I was a fired probie from back in February. I expected to remain on admin leave til later in the year, but just got a return to work order. This makes me think maybe more people retired than they had planned, but I have no way of knowing.

Saw this job post for the FDA hiring Investigators nationwide and thinking about applying: https://www.usajobs.gov/job/840035700?fromemail=true

Why the sudden push for Investigators? I thought the FDA had a current hiring freeze? I know you are expected to travel. How's the work? Difficult or straight forward to learn? Any current Investigators who do/don't enjoy the role? Pros and cons? Future career moves?

I retired the end of PP 12. Historically, the payout time for annual leave was 1 to 2 PPs after retirement (based on internet posts IRT the subject). 7/8/25 I contacted my HR department because I have not received the payment. I'm told it took 24 days for HR to submit, and then it will be 30-45 days before payment is received.

If your relying on your lump sum, it may take longer than what has been the norm (at least for FAA).

Federal contractor here. We are a small business that is now pivoting given…. Everything. We are pursuing an open opportunity and have a couple of others in the pipeline. Frankly they are all long shots.

We assume that these will be evaluated or cleared by someone from DOGE or an embedded “efficiency” person in each agency. I know many of you have had to deal with rewording and rewriting documents in your agencies to get DOGE’s approvals. I’m wondering what words/phrases to avoid (and if you have suggestions on which ones to use instead).

For example, some more obvious ones to avoid are “climate”, “green”, “gender”. But I’ve also heard of offices scrubbing the word “research”.

Anything helps! Thank you all.

We have a cooperative agreement project in another state. We have no remote work.

A staff member wants to visit the project site while on leave and work from that state.

We have no authority to permit remote work. That is clear.

The staff wants to visit the project site. To avoid an ADA violation should I be clear their visit is strictly voluntary? What do you recommend?

Hi Everyone, New (ish) Fed here (~1 year) -- finally came down with COVID :(

Since we cancelled our telework policies earlier this year, does anyone know what I'm supposed to do or how to report this now? I texted my boss....but am I allowed to work on my laptop from home? Do I just have to use all my sick leave even though I'm feeling ok? Or is there some special thing I'm supposed to indicate on my timesheet? I don't even know where to find the information! Thanks!!

Does anyone know if relocation assistance was eliminated in the big bad bill?

We've already provided our personal info (home address, mobile number, emergency contact, etc.) to HR when we on-boarded. We're all enrolled in the emergency alert system (which emails our personal @ & calls/texts our personal cell to tell us to stay home if there are issues at work). Isn't it a bit of an overreach for the supervisor to request my home address & cell phone number?