Monthly Archives: June, 2010

As this article by Staff Writer Steve Losey reminds us, the federal sector’s record of success in using pay-for-performance systems has been pretty dismal. Agencies that have tried it (Defense Department, Homeland Security Department, intelligence agencies, and others) have been criticized for botching the way these systems are executed and managed. Performance ratings and bonuses are often viewed as unfair, even discriminatory. Many feds covered by these systems often quotas regulate the performance ratings and payouts. Often, ratings are overturned by managers who have never worked with the employees being rated. Transparency is often in short supply. So does all…

Retired federal employee James Stephens writes in a new op-ed piece on FederalTimes.com that managers should forget about trying to define and respond to sick leave abuse: I did not abuse sick leave …  I treated my sick leave as an asset to be used. At one point, I had more than 1,500 hours of accumulated sick leave. On the day I retired I had no balance. He explains: The problem is that managers pretend that the problem is employees who abuse something that isn’t theirs.  …  Agencies should view excessive sick leave as a symptom of another problem, depression,…

Avatar director James Cameron was summoned to Washington yesterday to advise the Environmental Protection Agency on innovative ways to cap the massive, ever-worsening BP oil spill, according to the AFP. AFP said Cameron attended the meeting with a Canadian submersible researcher, who built the submarines used on his 1989 movie The Abyss. But it doesn’t say exactly what real experience Cameron has with oil rigs, environmental cleanup, or anything else that qualifies him to figure out the many complicated technical issues that have stumped an entire industry. But hey, he did direct Titanic, which has something to do with water. Plus…

Conservative activist James O’Keefe, who became notorious last year after dressing up as a 70’s-style pimp and releasing videos he claimed showed the community organizing group ACORN was aiding and abetting prostitution, has set his sights on the U.S. Census Bureau. O’Keefe posted a hidden camera video today on Andrew Breitbart’s Big Government blog purporting to show a Census Bureau supervisor instructing temporary workers to fudge their time sheets. O’Keefe, who worked for two days receiving training to be a temporary Census taker, then apparently told a few superiors that he was being paid for four hours of work he didn’t do, but his…

The Wall Street Journal speculates on possible punishments for BP, saying that the government could go beyond fines and bar the company from receiving federal contracts. BP is the single biggest supplier of fuel to the Department of Defense, with Pentagon contracts worth $2.2 billion a year, the Journal reports. BP has plenty to be worried about right now, but losing the right to bid on U.S. government contracts is probably fairly low on the list. The Gulf spill doesn’t have anything to do with a federal contract, so a suspension or debarment action would just be vindictive — and…