Pros
Generous leave, TSP. Healthcare is okay. Not the best.
Cons
Where do I begin? As someone who’s been with the Agency nearly 15 years and held a variety of roles in the Field Office and PSC, I’ve seen a lot of waste, mismanagement, favoritism, and poor ethics. The Agency sells employees on the mission of being public service driven, yet this does not show in reality. Employees in the Field, PSC, and DDS are given caseloads too heavy to manage and yet are expected to produce numbers at unrealistic rates. The only way to meet Public Service Indicators aka numbers goals is to cut corners. Those who cut corners receive performance awards and those who are slower but work with integrity are often told to hurry up in direct and indirect ways. I even spent some time in management. Thankfully this was only a temporary role, as I quickly saw how much of a gossip fest and brown-nosing marathon it was. I feel sorry for middle management, as they are often the messengers of bad news and must deliver it whether they agree or not. The use of vagueness and loopholes to cover up unethical behavior is rampant, as to be expected in federal government. I have been hopeful and perhaps even purposefully ignorant about how bad it really is up until now. Innovation is advocated for but in reality employee suggestions tend to go nowhere. Once in a while they do, and those few times are used as proof that suggestions are valued. The training process is horrible. Many times mentors’ workloads are not decreased enough or at all to accommodate new hires. There is a “sink or swim” mentality — and this phrase by the way, has been said to me personally. In some offices paper is still used for case reviews. PAPER. Sending a sheet of paper back and forth for each case, then sending a daily time sheet encompassing all cases worked on that day. We are supposed to be “paperless” ? Young new hires often end up resigning within a few months to 2 years because the training is so bad, the starting pay is too low to live on, and the technology is outdated. They see quickly what they were told about how the Agency runs is not how it really is. Claimants end up waiting in the lobby for an hour to three hours past their appointments at times. Some of these people are sick, elderly, or otherwise disabled. We do not have enough employees to meet the demand, yet we are expected to do more and more with less and less. And the current administration wants to decrease the federal workforce? As someone else said in their review of SSA, if you didn’t already have a mental health problem before working here, you surely will develop one.
