| Comment Number: | OL-10509529 |
| Received: | 3/15/2005 4:02:40 PM |
| 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:
This is a general comment not specific to any particular section but to the NSPS as a whole. Linking this system to "national security" is a shame and a feeble attempt to justify the SECDEFs selfish and ill conceived desires. I'm not a political person but I'm sick and tired of having every single thing we do tied somehow into the war on terrorism or national security. I wish the powers the be who make these decisions would get off their high horses and get down to where the rubber meets the road and find out what it's really like at the worker bee level. The old saying of "walking a mile in my shoes" is something these "high level executives" need to do. I wonder just how many of them started their careers at a GS 4 or so level, or how many have worked at the installation level. I suspect most have probably entered at a high GS level somewhere in the hallowed halls of the Washington DC area and have no concept of anything below that level. Their usual saying is that they have always looked at it from the "Big Picture" side. The existing system isn't the best and has all sorts of abuses but the NSPS will allow abuses to occur with greater frequency and more immunity for the abusers. Pay for performance is already in place if you look at capabilities of Quality Step Increases (QSIs), Special Act Awards, Performance Awards and other means of recognition. If the managers cannot come to grips with awarding those only to the truly deserving how does this new system expect them to fairly and equitably handle increases/decreases in pay for performance. One of the supposed purposes of the NSPS is to be able to get rid of the "dead wood", those who are "retired on active duty" and such statements. Again, procedures exist in the current system to handle such problems if the managers were doing their jobs correctly in the first place. I'd go so far as saying that the vast majority of todays managers/supervisors have absolutely no business being in that capacity. All the training in the world will not change the prejudices and personality traits of these managers. They may or may not know the technical side of the field but they thoroughly lack people skills, motivation techniques and have absolutely no concept of what it means to take care of their people. What this system will do is allow them to continue with their incompetency with greater impunity and provide them the opportunity to further abuse their positions of responsibility. There are no safeguards to protect the worker from bad managers but there sure are opportunities for bad managers to wreck the lives of the worker. If this must happen, and I believe it's already a done deal inspite of all the negative comments, rather than force this new system on those of us who've been around awhile it should be made optional like the switch to FERS, or better yet apply it only to all new employees. If you'd get any new employees under such a lousy system. I know I wouldn't recommend anybody enter government service and I'd sure look elsewhere if I already didn't have a good many years invested. The NSPS is one of the worst proposals I've ever seen and should NOT be implemented.