for various other agencies and my spouse works for a different agency. The level of respect that employees in those agencies get is significantly lower. Other agencies don't prioritize the work force nearly as much and it shows. And the agency attitude runs deep.
Here's just one basic example. I do IT system and network administration and IT security for NASA. We deploy equipment like laptops to the employees. When we deploy laptops, we give them choices for the equipment that they get. We have a variety of folks who use agency standard configuration laptops (users have choices for Windows, Mac or Linux systems), engineering laptops which are higher powered and more suitable for the high level calculations that some of the engineering or scientific modeling tools need (also Mac, Windows and Linux options), and if none of those work, their location project, division or mission can purchase them a specialty machine that does what they need for their job. Conversely my best friend who works for another agency and my spouse who works for a third agency both struggle because they have very few options for computer. They get assigned whatever is standardized by the IT directorate at their agencies and they don't have much choice. My spouse needs specialty software that is not available on Windows, but can't get and use the software that would be the best to do their work because they are not allowed to get Mac laptops which would make the most sense for the type of work that they do. Instead they are forced to do the work with a lesser software package that does not have all of the features they need to do their job well and then are criticized that they can't provide features that other similar projects provide (who use the appropriate tools). This is the type of stupid bureaucratic nonsense that happens at many agencies and kills morale. Just one example of basic needs that are not met for the employees.
You can use a Mac if you work at NASA?
...are you hiring lawyers?
I have no idea. You'd have to check out USAJOBS.
I do have a few friends who are lawyers who work for NASA. One is an intellectual property lawyer. The other is an EEO specialist. Beyond that description, I don't really know what they do. I only know them because we are affiliated through clubs that we are in together.
Anonymous
05/12/2022 00:15
Subject: Best federal agency to work for
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Easy, just look at the rankings. https://bestplacestowork.org/rankings/?view=overall&size=large&category=leadership&
Large Agencies
1 National Aeronautics and Space Administration
2 Intelligence Community
3 Department of Transportation
4 Department of Health and Human Services
5 Department of Commerce
Midsize Agencies
1 Government Accountability Office
2 Federal Trade Commission
3 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
4 Securities and Exchange Commission
5 National Science Foundation
I work in a subagency in the top 50 and it's been light years better than other places I've worked. People are smart, dedicated and hardworking. Bad performers are quickly fired.
Guarantee SEC will fall off that list soon with Gensler at the helm.
Same with FTC.
What is going on at FTC? Seems cushy for attorneys.
I'm not at the FTC, but from what I've heard the new leadership is downright contemptuous of the career staff—thinks they're lazy, etc. The FEVS results absolutely plummeted from 2020 to 2021:
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/what-s-going-on-at-the-ftc-new-employee-9453951/
KHAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNN!!!!
Anonymous
05/11/2022 09:35
Subject: Best federal agency to work for
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:None of them? There is a difference between best agency and best agency of all the horrible federal agencies.
I'll disagree with you. After 30 years at NASA, I will say that it is a great place to work. Morale is high at NASA and we are productive and enjoy our employment. I know many who have left NASA over the years, including those who left to work in private industry and the struggled to find jobs to return to NASA.
Why do you think that is? Is it because NASA by nature, has clearly defined goals and success indicators? For most fed agencies, success is hard to visualize.
Because there is a lot of respect for people and their talents here. It isn't just the flight operations that is a good place to work. I've moved between the Earth science directorate, the Space science directorate, the Engineering directorate and the Flight Missions directorate over the years. People here respect each other and their expertise. People here generally try to do their best to accomplish not only the agency's mission, but what is best for the work force. People take employee morale and employee's well being into account when making decisions. I have friends that work for various other agencies and my spouse works for a different agency. The level of respect that employees in those agencies get is significantly lower. Other agencies don't prioritize the work force nearly as much and it shows. And the agency attitude runs deep.
Here's just one basic example. I do IT system and network administration and IT security for NASA. We deploy equipment like laptops to the employees. When we deploy laptops, we give them choices for the equipment that they get. We have a variety of folks who use agency standard configuration laptops (users have choices for Windows, Mac or Linux systems), engineering laptops which are higher powered and more suitable for the high level calculations that some of the engineering or scientific modeling tools need (also Mac, Windows and Linux options), and if none of those work, their location project, division or mission can purchase them a specialty machine that does what they need for their job. Conversely my best friend who works for another agency and my spouse who works for a third agency both struggle because they have very few options for computer. They get assigned whatever is standardized by the IT directorate at their agencies and they don't have much choice. My spouse needs specialty software that is not available on Windows, but can't get and use the software that would be the best to do their work because they are not allowed to get Mac laptops which would make the most sense for the type of work that they do. Instead they are forced to do the work with a lesser software package that does not have all of the features they need to do their job well and then are criticized that they can't provide features that other similar projects provide (who use the appropriate tools). This is the type of stupid bureaucratic nonsense that happens at many agencies and kills morale. Just one example of basic needs that are not met for the employees.
You can use a Mac if you work at NASA?
...are you hiring lawyers?
Anonymous
05/11/2022 09:25
Subject: Best federal agency to work for
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Easy, just look at the rankings. https://bestplacestowork.org/rankings/?view=overall&size=large&category=leadership&
Large Agencies
1 National Aeronautics and Space Administration
2 Intelligence Community
3 Department of Transportation
4 Department of Health and Human Services
5 Department of Commerce
Midsize Agencies
1 Government Accountability Office
2 Federal Trade Commission
3 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
4 Securities and Exchange Commission
5 National Science Foundation
I work in a subagency in the top 50 and it's been light years better than other places I've worked. People are smart, dedicated and hardworking. Bad performers are quickly fired.
Guarantee SEC will fall off that list soon with Gensler at the helm.
Same with FTC.
What is going on at FTC? Seems cushy for attorneys.
I'm not at the FTC, but from what I've heard the new leadership is downright contemptuous of the career staff—thinks they're lazy, etc. The FEVS results absolutely plummeted from 2020 to 2021:
https://www.jdsupra.com/legalnews/what-s-going-on-at-the-ftc-new-employee-9453951/
Anonymous
05/11/2022 05:33
Subject: Best federal agency to work for
Even at good agencies there are bad offices and divisions. Same thing at bad agencies -- you can find a good place to land. And then it can go sour when the administration changes. There's no one answer to your question.
Anonymous
05/11/2022 00:21
Subject: Best federal agency to work for
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Easy, just look at the rankings. https://bestplacestowork.org/rankings/?view=overall&size=large&category=leadership&
Large Agencies
1 National Aeronautics and Space Administration
2 Intelligence Community
3 Department of Transportation
4 Department of Health and Human Services
5 Department of Commerce
Midsize Agencies
1 Government Accountability Office
2 Federal Trade Commission
3 Federal Energy Regulatory Commission
4 Securities and Exchange Commission
5 National Science Foundation
I work in a subagency in the top 50 and it's been light years better than other places I've worked. People are smart, dedicated and hardworking. Bad performers are quickly fired.
Guarantee SEC will fall off that list soon with Gensler at the helm.
Same with FTC.
What is going on at FTC? Seems cushy for attorneys.
Anonymous
05/10/2022 23:55
Subject: Best federal agency to work for
I’m not a fed, but in general I’ve found that my happiest and most content work scenarios were when I had the opportunity to work with smart, motivated, capable, easygoing colleagues and leadership.
So I’d recommend seeking a role at agencies that are more likely to employ well-educated and experienced employees.
So I’d recommend seeking a role at agencies that are more likely to employ well-educated and experienced employees.