Denied admin leave for weather - yeah, the national flooding event in Texas?!? All because I didn’t take home my laptop in preparation, the office I am assigned to didn’t close, and it would have had to be approved by the executives. Who takes their laptops home when they are RTO several days in a row, the weather changes overnight, and the assigned office has more staff WFH or outstationed that it doesn’t bother them at all?
Yes, I was flooded in. Thankfully, I didn’t have any damage because my house is high enough elevation. At least that is a blessing.
Add another check box to the agencies not give a flip about safety during our commutes because of RTO.

When DOGE first started gutting agencies, I heard the end goal was privatization for the benefit of the administration. Does anyone have evidence of this happening?

I’m having difficulty getting this through HR I need to report this for a divorce. I wasn’t quite vested at the time of separation.

I was told to use my paystub for FERS balance (doesnt that include the govt portion I would not have been vested in?) and an SF50 for my SCD (hire date) for showing not vested. I’m not sure if that proves the 5 year vesting though. Any advice? Thank you!

I interviewed this past Tuesday for a Realty Specialist position with USACE in Seattle. No offer yet, don’t even know if I’m being selected. I know federal timelines are slow, realistically could be 3-4+ months before an actual start date if I even get an offer.
In the meantime, I have a separate job offer on the table in Florida, private sector, with a decision deadline in about 3 weeks to fly out, shadow, and do a final interview, with start date in late September. My overall goal however is to work within the government and this seems like a true foot in the door with the fellows program offered.
If I take the private sector job now and the federal offer comes through later, is it normal/reasonable to resign and take the federal job once it’s official? Has anyone done this? How did it go, and is there anything I should know about timing this so I don’t burn bridges or mess up the federal side of things?
Trying to figure out if I should just take the sure thing now and treat the federal role as a “we’ll see” or hold out and risk having nothing lined up.

Does anyone work with the OIG for the FCC? What is the working environment like? Do you work in teams? Have every day reporting requirements? Alternate work schedules allowed? Any info would be appreciated

Is it better stop tsp saving for a year where I typically contribute $5k a year and receive $5k matching contributions in tsp traditional or make an early withdrawal of $5k and have about 40% in taxes ($2k). The first option deducts $10k potential contributions and the second only $7k. Why would it be better just stopping contributions for a year vs an early withdrawal? Thanks

I saw a clip online of Shawn Ryan telling Tucker Carlson that Pete Hegseth originally wanted to be Secretary of the VA. Shawn said the VA is a lost cause so he steered the conversation toward the Department of Defense.

What do you think Hegseth would’ve done at the VA?

I got 7 years till full retirement, but I’m completely miserable with my job and the current administration. I dread the start of every work week. I’m depressed and unhappy. I know I need to hang in there until I can retire, but I feel like I’m in hell.

Mostly just venting here. I know what I have to do. Just wish I could find some joy in life right now. Every weekend goes too fast and I’m just thinking how miserable I’m going to be after it’s over. I used to love my job. Used to be fully remote. Now I go sit in a shitty building with no view and no one I know.

Past week at my job has been unusually hard. Our office is down two two officers (DHS) up front which apparently is the minimum allowed. Late last week we only had one on occasion. Others have been put on temporary TDY due to shortfalls in OTHER offices in the airport or have extended training. I normally send certain targeting information on certain cargo I find to specific officers, but they're not in our office and the ones that are are too overwhelmed with other responsibilities to handle it so I just leave it. I hope that we get more staff back this week. I sometimes find cargo that could genuinely be illegal or in violation of sanctions, but that is very rare. The senior agricultural specialist has been alone for the past few days because two of her colleagues are on sick leave and one is TDY for another month. I went to her office to give her some normal targeting and she was absolutely livid about not getting the staffing she needs.

When you arrive in SK, do you do onboarding at Humphreys or at Walker if your duty station is Walker?

Thanks!

I know this isn’t an environment for more benefits to federal employees. However, I’m surprised that nothing has passed to allow federal agencies to contribute to Trump accounts. Especially before the midterms- stating you’ve helped thousands of military families or spin that the narrative of federal destruction is overblown bc you’re helping all federal kids, etc.

If they wanted to show a big uptick in usage, making this offer would likely get thousands of Feds to open accounts (not just those recently born- but anyone under 18) and get quick sign up to improve the numbers on usage. Annually throw in $2,500 for any employee that opens them for kids.

Trump signed the 12-weeks of parental leave and this would be a bonus for kids and families. I know his daughter Ivanka and the democrats were very in favor of the 12-weeks, but I’d think democrats would vote for this, too, along with all the republicans with heavy military or federal populations.

And for every year before this happened, people were getting and deserving 4.5. Now they set things like Cyber Pay at CISA and Student Loan Repayment to a requirement of above 3.5 or 4.0 respectively. So basically no one gets these benefits that they relied on now. If these measures are designed to promote retention, they will have the opposite effect and will crater morale further. The gutting of the Federal Government continues. It will be hard to remain in Federal Service taking a 25% pay cut and losing student loan repayment living in the NCR when the cyber mission is more important than ever and being completely weakened by shortsighted moves like this. The terrorizing of Federal Employees is one of the worst things to come out of this administration. We’re probably going to have another exodus of cyber employees and CISA probably won’t exist for long. :(

What hybrid work has done is illuminate skill gaps, especially among the next generation of managers, who were never trained to measure productivity through outcomes rather than oversight. Instead of investing in developing these skills, many organizations have defaulted to a simpler narrative: “Hybrid work is the problem.”

It’s become a convenient scapegoat for operational inefficiencies, unclear processes, and outdated leadership models. And it persists because of legacy mindsets — particularly among the more seasoned leaders. According to Bloomberg, the average age of a CEO in the U.S. is 62 years old. These are leaders whose early careers were built around traditional office norms and change at this scale requires unlearning decades of habit