I don’t know how they can rush it anymore than they are now?? We’ve got like 7 to 10 business days on cases and a source on vacation that week can’t slow us down. We have to work around it and move on. It’s like working O’Hare air traffic control, with no radar and drunk pilots. Land the planes however you can. Yeah, a lot of passengers died. But look how many planes we landed, quickly!
This industry is so bad…nobody respects this BI process…especially the public including some investigators. OPM has ruined the product by having us question people more on minutia than the actual things that are most important. People grow tired of discussing in length their association with someone. It takes me 10 minutes to define someone’s association and frrquency and breaks in contact than to ask the ICD Ajudicative questions. You don’t think people see through this??
I feel like the last leaf blowing on the tree in this industry. All my colleagues have left this industry for all of the reasons stated on glass door and this website regarding the way the contractors, OPM, and management treats everyone. The only ones I have left are all of you five or six imaginary friends under made up names on this obscure website to vent to and comically read how everyone is miserable like myself. How pathetic have we all become?
I’ve bought myself some time doing this independently and getting on some direct federal contracts and doing work for different companies than just the OPM contract, however, this industry is still burning me out so badly. I gut through the interviews but they are all so painstakingly boring. The typing is even worse. There has got to be a better life than this BI work. I always thought this would be a stepping stone to something better and an actual career but this has been nothing but a long winding dead end road.
God speed to you all still trying to make a go of it in this terrible industry…I respect you all for being in it this long and persevering. If I didn’t have a young family to provide for, I would have quit a long time ago. 10 years in this industry has really taken a toll on me.
I hear you. I had contact with a guy who told me he just had an OPM S/A do his ESI. He timed it and said it was under 20 minutes! I’m like, “Whiskey tango foxtrot, am I the only friggin idiot asking every damn question required for an ESI??” Because even with no real issues it is a 50-minute+ process, even with a fast-talking & taciturn Subject.
It is a stressful, lonely, and tedious job and I feel I’m as connected with other people/orgs in this process as Matt Damon’s character in “The Martian”-- on Mars with no human contact, a dead radio, and sporadic cryptic messages via PIPS.
While I do this job for a paycheck (and lack of other job opportunities), I ultimately keep going by realizing I do this job for God. And thus I do the best job I can irrespective of the fact that I make half as much money and work twice as hard as people with half of my qualifications and aptitude.
Btw, I found this old book helpful. “The Optimistic Life”. It’s from 1907 and in the public domain. The author had a medical and law degree from Harvard and was a business man. You can find a PDF copy here: https://archive.org/details/optimisticlife00mardgoog
Good advice to live by regarding optimism…challenge is it is hard to be optimistic when it comes to working in this industry. It’s such a negative work environment.
I am with you Joe Hackett. I was hopeful that change was on the horizon but given the political environment who knows how this will all shake out. I am exhausted by this career both physically and emotionally and at this point I am waiting to get fired for not meeting my WTPD.