Working your tails off I imagine!
So we’ve been told we will be backlogged to FY 2020 or 2021. At least there is job security.
So the powers that be have been saying there is no truth to the rumor that one of the contractors is not going to rebid the contract. I didn’t even know that was a rumor.
We’re so buried, they’re going to make overtime mandatory. That should be fun.
And on top of it all, we are getting more Tier training in a couple of months.
Weeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
@fed investigator - curious as to what the production requirements are for the fed side? Is production only measured when ROI’s are transmitted? Is there any credit given for the interviews, pips work, and attempts that are UC?
@Fed Investigator
I think most long-term investigators, especially those on the private side, have PTSD and have had the very life sucked out of them by this soul-sucking, flesh-eating job. I never thought several years ago that it could get worse. I had hope that all the dirty laundry being aired would lead to heads rolling and major changes. Wrong. I mean really, should we have expected a thoroughly bureaucratic operation to be fixed by a fresh, new, dynamic… bureaucrat?? Not only that, but the bureaucracy of a government HR agency?? I leave you with a quote which sums up why there will never be changes for the good under the current system.
“Bureaucracy destroys initiative. There is little that bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially innovation that produces better results than the old routines. Improvements always make those at the top of the heap look inept.”
–Frank Herbert, Heretics of Dune (1984)
I don’t really know what the metrics are now. They went to this estimated man hours evaluation that has some convoluted formula that is apparently a secret. If you don’t make the performance number, which seems to change every few months, you get in trouble but they can’t explain exactly how to increase your performance. They changed the system to squeeze production, it’s a total crock of bull.
Performance is based on ROIs transmitted. You can claim non productive time for emails, briefing, etc. But if you claim too much of it, you get in trouble.
It’s all so stupid.
I recently spent a total of approx. 14 hours on one case (ESI, ROI, & RZ). One ESI. Approx. 14 hours of my time. I can recall, once upon a time, doing 4 MBIs, typing the ROIs, no RZ, all within one 8-hour day. Life was good. Since we work this job largely in isolation, separated from other investigators, we can’t gauge whether it’s us or the job which has changed. Or us because of the job. When I see (or hear) about the numbers some investigators produce I am highly incredulous. I know some people are highly efficient, but some ESIs can easily go 4 hours with a few issues. And even at 120 WPM the ROI can take hours to organize notes and type up. Furthermore, don’t these same people have a bad day, when the Subject cancels due to a family emergency, the HR person calls out sick, the person who handles LAWE-LC is off that day, etc.?
@dcinv. I don’t know which contractor you are with but both CACI and Keypoint use the point system or units. At the highest level, an esi is assigned 3.5. This represents roughly about 5 or so hours in a day. I don’t think I have ever completed an ESI from briefing to packaging in 5 hours. Especially over the past 5 or so years. OPM is constantly adding additional work to be completed on ESIs, but the unit allotment never changes. They are getting twice as much work for the same price. I think the source unit metrics need to be dumped and revised from the beginning with real studies, not just shadowing an investigator here and there. When the contract comes due, the only option the investigators have is to go with the company the doesn’t whip you the hardest… or as most of us are doing, looking for another job.
Were you around when SPINs were SPINs and not PRSIs? Were you around when we could collateral items? Life was sweet and the quality of BIs solid. Now I spend more time trying to resolve minutiae (How can you work full time and work part time in the Nat’l Guard at the same time?? How can you have gone to school and work part time student employment at the same time?? Etc.) than I do the SPIN issue itself. AND my RZs seem to focus on irrelevant little points, not the issues themselves. E.g., RZ/SUBC: “What is Subject’s county of marriage and why did he omit this information?” … SUBC/I-note: “Subject was married in Baltimore, MD. There is no country associated with this city. Subject did not want to enter ‘None’ into that field on the security form because he was afraid some bureaucratic idiot would deny his clearance when they could not find the county of ‘None’ on the map.” For once I’d like to see… RZ/SUBC: “Clarify with Subject why, after getting a couple of DUIs, failing to pay a dozen bills, getting written up on the job, he has the unmitigated gall to even apply for a security clearance??”
Sorry, that should read “no county associated with this city…”
That is precisely what I mean. All that BS adds up to more and more time. When I started, SPINs were done on affidavits. We would meet the subject, only discuss the issue. I would write it in a summary, and the subject would approve and sign it. I would then send an i-note that the spin was completed and send it off as an attachment. What we are asked to do now requires an accounting degree because one has to be a CPA to go line by line on the SF86 and make sure every bit of the 1000 bits if information is correct. Now on BI cases it is expected that we confront the subject with every mistake they ever made in their life and admitted to some time in their federal work history. I’ve had to drag up the 30 year old possession charge, DUI etc and fully resolve the issue in the ESI(no fieldwork required) The subject’s are no longer allowed to say it was covered in another investigation. This is only BIs. It’s just ridiculous. It seems like OPM is trying to make it look like they are actually doing something about their past incompententcies.
With investigations reduced to rules upon rules and more and more focus on the new regulations minutiae, investigations are almost entirely reduced to working them for review. You are forced to focus on those small points to preclude RZs. The quicker an investigator learns to work cases like a case reviewer (focus solely on the mechanics of IHB rules), the sooner the job will be manageable.
Typical bureaucracy. Push the responsibility to the lowest level, then the head office does not have to worry, just delegate.
Maybe one reason for so few posts is that more and more people are losing heart and don’t give a damn.
Just read the Glassdoor entries. KGS is rated lower that USIS ever was.
Forcing the field to conduct 40 to 50 items on a 21 year old who is going into EOD but letting Snowden get by with only 2 sources, his mother and his girlfriend, get access to the nation’s most secret NSA data is a good example of the incompetence of OPM and having a HR department conduct national security.
If Congress wasn’t so inept, they could make heads roll and change the entire system.
If the Administration wasn’t so corrupt, they would put national security ahead of their political cronies.
Just venting and going to get some cheese for my whine.