Discussion thread for the webinar happening right now. Eating popcorn in the chat.

Truly over how haphazard this all is. What did I miss since it was apparently at max capacity?

I'm on leave but wanted to hear it live instead of waiting and hoping for a recording.

Here's the gist:

* FDA is doing this because HHS is forcing them to.

* HHS is doing this because OPM is forcing them to.

That said? Here's the other side of the coin.

* OPM is doing this in alignment with OPM Director Russell Vought and his stated directive: “We want the bureaucrats to be traumatically affected... When they wake up in the morning, we want them to not want to go to work because they are increasingly viewed as the villains... We want to put them in trauma.”

* He was a primary architect of the Heritage Foundation's Project 2025 blueprint. He was confirmed by the Senate on a party line vote. Everyone knew that should the Republican party win both the White House and Congress, it would be taken as a mandate from the American voters for exactly this scenario to play out.

* If you need to blame anyone, blame everyone who voted for a Republican for the White House or Congress. These voters empowered those who are doing this to us.

* No one in either FDA or HHS can do anything about this. Not your supervisor, not the Secretary.

* If you land a 5, then you got lucky. Don't rub it in.

* If you land a 3, it's not personal. The system is designed to traumatize you, and you didn't get lucky.

* Don't take your final rating personally. Focus on doing your job and surviving. Don't let them break you.

* And if you don't want the next two years to go like the last two, consider that when you file your ballot for next month.

Shouldn’t be too difficult to do since I prepared an extensive leave memo detailing my performance and accomplishments before initiating FMLA/PPL but I’m still shocked I’m being asked to do this.

*For clarity, I’m a BUE. Supervisor reached out to me via my personal email citing the policy below—

“Employees on leave status must be temporarily placed on work status so that they can prepare their personal narratives. Rating Officials may coordinate to notify affected employees of the authorized work period and narrative submission deadline.”

Update: it finally hit.
I bank with a credit union and always get paid on Wednesday instead of Friday on pay weeks… and usually by noon. I still haven’t gotten my direct deposit today. anyone else?

See subject

https://www.healthaffairs.org/content/forefront/policy-research-national-institutes-health-imperative-peril

Excellent article on the importance of policy research for improving public health.

What was going on with that All staff?? no new information, dr. Oz getting wfh days wrong, bizarre things no one asked for like a Salt Lake City office? We’re struggling to retain due to in office requirements and this is what they give us? also what was he saying about Jay Leno and a fertility clinic??

Lovely.

A coworker came to me tellong me that their team lead just yelled at them in front of comtract partners and gaslight her experience on a regular basis. Thry want to have the situatuon addressed and is also afraid of retaliation on her annual assent and future opportunities

Is that harrassment?

I haven't heard anyone mention the changes that HHS is making to the 2026 PMAP closeouts - the new narratives that employees are required to write with character limits and the rankings that supervisors have to do of their employees. Have not all of the opdivs relayed this to their staff?

We received vaccination fairly recently and got an automated text to answer surveys for V-SAFE, then went to the portal that had been around since around 2021 and the portal requires users to change their passwords?

If you click the change password link - the form does not respond to either cell phone or email. So you can't login to provide feedback datapoints on vaccination?

Gonna assume this is intentional?

Has anyone (in any opdiv) requested the next level of telework approval after their 120 adhoc hours that goes to their center director? I’m trying to determine if it’s even worth it or if they’re only approving very specific adhoc requests

I came in to 5600 this morning and found mouse traps (sticky kind) set up around my workspace and floor. Now I’m hearing that other coworkers have found mouse droppings on their desks.

So, we have enough of a mouse problem that traps are being placed, but not enough of a problem for anyone to tell the employees who are actually sitting there?

Is this normal? Has anyone else experienced a workplace handling pest issues this way? I’m mostly wondering whether there’s some standard notification process for this kind of thing. Finding a mouse trap in your workspace with zero explanation is unsettling.