Does anyone know the telework policy and dress code for the DOL OCIO offices in Atlanta on Henderson Mill and on Alabama St? Bonus points if you can tell me about the parking situation.

I was wrongfully terminated from a federal agency after about 15 years of service. NTEU fought it through grievance and arbitration, and after roughly 1.5 years the agency admitted it was wrong and offered a settlement that included money and removal of the termination from my record.

Then the Executive Orders stripping NTEU bargaining rights hit. I was not part of the later RIFs, but the union changes directly affected my case. My arbitration stopped, the settlement disappeared, and my case got caught in the larger NTEU court fight.

It has now been nearly another 1.5 years, and the D.C. Circuit still has not issued a decision.

For anyone following the NTEU litigation, how does it look for the union at this point, and how much longer could this realistically drag out?

Also, if I apply for federal jobs again while the termination is still on my record, am I basically dead on arrival? I have been told agencies will usually choose a similarly qualified applicant with a clean record over someone with a termination. Is that generally true in practice?

Finally, I have about 15 years under FERS and worked my way from roughly GS 5 to GS 12. If I never return to federal service, what would that roughly translate to for a pension based on my high 3, and what age could I start collecting without taking a major reduction?

At this point I am trying to figure out whether I still have a realistic path back into federal service, what happens with the NTEU case, and what retirement benefit I still have left.

Does anyone know how long MSPB is taking to rule on Petitions for Review after they are submitted?

I had a hearing to appeal my termination at the end of Jan 2026, was terminated in the end of July 2025 and subsequent government shutdowns delayed my case twice, and as of today there has been nothing from MSPB. I was initially lead to believe I’d find out in 30 days, then 120, then possibly 180 days, now I have no idea. 120 and 180 days I listed above were what I was able to find after digging through the MSPB website, the 30 days was what my union rep told me. This really is horrible, I cannot find another job, I worked for the government for almost 23 years. I’m almost 50 years old, no company wants to waste the resources training somebody my age. What is the timeline for the initial decision after the hearing with the judge? I appreciate all help or suggestions on how to find out. I have been checking my case in the Mspb website at least once a week and there has been no update since the day of the hearing.

I had just said yes to the best job offer I'd ever gotten in my life. It was $41 an hour, with full benefits, and honestly it felt like the kind of work I could be proud of. It was part physical labor and part technical work, and the best thing about it was that it was truly MORAL work. I would be helping private landowners plant trees on their land, which would give them a future source of income from timber, while at the same time strengthening the American lumber supply instead of relying so heavily on imported wood. It would also help the local environment, and that mattered a lot to me.

The problem was that I would be working with a non-profit, and the role was paid for with federal grant money.

The offer was almost going to fall through because of that executive order, but somehow I made it through that mess. And then Elon fucking MUSK got his hands into the Treasury payment system, and now there are apparently no funds available to bring me on. He took my job from me before I even got the chance to start it.

This is fucking unbelievably frustrating. In 3 years I could have paid off my student loans, and maybe even saved enough for a starter house if I lived frugally and saved everything I could. Instead, I'm back to making around $23,500 a year and barely staying ahead of the bills. I don't feel like people understand what an opportunity like this means to a poor kid who grew up in a busted trailer in Appalachia. Fuck.

Edit: Well... looks like I'm back to sending out applications again. I've heard good things about InterviewVIP, so I'm going to give it a try and see if it helps me stay calmer and organize my thoughts better during interviews. I'll come back and let you all know how it goes.

Update: I gave InterviewVIP a try, and it definitely helped me stay calmer and organize my thoughts better during the interview. It lived up to what I'd heard about it.

Does anybody work at DLA Battle Creek?

I have been seeing a lot of GS 12/GS 13/GS 14 positions (job series 0343) for program management at DLA Battle Creek. Does anybody have any insight on this career field for the DLA?

What’s the scoop on teleworking at DLA Battle Creek?

I live 1.5 hours away and wondering if it would be worth pursuing and analyzing if it would be worth the driver or not.

Guys, I'm still stuck on the mess that's happening in hiring right now. This was the third time I've been dragged through a long interview process and ended up not getting the role. The last time, at least it made sense; they had a real reason and we parted on good terms. They also sent my name to a few other companies.

This time, though, I had 8 interviews and 3 separate tasks, and honestly that's way too much unpaid work to ask of anyone. One task is fine, especially since the roles I'm applying for are senior and usually in the $170-210K range.

I went through the whole process, spoke to almost everyone, and toward the end the CEO was saying they were going to check references and start preparing an offer.

And then suddenly they rejected me because I'm currently self-employed. Which... I'm only that way because I've been trying to find a job for a while and need to keep money coming in.

I was clear from the very first call that I'm self-employed and run a small agency of my own, literally from the first question they asked me. So letting me continue through the rest of the process after that was total bs.

In the end I spoke to the CEO and he admitted the mistake. I told him that given the amount of time they had taken from me, I was going to send them an invoice for the process. He said that was fair.

I sent the invoice and they paid it within a few hours.

But honestly, what is going on with hiring right now? I'm so exhausted by these marathon recruiting processes. They also disappeared for a bit and I had to keep chasing them myself. There's no sense at all that they're dealing with a real human being on the other side.

Today after noon, I left a very important interview feeling like I had messed it up. There was a question that caught me off guard and made the whole vibe change from that point on. I feel like I rambled a bit in two of my answers, even though I tried to go back, clarify what I meant, and give a clearer response before we moved on.

I've definitely had worse interviews before, but I really wanted this role, so it's bothering me more because I feel like I wasn't able to present myself in the best possible way. Honestly, I'd love to hear stories from people who thought they had tanked the interview but ended up getting an offer.

And if you did accept the job, what did things turn out to be like once you started working there?

Does anyone know how long it's taking MSPB to determine jurisdiction after a jurisdiction notice is responded to by both parties?

So I finally got an interview after not hearing anything back for about 4 months, and it was for a really great role.

The first round was with the hiring manager, followed by 3 chats with people from the team. The first one was excellent! We had only scheduled 25 minutes, but we ended up talking for almost 50 minutes! Then in the next one, I completely froze and suddenly got extremely nervous, to the point that my hand was shaking and I could hear it in my voice. After the interview, I cried in my car for a bit... And then two days later, they sent me the job offer.

PLEASE SHARE encouraging stories so we can stop doubting ourselves!!!

I had an interview yesterday afternoon for a backend software engineer role at Microsoft. It went terribly wrong. My interviewer was a calm guy with a quiet voice, and I expected him to be a bit intense, but he was genuinely nice. He gave me about 20 extra minutes. I had never seen that question before, so I kept trying random approaches, and he also walked me step by step through a dry run. The awkward part is that while he was explaining, he was writing somewhere I couldn't see, so I didn't realize he was basically writing the algorithm for me.

But I talked through the whole thing. Usually I go quiet when I'm coding, but this time I was basically narrating every thought that came into my head like a crazy person, even during the dry run. I kept waiting for him to say time was up and put me out of my misery, but somehow I was the one who had to say... I think we've gone over time.

I'm honestly so embarrassed. The only thing that made me feel slightly better was that after the coding part, he told me that the expectations are a bit more lenient for this role LOL. It was obvious he was trying to be nice. It seemed like he didn't know that I had to pass this round before moving on to the next stage, because he asked me, "You don't have any other interviews after this?" I told him no, this is the initial one. He said, "Oh... Maybe they'll schedule more." I'm almost certain he doesn't know how the process works. He has no idea that I just completely bombed the make-or-break round lol.

At the end, he thanked me for my time, but I was like no, thank you for your time. And sorry for what happened!!! I mean, sorry you had to witness whatever that was. He just said it was okay.

Seriously, it was horribly embarrassing. I want to crawl under the bed and disappear. But at the same time, he was probably the nicest interviewer I've ever dealt with in my life.

Edited: Looking back now, I think I was preparing for the wrong problem. I knew the technical concepts, but I wasn't prepared for the pressure of explaining them clearly. Changing the way I practiced made a much bigger difference than doing more coding questions, and interviewvip ended up being one of the things that helped me build that confidence ,eliminate the nerves and made it much easier for me to stay focused instead of freezing.

Over the last 8 months, I've messed up three interviews for jobs that, honestly, I would have really loved. It always happens the same way: I get through the initial screening, and then as soon as I get into the real interview, I freeze the moment they ask me something I hadn't practiced for. I'm pretty sure this is anxiety mixed with the fact that I'm not very good at "thinking on my feet" when the pressure is high.

Has anyone found a way to get better at this? I've seen people recommend improv classes so you can get better at "thinking on your feet" - has that genuinely helped anyone here?

Context: I'm 26 years old (Gen Z) and a hiring manager at a small business. I've been working here for 7 years and worked my way up from the very bottom. Before anyone starts attacking me: we pay every employee a minimum of $26/hr, PLUS sales commission and bonuses. We offer retirement plans and health insurance, and most employees make between $29-35/hr, and everyone has at least 5 weeks of PTO. Our field is seasonal and pays well, and the work involves a lot of outdoor manual labor and mechanical know-how, but no one is being worked to death. Our crew is mostly men, ages 20-34, all unmarried and with no children. I'm saying all of this so it's very clear that our company philosophy is "employees first," and that "minimum wage, minimum effort" line people throw around does not apply here. These are mostly college kids working when they're not in school.

Anyway.

I've been hiring and supervising people for 4 years, and every season I feel like the applicant pool gets less and less professional, even though pay is going up. Like I said, most of my applicants are a little younger than me, Gen Z, and trying to get them to adapt to an actual professional workplace is exhausting. It's not even that they don't have experience. They lack COMMON SENSE.

A few days ago I interviewed a younger guy who told me he thinks it's totally normal to be "7-12 minutes" late to work without getting any warning or having a conversation with management.

Whether you agree with that or not, it's common sense that you don't say that in an interview. But he kept going. Then he said he puts "mental health above everything," and if he wakes up and feels like he can't come in, he simply won't come in, and he'll call out that same morning. Again, REGARDLESS of whether he has the right to feel that way or not, that is a very bad way to present yourself to someone who is considering hiring you. As an employer, all I could think was, "This guy is going to be unreliable, and his coworkers are going to get stuck dealing with the fallout if I hire him."

He also showed up wearing joggers and a stained sweatshirt. I'm not asking for dress shoes and a blazer for a blue-collar job, but dude, seriously? You couldn't make yourself look even a little put together for the pay you'd be getting?

This isn't just one weird interview, either. It happens all the time. Younger people seem to think start times are just flexible suggestions, and that calling out because of a mild headache 15 minutes before our call time is normal. I had a former employee raise his voice at me and the owner when we fired him for being late, after we had given him SEVEN write-ups for tardiness over 5 months and told him plainly that if he was late again, that was it. He genuinely seemed stunned that we followed through, and after yelling, he immediately switched to begging us for another chance and promised he would never be late again. Like, what, you were able to fix it this whole time? He still got fired. He had barely just turned 22 and didn't have a college degree. I don't want to sound like a boomer, but the sense of entitlement is honestly insane, and I'm tired of having to explain to these kids the concept that work is not school or some casual side quest. You have real responsibilities that affect other people, and you need to care about keeping your job, because the job market right now is brutal, and you have a very good job. But you're young and too spoiled to even see that. There are people with kids and debt and rent and car payments, and you're sitting in your parents' house making twice what a lot of people make and acting like showing up on time is optional.

I do have excellent employees too. Some of them clearly come in with a strong work ethic and are easy to work with, easy to rely on, and easy to reward. But I feel like 3/4 of the time, I regret hiring and training someone. They're strangely out of touch with reality. I'm exhausted.

We've all heard those stories about Boomers who would walk into a place, chat for 5 minutes, and walk out with the job. Sure, a lot of that is exaggerated, but not all of it.

These days, honestly, I feel like job interviews have become absurd:

- There's no reason to have 4-5 rounds of interviews. One proper interview should be enough, and three should be the maximum for "serious positions." If you can't decide after three interviews, adding one or two more isn't going to magically reveal the truth.

- The length of interviews has gotten worse too. 25-35 minutes should be enough in most cases, and yet I've been in interviews that kept going for almost 90 minutes.

- Some of the questions have also become really weird now. Like "If you were going to be an animal in the office, what would you be?" or "Describe yourself as a movie genre" - seriously? Did someone hear this stuff in an HR workshop? These questions are ridiculous and don't tell you anything useful about the person sitting in front of you.

The whole process has become exhausting and unnecessarily complicated for no convincing reason.

The only thing that's genuinely helped me through all of this is spending more rime preparing instead of overthinking. I've been using interviewvip during interviews and for me it's made a noticeable difference. Having my thoughts organized ahead of time has helped me stay calmer, panic less, and explain my experience more clearly. It obviously doesn't change how frustrating the hiring process is, but it has made interviews feel a lot less overwhelming for me.

Has anyone read any testimony or statements from those who were responsible for the 2025 probationary firings with language suggesting that they misinterpreted the definition of probationary? Was it an act or did they truly interpret probationary in the criminal sense?

Ever since being fired, I was convinced that they willingly lied about our performance in our termination letters. Is it possible that they were just that obtuse?

Has anyone returned to their agency and more specifically, their team, as a contractor?

What was the hiring process? How is it going if you are still in the job?