| Comment Number: | OL-10503088 |
| Received: | 3/4/2005 4:50:49 AM |
| Subject: | Notice of Proposed Rulemaking, Request for Comment |
| Title: | National Security Personnel System |
| CFR Citation: | 5 CFR Chapter XCIX and Part 9901 |
| No Attachments |
Comments:
How are you going to counteract the undoubtedly increasing level of "backstabbing" and bad blood amongst employees who will find each other now in even more fierce competition, not only for rank but more importantly compensation? Once one employee who feels just as qualified and hardworking as another finds out that his/her coworker makes more money for no apparent reason, office feuds are going to be a daily routine. This change will also promote racism in my opinion, since the supervisor can now discriminate against minorities or merely because of personality incompatibility by preventing employees from moving up, giving them less than excellent appraisals even when that is false. How will you prevent experienced, hardworking, knowledgeable employees below the GS-11 level from being crippled and kept at that level indefinitely because they serve a better purpose to management down there, where they do all the work than higher up as art of the management team? How will we ever be able to work ourselves up now short of moving from State to State trying to qualify for the next level if it is more important to "you" to hire already highly skilled people with PhDs who will capture the high end salaries instead of helping us to get to that position? Time in grade was surely not an ideal system but not all of us are incompetent people who slipped into the system and sat around lazy not learning anything. Those of us who put in the time and effort and are productive should be able to move up based on the time we invested into our careers already. How are you going to prevent "buddy-buddy" hiring now? No time-in- grade requirements or detailed job descriptions will allow the supervisor to mold the announcement to fit his "buddy's" profile perfectly! I am a GS-7/9 and am very discouraged and frightened by this change! I have little hope for advancement now or faith in the fairness of this system. YES, we needed an overhaul but not at the expense of those not already in the upper levels. The incompetence does not lie with the people who have worked themselves through the system with not much of a thank you but the very small yearly step increase ( which you are now taking away so that biased supervisors can reward those who can "butter up" better than others) ,but with the people in high positions who didn't come up through the system yet were hired merely based on their Veteran status etc not based upon what they really knew (my husband is a Veteran but that is not always enough!) . We, who are knowledgeable and hardworking are now needed at the lower end more than ever to keep the ship from going under and will be kept here at all cost, no doubt. What a shame! K.S Davis