IRS reviews

This is the worst working environment I have ever had the misfortune to experience. It is a model of inefficiency, mismanagement and government waste. Nepotism runs rampant. "Diversity" is a religious pursuit. If you are a white non-Latino male, consider yourself a heretic (except for top management maybe). Incentives are non-existent. There is a reward and punishment system in place - without the rewards. The major task is data entry as the IRS compiles massive records on everyone. To do this, you work with command-based 1970 software. The promise of more robust methods never materializes because the government doesn't put the talent where it could make a meaningful contribution, even though the talent is there. The mass of low level workers enter the data while frontline management spends countless hours making out meaningless reports for upper management. Every minute must be accounted for but its all a sham and everyone knows it. Most work is make-work. Internal forms are generated by one department to keep another department busy to keep yet another department busy. Sometimes the forms end up back where they came from. Then the forms are stored in giant warehouses where they rot for the X number of years or so before being trashed. The most commonly heard reason for doing any task is "job security." This catch phrase can be heard ringing throughout the many buildings housing thousands of employees who understand that Job 1 is creating busy work to reduce the national unemployment rate. And don't expect your skills and abilities to be appreciated or used. You will be trained to be a cog. No thinking permitted. Creativity and easily implemented efficiency suggestions will only get you in trouble. Before seeing it for myself, there is no way I would have ever realized how wasteful and inefficient our federal government really is. If you try to change it, you will be punished. It's not the low-level workers who are overpaid but they are the ones who will suffer from government belt-tightening. So sad but all true. I could go on and on. I worked many jobs there and it was always the same with a few variations. I held out hope that I would find a niche where I could utilize my talents and make a meaningful contribution through public service. I'm finally convinced that such a place does not exist within this agency.

The IRS work is production line. Period. You are directed: when you see this, do this. If you are accustomed to self-directing, using logic, and decision-making, this job is not for you. Sadly, the union and the management have a stranglehold on each other and many workplace issues are actually not addressed as a result. There are diversity issues. Employees treat each other badly, and a select few are regularly bullied. Many people keep their heads down and say nothing. I tried that. Then I became a target of bullying. Who imagined this could happen? I said nothing, just did my job and the hostility escalated over several years until I was recorded in my car, a general pronouncement about me circulated through the general population, and i was unable to resolve the issue in meetings with my direct managers or through the union. Example: my LUNCH BAG was pulled forward on my desk and left open in my absence and my supervisor appeared to know about it. Two years later I joked in a faxed question to an HR person. By the changed behavior in the principals,that HR person apparently reported my quip about bullying to those involved...and never answered my HR question. My experience was that, as a dues paying member, the union did not protect me from the hostile and toxic practices that were accepted as standard procedure by people who had worked there forever and apparently had not worked anywhere else besides, maybe,in a factory. There is not much room for advancement if you are not an adherent of this work culture. There is even less room if you are a transfer from another agency since they hire by IRS duty time and not your SCD. Low level front line supervisors are called managers. In my experience these are people who survive the work culture by employing gossip and finger-pointing. They deflect attention from themselves and I would say a low percentage of those raised to supervisory positions have any college management training whatsoever. They manage using "bad parent" strategies and do not trust their people to do the job. They do not raise themselves above the malicious gossip and, in fact, use the gossip machine to their own ends. Finally, if you have any HR issues you will be expected to rely on your untrained supervisor or ask some union person, or callan 800 number and take out a ticket for some untrained HR customer service person to call you back. And...don't even think about retiring from this agency. Get out while you can.