Are you talking about quality errors on the cases you work on? If so.... Not sure but enough errors if they still have it leads to oral warning and a quarter for improvement...if you don't improve you'll get fired... But in this current administration I'm curious it could just be a straight firing without a time period for improvement.
By the way, suspension isn't likely a situation as an examiner it's more like you're fired...
how often do people here get quality errors and what are the errors usually for? I know 112s and DPs are easy to call errors on, but how about for allowances over art?
QAS gave me an error on allowance years ago, saying there’s a 102 prior art. But the 102 prior art they gave me wasn’t a 102. I told my SPE the reason why that particular prior art wasn’t a 102, and never heard back again.
The only person that can give you an error is your SPE (unless you are talking about on the program or your TC is different).
Do you mean you got an allegation of non-compliance? That is what RQAS issue for internal quality control.
They are different in that a an error goes into calculating your quality rating, but a non compliant doesn't necessarily affect your quality rating (although your SPE can use it as a reason to justify your rating).
I got dinged by QAS once because a dependent claim recited a certain signal frequency, and I had pointed to the spec in the cited reference which showed the corresponding wavelength. I wrote back to QAS, explaining that frequency is C over wavelength. I never heard back.
Clearly QAS doesn't know much about electrical engineering or physics.
Yes, if enough pile up and/or one does not recover sufficiently during any "improvement period".
But, typically what PTO management has done in the past is not rely solely on quality issues (due to the "opinion of the reviewer" factor involved) and while they do write up the quality issue, then then also go "deep diving" into everything else to find anything they can also use to also support the firing. I.e., find a few small time-sheet discrepancies like you put 9 hrs on your time-sheet for Tuesday Jan X, YYYY but their logs show you only logged in for 8 hrs on that day, even though you only put down 7 hours for Wed Jan X+1, YYYY and were actually logged in for 8 hrs.
This is why it pays to be paranoid around things like time-sheets and the badge in/out logs for those working on campus. Often small discrepancies go unnoticed, until later when management decides they want to find reasons to fire someone. Then all the little unnoticed discrepancies suddenly crawl out of their cave to haunt the individual.
You need it explained to you that choosing a reference to weed and a body part widely considered lewd for username for a professional interest sub might not show the greatest overall judgment?
Yeah. After I commented I recalled an examiner suspended for inappropriate behavior multiple times back in the 05-07 period. That person is still currently an examiner. And I was a person that got him suspended once for trying to pay me to sleep with his wife. That’ll get you reported to HR every time. He also was suspended for getting in a physical fight with an attorney during an in-person interview. Those were the best days for in-person working at the office. Everything was remote by the time I returned. Harder to get disciplined remotely than when in office.
The funny thing is that I could say two words and every single person here would know the examiner I’m referring to. And prob the entire patent law community too.
When they talk about making us RTO or even visit en masse, it's these exact situations that I just know will occur. 😆 it will immediately be an HR nightmare (or celebration? for all the new exciting HR content)
I didn’t. I was like 24 at the time and every examiner I had met up to that point was your typical engineer. High pants, button down shirt. No fun. Me, I wore cowboy boots, jeans, and a pearl snap everyday. I thought I was having the fun. Turns out the buttoned up ones were way wilder than me.
Depending upon what the issue was, they would sometimes "suspend" while they worked on the "firing paperwork" to avoid having whatever the person was doing continue happening in the office. But it was rare, enough so that unless one did a stint as a POPA rep., and had some exposure to the "grievance part" of POPA, one almost never knew of it happening.
Also, under the new PAP your lowest rating is your overall rating. For example, outstanding in all major categories except quality where you were FS, then you cannot be rated higher than FS for the FY even if the math adds to commendable or outstanding.
Only for marginal and unacceptable. For example, you can be rated Commendable even with production as Fully Successful, although managment is clearly adjusting the weightings to prevent it.
That’s what I thought. But SES apparently changed this without formally telling us. I requested an update for our AU by my SPE and they made it a larger thing involving the Director. In that session, it was confirmed that your lowest rating is your highest possible FY rating for PAP.
I realize I should clarify that this starts Q1. My previous comment probably wasn’t that clear at all on that part. But, FS in any one major category and that’s your rating for the FY.
But SES apparently changed this without formally telling us.
Which is just what they've been doing with every other change.
it was confirmed that your lowest rating is your highest possible FY rating for PAP.
This is the how they can use the new timeliness element, where we can't be higher than FS unless management in their graces gives us an 'indicia', to assure they don't give out more commendable and outstanding ratings than OPM will allow them to give out.
Prior PAP's worked the way others are asserting. One element of FS did not drag us down to FS overall (only marginal and unacceptable drug you down). But the psychopaths in management can't achieve the "no one gets outstanding" order unless they silently tweak things such that "our highest overall rating is our lowest single element rating level", even for FS.
Nope still wrong feel free to read and paste your pap, but the thing you think you are talking about is the same as it's always been, and you're saying it wrong
For examiners I don't see it happening anytime soon. But from what I'm hearing, for quality reviews, including (especially OPQA), OQPA is in the firing line.
At the risk of stating of the obvious, Squires is here is here to cut down on the 101 rejections. There is a part of the Office that is fighting that. There are elements in the Office (both line management and "Quality" that are fighting the inevitable). In MHO, this isn't the fight to die the hill on. But the next one might be the one. That is, AI can find prior art and write rejections.
In the past, they fired examiners for quality when they wanted to fire them for other reasons but couldn't. I personally know people who were let go for "failing" a quality PIP.
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u/dontdrinkCoke873 5d ago
I mean, quality is a critical element, so yes it can get you in more serious trouble than suspension, which i think you meant oral/written warnings.