Working on a new cleared job while (possibly) on LWOP at the old job

SECURITY CLEARANCE Q&A
1

Hello.

So I have a bit of a unique situation. Last year my contracting company put me on a project where I was granted a secret clearance. When my contract ended, I went to the bench. After a few months on the bench, I voluntarily went on a personal leave without pay for a couple months, with the intent to come back to work on my return. On my return, my company didn’t want to pay me on the bench again without a billable project to return to (understandably so).

At that time, they extended my LWOP to try to find me a project, even though I didn’t request it. I suppose the alternative was termination (which I was willing to accept, to be honest). Unfortunately, the project search was unfruitful, so I started looking elsewhere and found a job at a new contracting company.

Now I’m happily employed at this new company, and I’ll be using my active secret clearance for one of their contracts. Meanwhile, as of yesterday my previous company has extended my LWOP for another 6 months.

I have a few questions regarding this

  • It is my understanding that working two jobs while having a clearance is generally a no-no, but I feel I’m essentially not employed by my previous company right now, so is my secret clearance at risk? Will this be viewed unfavorably if I needed a higher level clearance in the future?
  • Am I obligated to tell my previous company that I have a new job now? Should I just “quit” my LWOP?
  • Are they allowed to extend my LWOP without my request?
  • What do you suppose would happen if I just waited out the LWOP extension?

I have no hard feelings towards anyone and no real expecations out of this scenario; I just want to make sure I’m not making any grave mistakes here, and try to take advantage of anything that could be availed to me from my previous company.

2

I can’t cite any policy or anything, but at this point I think the best thing for you to do is to tell Company 1 that you are resigning because you found a new job.

3

If you are in a non pay status…and no billable hours are charged to you…you can have as many jobs as you desire. If company A potentially paid more…being an inactive employee isn’t a bad thing. If company B is paying more…I’d stay there. If A made an offer…think it over, where are you happier? Decline and resign at that stage from A, or stand fast there. What company A is doing…is claiming you have access to classified, so they can bid on cleared projects when they are supposed to drop the cleared seat. I can tell you the vast majority of cleared companies play that game. Because time-to-clear is looooong. In my former FSP life HR insisted on interviewing and submitting 5 or 6 for a 1 deep position. First one cleared gets offer. Second one is offered whatever cleared other position…and 3 or 4 would not clear. I reversed that by not giving SF86s to people I knew would not clear.

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