Well that’s what I was paid at USIS as well. But I put pressure on my Team Leads and District and Regional Managers to promote me to higher Investigative levels or I threatened to leave to KGS or CACI. My stats, quality, and professionalism justified the pay raises and even then USIS wouldn’t promote me for years between levels. It was a rough few years with USIS but I finally attained their Senior Investigative status but I only obtained it through threats to leave and constant pressure on management to get promoted even though I was meeting the metrics of a Senior Investigator from year one in the job.
I laugh at USIS dangling carrots in front of the noses of Investigators back in the day when they asked us to read self help books and volunteer at the local senior citizens center in order to get a promotion. Total crock of crap which had nothing to do with being a Special Investigator retained by OPM. Anyways, I feel sorry for all those Investigators working for these vendors. They take take take and take some more until you have nothing to give and all they give you is a paltry $17.00 per hour. It’s insulting. And when you deserve the actual promotion and met the terms of the agreement that the vendors actually set, they instead dangle a carrot in front of your nose instead of promoting you to the pay you deserve. I know that these unethical tactics are still going on with the current vendors on the DCSA contract.
Yeah it was definitely a mess, I was a level 1 the entire time there but I was producing at a level 3 at least and my bonuses showed. I knew the system was crap when an investigator I trained managed to get promoted to level 2 even before I did, and that person was only in the field for about 5 months.
I was fine with the pay at first because it was quite a bit more than I was making at my job prior to being an investigator. The DCSA work was relatively easy, but then they started dumping me other contracts like uni and ICE/CBP which require even more work (especially the uni cases), but my pay never changed so I showed myself out.
I miss the job sometimes, especially my first year and a half or so where I was going TDY a bunch and having a blast. But I agree that the pay is insulting for the amount of work that needs to be done, the only reason I even survived is because I was putting hundreds and hundreds of miles on my car each week and the mileage checks were what kept me above water.
Now I’m with an Army contractor and much happier making more with a fraction of the workload, though I do miss the freedom that came with being an investigator
I can tell you miss the job because even though you’ve left the industry, you still monitor the message board. You should have remained as an IC with other contracts (non-DCSA) while retaining your F/T Army contractor work.
There is no web link. It is not listed on the DOL website. It is supposed to be prominently displayed at the workplace but you will not find it. I even had a DOL Investigator ask for my copy because even he could not find it. I only got it when I complained to USIS and Keypoint and they sent me a copy.