I’m a level 3 (of 4) so I’m not terribly worried, but it’s still unsettling and I don’t feel as secure as I did even a week ago. People I mentored got laid off and I feel bad for them. So far it seems like other than the field sups that got cut they’re adhering to a “last hired, first fired” system so they’ve got a ways to go before they get to me.
As far as being a TDY investigator you’d probably actually be in a good shape. Everyone is doing TDY’s now to keep busy. Unfortunately, I’ve got a 5 month old baby boy so I haven’t been able to go for a while but I’m gonna have to bite the bullet to keep my job probably.
Is DOD already working on investigations?
I was told my area has current cases. We have not had much work for a few weeks.
It seems very likely that’s exactly what is happening. I’m not sure how we will last another four months like this.
Yeah…in my area they’ll have to cut a handful more to keep the seasoned folks busy. Either that or just hang onto as many people as possible so they’ll be ready to go when business picks up again.
Is tdy mandatory for you??
Not yet. I’ve heard Keypoint is starting mandatory TDY, though.
I’ve been TDY for almost the whole year, I’ve only been back home for maybe two months total. Just landed in another location today.
Jeez. Yeah I couldn’t do that. My wife would most definitely leave me. We were talking this morning and with a new baby I could go for 2 weeks at a time every other month. I used to work a job where I was gone more than I was home…key phrase “used to” if you catch my drift. More power to you.
2 Likes
Unfortunately, we are being forced into making a decision between working TDY or being let go.
Yep, I hear that’s the trend. I did a short 3 day TDY to a place about 4 hours away a few weeks ago, but haven’t done a longer one since last August when things hadn’t even gotten slow yet. This time last year things were still fine and there was plenty of work here. TDY was just a way to make extra money since you could eat cheaply and pocket the per diem along with getting a small completion bonus if you knocked everything out while you were gone. Now it seems like TDY or else…
I wonder what’s so different in these places that need TDY investigators. It seems like CA is where all of our people are going. One guy on my team just finished up in OKC and another is in Portland, OR but just about everyone else is going to various parts of CA… San Francisco, San Diego, random places within an hour of LA, Monterey, etc Surely there can’t be more work there than my area (except maybe LA)? Concentration of investigators is the only thing I can imagine being different, but how are LA, San Francisco, and San Diego not swarming with investigators too?
NBIB (soon to be DOD) contractors can’t starve their workforce then expect to have enough people in place when the work picks up, but I guess this stuff goes in waves and that’s exactly what they’ll do and we’ll just have another backlog, then another hiring blitz, and then another round of layoffs/mandatory TDY’s over the next few years.
Has anyone that’s been doing this for more than 5 years ever seen things get this bad? If so, obviously they didn’t stay that way so hopefully it’ll get better soon.
2 Likes
I’ve got a wife and kids too and it’s definitely starting to take a toll but we are making it work because the bills have to get paid somehow. I try to avoid going TDY to california at all costs, it’s a horrible state to work in and I couldn’t imagine being a full time investigator living there. Every time I’ve gone TDY to California, all my interviews were at least an hour away and there’s always bumper to bumper traffic no matter what time of day it is. I remember one time I stepped outside of my hotel at like 2am and there was bumper to bumper traffic on I-10 which was next to my hotel. Craziness.
That’s what I’ve been told by my teammates going on TDY. They’ve also said a lot of the people they’ve tried to talk to have been particularly “anti-fed” and not been very cooperative to the point of being downright rude. The guy in Portland complained about nobody being cooperative out there, but that’s not surprising to me… Portland seems like a “hippy” town so I’m not shocked to hear they don’t want to cooperate with a badge. I bet places like San Diego that have a large military presence are mostly used to it, but I doubt some farmer in middle of nowhere CA is going to get cozy, but that’s likely to be the case regardless of what state you’re in.
My issue now is that I’m willing to go on a TDY here and there, especially to save my job, but my field sup got notice this past Friday that she’s being laid off and her last day is the 21st. It seems like they’ve cut the heads off of all of these teams that still need to be able to function. I know the field sup’s are professionals, but they’re humans with families too. I can’t imagine they’re going to be putting a lot of company business ahead of filling out job applications and/or unemployment forms over the next 2 weeks.
One of my biggest issues working out in Cali is that I would spend so much time trying to contact a source by phone and e-mail, just to waste time on an in person attempt and find out that they don’t speak English and required a Spanish speaking investigator. It happened quite a few times and it was a huge time sink. I’ve worked in both Northern and Southern Cali and there have been a couple weeks where I severely underperformed and didn’t hit my numbers due to nobody wanting to cooperate.
Hearing about layoffs from other companies is definitely disconcerting. I just found out today that all of a sudden we have a mandatory team meeting tomorrow which was just sprung on us today, and that’s never happened, so I’m curious to see what this meeting will be all about.
I’ve been doing this for awhile, and I’ve seen it slow down but I’ve always worked high volume areas. What you said about the cycle is true, it will go round and round. But we will be ok and then they will see that they need us. They’ve already tried this DOD thing before.
I hope they figure this out sooner, rather than later. I too work a high volume area. There hasn’t been much work in the area over the last three weeks.
1 Like
how did the meeting go SideshowBob?
Haven’t had it yet, I do know that my team is getting a new FM so I’m pretty sure that’s what it will be about
does anyone know how the work in DC looks right now?
I have friends going tdy in that area
I imagine DC is one of the areas where work will never slow down. Then again I wouldn’t know for sure because I have always managed to get out of going tdy there when offered.