I came to NGA with a successful career within the 1102 (contracting series) so imagine my horror when NGA ended up being the worst place I’ve ever worked. I came to the agency thinking it would enable me to work on interesting intelligence contracting projects, but boy that couldn’t be further from the truth. I worked at NGA for a total of 18 months and in that time I received little to no work despite asking for it so I had to leave since I was bored to tears there. Here are my main negative points:
-Management: I was an equivalent GS-14 and for reasons unknown had to report to both a GS-14 and a GS-15 yet other teams only had GS-14 Team Leads with the supervisor being a GS-15. Being a GS-14 Team Lead in my previous position with an unlimited contracting warrant it made no sense to me to have two supervisors who sometimes contradicted one other. Personally I just didn’t like it and was appalled at the way I was treated; I was treated like a GS-7 intern! Management in OCS does not trust their employees and it shows. In most agencies GS-13 1102s would have some kind of contracting warrant or would be on trajectory to receive one but not at NGA OCS. In fact OCS seemed hell bent on keeping their employees down by not approving continuous learning or denying certifications.
-Work/life balance: NGA applauds itself for having a strong work/life balance yet I was told I could not take sick leave or annual leave for the better part of 7 months since I was assigned a “source selection.” When I did have to take 2 hours of sick leave, the world came to an end with the GS-14 “supervisor” having a meltdown. Keep in mind I was unable to have a single day off for months while my peers committed time card fraud on a daily basis…..this leads me to my next point:
-Playing Favorites: OCS management loved to turn a blind eye when folks committed time card fraud and didn’t bother to regulate teleworking for their favorite precious snowflakes. There were some people I literally never saw only to find out they were allowed to telework every day of the week….WTF? This is an intelligence agency and things are routinely done on the “high side” so how in the heck can one telework *everyday*when working in a SCIF?! Oh and these young precious millennial snowflakes were the ones that got promoted to the higher grades too!
-No Cubicle Walls- When a place touts its open collaborative environment that’s really just code for “we’re a bunch of dumbs dumbs and need others to do the work for us.” I hated the open collaborative as it was nothing but a distraction to listen to folks socialize every minute of the day. Again I didn’t think most people had enough work to do hence why my peers socialized all the time.
-Crazy/Incompetent People: When I was offered another position elsewhere, Human Resources was notified as was my management, but somehow someway that information didn’t seem to penetrate their thick skulls. Management refused to accept or acknowledge my release date and wanted to keep me almost two months beyond from when I first gave notice, but let’s think about this. I have a TS-SCI clearance so I am a liability and when an employee gives notice management should take heed immediately and see to it that person is gone ASAP. Again not the brightest bulbs in the shed.
Around the time I left many others had left or were leaving OCS so management decided to do an Ombudsman survey to figure out why they suck. It was interesting to read many of the comments from my fellow peers. Soon after they posted a job announcement that was open for a year on USA Jobs. If you see any job announcement for NGA OCS, do yourself a favor and run the other way! Don’t walk, but run the other way. I wish I had!