Comment Number: OL-10511465
Received: 3/16/2005 3:39:01 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:

I think the National Security Personnel System is a slap in the face to people who have dedicated their entire adult lives to working for the Department of Defense. I went to work for DoD right out of School, accepting much less pay than I could have made on the outside, but my dedication and belief in Civil Service to my Government has always been very important to me. I took the oath of allegiance, and my loyalty has always been to the Department of Defense and my country. With six more years until I reach my Minimum Retirement Age, the job security and assurance of my WELL EARNED retirement is now in jeopardy. I’ve had many Outstanding performance appraisals over the years, and had faith that my job performance history and years of service would easily take me though to retirement. Now, this will no longer be the case. Not only do we have the added stress of doing the work of everyone who has retired, in addition to our own work, we will constantly have to worry if we’ll even make it to retirement. Do the Great Powers think this is a productive way to run the Government? Putting so much added stress on Government Employees and lowering moral to the lowest point it could possibly be? Everyone will have to divert their energy to trying to stay on top, and constantly plan their next move to stab another co-worker in the back to remain on top. You can forget all the years of Teamwork that went into building the work structure we finally have accomplished. There will be no Teamwork. It will be everyone for themselves! I think its wrong for people to have to split up their families by being forced to deploy to a job in another state, or country, against their will. DoD Civil Servants never agreed to this in the past, and I can’t believe they would mandate this in the last decade of someone’s career. Most of us have spouses who have worked for the same company for years and are close to retirement. How could they be expected to just quit their jobs to move with their spouse? Most of us have family nearby, and roots in the community, and it would be unfair to make this demand on long-time DoD employees. This was not part of what we thought it would be like to go to work for the Department of Defense some 25-30 years ago. That’s for people who join the Military, and they understand from the beginning of their military service that this is an obligation they have to agree to. Our pay should not have to be determined by our supervisors. All supervisors have their favorite employees. Some supervisors dislike certain people for no reason at all, while past supervisors had nothing but praise for the same employee. It took a long time to break up the Good-Old-Boy’s in our Organization. It won’t be long before we go right back to that same old mentality. There is no assurance that favoritism will not play a strong part in NSPS. In fact, it’s almost guaranteed that it will make all the difference in weather or not we even make it to retirement. All of the rights we have gained over the years through union negotiations will probably go away. DoD won’t be a nice place to work anymore. They’ll be no more happy employees – just worried, overworked, stressed-out and less productive employees.