The Boston DQB Is Not a Good Workplace - Social Insurance Specialist Social Security Administration Employee Review

Boston DQB is a bad place to work. The office is wholly political. While the directors promise endless advancement opportunities upon hire, the only promotions that I saw while here were people with serious political clout. If you are family of or friendly with politicians (and you would never know it by just looking at these people) or married to an agency employee in even a lowly middle management job, you will get promoted quickly. Otherwise, get in line. That was pretty much all I saw while working here. The office is the dust bin where the family of the politically connected who can't get other jobs have a relatively easy life while everyone is exploited with the actual hard work of the agency. Onsite management is blatantly racist, sexist and lazy. I was routinely told behind closed doors that workers of color were terrible employees when they were actually the people who actually had the policy knowledge that management depended on to get the job done. Directors are located in NY region at this point due to resignations in the Boston office. They unfortunately do not get involved in the day-to-day workings of the office. The in-house union representatives are useless. The Boston DQB has trouble recruiting the best employees at this point due to its bad reputation for employee treatment. Also, the perks and protections are just better in the other DQB locations. For example, in Boston this year, management decided to keep the overtime funds solely for themselves instead of giving them to the examiners actually doing the work. There is usually ample overtime on Saturdays, but not this year in Boston for anyone other than supervisors and management. That did not happen in the other DQBs where the examiners have been working Saturday overtime. Boston's management rationalizes it as the office is "so good" that there is no need for overtime. (Except for the supervisors I guess, many of whom are political picks and barely know the program. One of them openly brags that management prepped them for their interview and gave them the answers to the interview questions in advance to ensure the promotion.) Also, management claims that an end of year award will offset the examiner losses at the end of the year. But if you do the math, the Boston examiners are still losing thousands of dollars annually in the current arrangement, so I went elsewhere. Some of the other DQBs also can routinely distribute their regular shift on weekends and have much better union representation. Due to its reputation, most employees at this point come from the local DPU (federal DDS office in Boston) or the Massachusetts state offices. The cost of living in Boston plus the terrible work environment and relatively low compensation compared to the other DQBs making moving for this job not worth it. I was very disappointed.