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I am currently employed at a federal agency.

You can't really "win" an argument with a boss who isn't going to entertain your points. Nothing you can do there.

You should not bring this up to your manager again if you like having a job

Did your federal agency by any chance experience a lot of turnover after the recent executive regime change?

A lot of federal CBA's have a provision in the performance standards about not being dinged for things out of your control. I would just do your best and not worry about it if and until you actually have a problem. I don't think it was a great idea to go over your supervisor's head, and he is probably gunning for you now because of it.

Yeah OP you have to acknowledge the all around shitty job you did with this situation. You freaked out about a problem that didn't even exist yet (and possibly would not have come to fruition) and in the process created ten new problems for yourself

C'mon guys, OP was just being proactive and showing initiative like a model employee! Oh wait, this is the fed. govt. we're talking about...

OP here

Not sure what you mean by the problem not having existed? I was going to get fired for not meeting the monthly requirement

Questioning your supervisor during a probationary period is insane. Just go with the flow for a while. It sounds like your work product sucks (to be expected at this stage) but don't be a pain in the ass too.

And literally NEVER send an email to "address your concerns."

You sound like you've never had a real job before. If that's the case, then use this as a learning experience.

Teoeo wrote:A lot of federal CBA's have a provision in the performance standards about not being dinged for things out of your control. I would just do your best and not worry about it if and until you actually have a problem. I don't think it was a great idea to go over your supervisor's head, and he is probably gunning for you now because of it.

Where can I find this provision?

ClubberLang wrote:Questioning your supervisor during a probationary period is insane. Just go with the flow for a while. It sounds like your work product sucks (to be expected at this stage) but don't be a pain in the ass too.

And literally NEVER send an email to "address your concerns."

Wait so actually what was I supposed to do? If I just did nothing, my work would have been sitting until my senior counsel got back, and he wouldn't have gotten to it before the end of the month, and I would have been fired.

Anonymous User wrote:

ClubberLang wrote:Questioning your supervisor during a probationary period is insane. Just go with the flow for a while. It sounds like your work product sucks (to be expected at this stage) but don't be a pain in the ass too.

And literally NEVER send an email to "address your concerns."

Wait so actually what was I supposed to do? If I just did nothing, my work would have been sitting until my senior counsel got back, and he wouldn't have gotten to it before the end of the month, and I would have been fired.

I guarantee you would not have been fired. You should have kept doing your work and said nothing. I'm sure it will be ok. But don't make it worse. Just sit down and do your work for a while. You need to get a healthy respect for office politics and realize that what you think and feel about how the office functions means less than nothing. Being low on the totem pole sucks but y you have to learn to follow before you can lead.

How do you know you would have been fired? Wouldn't there be some built in method for the senior counsel to handle a short-time month (or none of them could ever take leave)?

Could you have talked to your senior counsel before he left to ask about whether arrangements could be made to have your work reviewed in his absence? I can't imagine this is the first time that a situation like this has come up.

A. Nony Mouse wrote:How do you know you would have been fired? Wouldn't there be some built in method for the senior counsel to handle a short-time month (or none of them could ever take leave)?

This is what I was told by management.

Wonnker wrote:Did your federal agency by any chance experience a lot of turnover after the recent executive regime change?

Yes there has been

Anonymous User wrote:

Wonnker wrote:Did your federal agency by any chance experience a lot of turnover after the recent executive regime change?

Yes there has been

I imagine this is all just pretense to fire you then. You need to start looking elsewhere ASAP.

Fed Gov sounds like shit. I hate billing time, but at least billed and collected is fairly objective.

THAT being said... you handled it wrong. It's amazing what going to work with a smile and not creating problems does for people to like you.

While I do not totally believe this, I have heard it said more than a couple times… it is [nearly] impossible to be fired from a federal job.

(Granted, probation might be different.)

Probation is different.

I find it hard to believe that in this kind of situation, "pending" would include matters your senior counsel is in the process of reviewing, as opposed to matters you've already been assigned/worked on but haven't passed on to your counsel yet. I also figure there has to be a system in place for when senior counsel go on leave, because people do go on leave, and it sounds like when you were asking about what would happen, your supervisor took that as questioning sr counsel's ability to manage his workload. That said, some places are just dysfunctional, and trying to find out how the situation is handled doesn't seem unreasonable - it just clearly didn't come across that way, whether fairly or not.

There seems no reason at all for you to leave at this point unless you really just want to leave anyway (at least assuming you don't have another job lined up), though. Your supervisor yelled at you - it sucks, but it happens, it's generally not a reason to quit on its own. But I also am not sure you're on the verge of being fired. If you absolutely positively KNOW you're going to be fired, as opposed to simply being afraid you will be, maybe that's different.

As for who to contact - I don't think any of us can answer that without knowing your agency and its organization. I don't know if there are other supervisors at the same level you have some relationship with that you can talk to. I probably would NOT try to redo the conversation to get your supervisor to see the light as I don't think that's going to happen, and I don't think going over their head makes sense at this point.

Having worked for the feds before (not in a legal capacity), it does seem like you should be a little worried frankly. I'm not saying this to scare you but if you are getting written warnings about your performance during your probation period, they might be considering letting you go. I'd at least look around a bit just in case.

This is a troubling thread.

Oh, yeah, I think it definitely would make sense to look for something else. When I said "no reason to leave" I meant more, don't quit before they fire you without something else lined up, though I didn't make that clear, sorry.

Even if you're not fired over this, it sounds like a pretty toxic and dysfunctional work environment if it's as you're describing (not that I think you reacted particularly well either). I'd start looking elsewhere.