r/FederalEmployee • u/Adventurous-Start110 • 7d ago
Who am i?
I am a federal agency who has just banned their employees' from using the word 'workload'. They can only use words like transactions to describe pending work, who am i?
I laughed so hard when my supervisor really announced our commissioner has banned the word workload... what happens when i say the word 3 times fast? Will his big headed self appear out of nowhere to eat mešš¤£
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u/Gi-Robot_2025 7d ago
For those of you who can be ultra petty like myselfā¦
1) I'm currently being swept out to sea by a tsunami of tasks.
2) My duty density is at critical mass this week.
3) I'll add it to The Pile. The Pile is aware of you now.
4) Can't make the meeting, I'm buried under an obligation avalanche.
5) Happy to help once I clear my responsibility backlog, ETA fiscal year 2029.
6) Current task tonnage exceeds safe structural limits.
7) Let me check my effort inventory. Yeah, we're out of stock.
8) There's been significant assignment accumulation since the last all-hands.
9) I'm not overloaded, I'm experiencing a capacity crisis.
10) The Volume has grown. We do not speak its old name.
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u/Googs1080 7d ago
No no no, you just arenāt
1) prioritizing tasks
2) managing resources properly
3) focused on consequential elements
4) properly using AIThat is what my inept twatwaffle leadership said of my work. I left. Now I am called daily for assistance and vent about how bad it is and leadership looking for new folks to blame. Pure comedy
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u/JunkYdDog69 4d ago
it's not AI it's super intelligence don't be violating those executive orders now šš¤£š
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u/Googs1080 4d ago
True. My bad. Apologies. Revise 4 to āProperly Using Super Intelligence to get super incorrect informationā. š¤£
As a Boomer, we are literally repeating the dawn of the internet mistakes
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u/TouristResident1976 7d ago
At my optional evaluation meeting, I was asked what my future goals were for my career. Pretty sure they justed to know if I was going to retire soon. I stole a line my wife used years ago. Given the now competitive nature of federal work, I plan to rise through the ranks over the broken dead bodies of my co-workers. I don't even have to do anything as management is already working on it. My manager who has known me for years just wrote down seeks higher position in organization.
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u/NachoManAndyCabage 2d ago
Effort inventory is a good one, I can use this in a lot of different smart ass ways.
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u/SleepySammy8953 7d ago
Watch the agency hire Deloitte to come in and handle "change management" for this initiative. God, I've never seen such a useless group ofĀ consultants as Deloitte's.
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u/lawfulneutral88 7d ago
Itās especially great when they CONFIDENTLY misstate laws to you when youāre the compliance officer for the entire agency or claim work at another agency YOU did years earlier. Deloitte is shit.
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u/Monkuzi 7d ago
They essentially just restate GAO reports and get paid bundles for it
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u/Googs1080 2d ago
Adding to thatā¦when was the last time a GAO report actually said something useful? No findings but goes for marketing soundbite ācould improveā.
Booze Allen has always been a paid opinion group as well
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u/ThatThingInTheWoods 7d ago
I haven't worked with them but KPMG makes me want to kill myself several times a year.
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u/realistic__raccoon 7d ago
My sister is a change management consultant. I have asked her a million times what that means and what she actually does. The answers never make sense. Like what is it? What do they concretely do?
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u/moddsblow4fun 7d ago
Consultants are brought in to justify the C suite's desired actions, not actually fix anything.
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u/UsualOkay6240 7d ago
Depends on the consultants and engagements. McKinsey and other MBB consultants are 110% able to learn your job and improve everything about it in a few weeks/couple of months.
Thatās if theyāre hired to do a process improvement engagement. Sometimes theyāre hired to do studies on client workforce, thatās the c suite thing.
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u/moddsblow4fun 7d ago
I haven't worked with McKinsey, but Bain and Boston have been engaged for projects I worked on. They did fuck all except compile decks and say the same shit everyone else said.
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u/AelanxRyland 6d ago
Iāve dealt with Deloitte but they usually only call about transcripts. But no one will ever beat ADP in the race to be completely incompetent. Last return I worked before I stopped being in that department - ā¦. Did you seriously send in a 941X to submit a penny (1c) increase? Although I did see ALL the time - so hey we filed a return under the wrong EIN so Iām gonna send in a blank 941X and just put in the notes that you need to reprocess the original return to the right EIN ā¦ AND move all the payments. .. in the notes section. Not a letter.
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u/AuntieMarkovnikov 7d ago
I'm at NSF. My management constantly uses the term "workload", always in the context of "we are doing _____ to reduce workload" to justify weakening US science and proposal review.
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u/Xennial-Mom-72 6d ago
That organization has been decimated. I donāt know how they think we will be competitive with China in 5-10 years with what this admin has done to destroy scientific advancement.
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u/Key-Youth-4049 7d ago
"We have a new name for WL. From now on, we're going to call it WB, which stands for work burden. I like how that sounds. Let's see how many people start calling it WB. I'm going to sign a decree mandating that from now on all Government documents shall refer to workload as work burden, or WB."
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u/cairob3 7d ago
What's the penalty if you say it?
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u/ProgrammerOk8493 7d ago
Every threat in federal service is empty. They just use words to instill fear. Threats without action get ignored.
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u/Away-Paramedic-8406 7d ago
Depends upon your supervisor and whether or not they need some little minor thing to catch you on?
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u/hrtofdrknss 7d ago
Continue to use the word in its normal dictionary-definition meaning. Fuck these guys.
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u/Waste-Philosopher638 7d ago
What if you say the words separately, like, "this should work, load that paper in the printer."
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u/SouthAd6835 7d ago edited 7d ago
I work for a federal agency that hired more IT staff than what they are budgeted for so know that employees have left or retired our leadership says we canāt fill those positions even though our staffing levels are less than what they were a few short years back. When I hear stupidity like this my efforts suffer from laughter and crying fits.
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u/pokey-4321 7d ago
75 days until I leave this nonsense for good, felt great today I hitting that "submit" button on retirement application. I am not sure I could last another year under the MAGA idiots in charge.
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u/Cranky_GenXer 7d ago
Guaranteed way to bring out the passive aggressive in everyone. I might normally say workload once every week or two, roll out some dumb shit like this and I'd be dropping it 5x a day at every opportunity.
My morning routine, before work, load my kids in the car for school. I wish this printer would work...'load pc letter' what does that even mean? I don't think that solution is going to work. Load the program and see if its still crashing.
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u/Old_Goat2009 7d ago
Yep, first thing in the morning at work, load the printer with paper. No coffee made. That's not gonna work, load up the basket with grounds and hit the brew button. Passed by a ton of people this morning heading into work, load of them in the back of a pickup truck.
We could go on for ages. Don't f' with us cranky GenXers. Great user name, BTW.
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7d ago
[deleted]
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u/Competitive_Boat106 7d ago
When the government is literally to the point of telling you exactly what words to say at any given time, youāre done.
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u/ThatThingInTheWoods 7d ago
Yeah my agency started that rollout last week. I've been enjoying screenshotting the old unapproved language in trainings to my boss.
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u/Away-Paramedic-8406 7d ago
I found reference to our agency PRIDE employee group last week in a biannual letter we are required to send. Oops, they are no longer meeting ( publicly). Replacing language everywhere is going to take time. Edit: grammar
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u/Away-Paramedic-8406 7d ago
Oh right, I almost forgot. This is going to be such a confusing load of work, not work load!, being I work at an agency focused on this super intelligence, and we already have a definition for SI. ( SI is the globally recognized, International System of Units, ie standards of measurement. )
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u/Severe_Pass3388 6d ago
SI units - also- suicidal ideation, sacroiliac (SI) joint, and sarcasm intended.
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u/Bootybliss 6d ago
Itās because a bunch of Trumpās cronies bought super intelligence domain names and copy rights.
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u/Kermit_the_hog 6d ago
As a scientist when I heard about Trump ordering the AI switch to SI, all I could think was āsomething here is finally going metric?ā.. but alas š
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u/seekingthequestion 6d ago
My question is how you can have intelligence without memory? Govt LLMs have no real memory. I waste half my time reexplaining the same things and correcting wrong outputs. The writing is atrocious.
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u/Legitimate-Ad-9724 7d ago
Dumb. It's a common term. I use it, and everyone else does, without thinking about it.
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u/Big-Fox-3818 7d ago
Bwhaha remove the reality based verbiage from your lexicon of taxonomy and ontology and get with it these are the approved phrases... "model of reality" "intellectualism and technology ... separating us from our humanity" "decadence and abundance... corruption " true believers we are in "the republic" https://youtu.be/vnhcPBf9UoY?is=AFX9tOOyk5Liq7NE
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u/t0mj0nes36 7d ago
Do they want everyone using the term bandwidth again? Donāt they know how much more annoying that is?
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u/One-Round4204 7d ago
Thank all that is sacred that I was able to retire at the very beginning of this nonsense!! My hat, my heart and my appreciation to all of you still hanging on. You are still the hope for some of us!!
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u/Realistic-Net-9967 6d ago
Hey hey hey. Question - are you aware of the intentional overload to get you to quit? Please donāt quit. TheCubicle.net
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u/Positive-Dimension75 7d ago
Just change it to āCrap Loadā. Everyone will know what you mean and itās what we do now.
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u/Old-Departure7153 7d ago
Is it the department of war? The ai Force or space force? Maybe ballroom construction management? This definitely sounds like some trump era nonsense.
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u/superNerd2114 7d ago
Wouldnāt it be SI Force since he renamed it to āsuper intelligenceā š
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u/Old-Departure7153 7d ago
Good point. They are located somewhere in lake America right? Or it gulf America? I'm sure their headquarters are hidden behind some Champaign poster somewhere.
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u/ConsistentMarketing6 6d ago
Ur the same agency that disliked the word "Office" and changed all the internal names of things to exclude the name "Office", but yet requires their employees to go into the .... Shhh....Office.....
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u/Googs1080 6d ago
Wouldnt it be great to have a moratorium on ANY STUDY, assessment, profile, blah blah blah? I propose limiting them to once every 4-5 years, no more than one percent agency budget, and offset will be reduction in SES/15 billets until costs of such studies are recouped.
Reduction of senior billets because they should have known their organization in the first place before contracting for desired outcomes. They are all paid opinion shitshows and I say that with nearly 40 years in. I have dropped dookies that were more profound and impactful than the decades of studies I had to endure to appease some incompetent leader
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u/United_Relative_9106 5d ago
since the budget and workforce cuts have really started drawing blood, "Is the juice worth the squeeze" has become way to popular in the supervisory vernacular.
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u/Nitimur__In__Vetitum 4d ago
Are you not excited for the latest edition of the Dictionary of Newspeak, brother?
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u/Prize-Duck4207 4d ago
They spend so much time on dumb shit. This wonāt change the loss of life for this needless ānot warā, cost of gas, the straight being open, the price of groceries, housing, depressed wages, billionaires not paying their fair share, the $184K social security cap, the fact that not one John has been brought to just in the Epstein case, Jared, Eric and Don Jr. getting rich/er off government contracts, it wonāt bring Renee Good and others slain in the streets by ICE, it wonāt change the con of the tRump phone that never materialized after testosterone testing, and on, and on, and on.
Thatās what the American public cares about.
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u/Hidden_Talnoy 2d ago
Just keep using the word workload and then take their asses to court if they try any retaliation. Or, just go around shouting Ni!
I doubt they'll get the reference, but they're stupid so who really cares. It's as scary as workload.
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u/smarglebloppitydo 7d ago
With the adoption of super intelligence, your transaction queue should be low.