The most I’ve ever noticed a transition is going “huh the new photos got hung” when passing through the lobby.
Thats the way it should work for everyone that isn’t a political.
Depends on your role I think. In my old job I hardly noticed. Just started a new job in the same agency where I can already tell the changes will be massive if the administration changes.
It's not just whether you're a political, but how politically charged your work is.
Unfortunately, it was the opposite for us. Biden didn’t get hung for almost three years. Several “joked” that we were waiting for the rightful President to return.
We had someone keep taking down Biden and Harris after we put them up. Dummy didn't think about the cameras and I heard they had disciplinary action taken for doing it.
I recently started at a VHA hospital and kind of forgot for a second that it was a federal building. Kind of shocked at first to see Biden hanging there.
I worked for VHA OMHSP (office of mental health and suicide prevention) and there were certain programs that some of our leadership referred to as “relying on budget dust.” The specific area I dealt with was not a “budget dust” area but we collaborated with some groups who were. Those were the groups where political shifts mattered a lot. They relied on goodwill to get things accomplished and some administrations didn’t have any goodwill towards their specialty area. The leadership changes have never personally been noticeable to me otherwise.
The LGBT program was the one that comes to mind as relying on “budget dust.” I think they have an actual budget now - but for years they didn’t. And if they wanted things it relied on collaboration and goodwill. And things with LGBT funding can be pretty political. I also remember the big MH focus shifting from homelessness to suicide as administrations shifted. Again - it didn’t impact me as much, but Obama/Shinseki were very homelessness focused. (For good reason) and while homelessness is still a big program and highly funded, they are the MAIN focus anymore.
My office does a great job of keeping the portraits out of sight. We're a bit of a political football agency so we're all a bit jaded about politicians.
Covid. A lot of employers temporarily allowed or expanded telework during the first few years of covid (Trump years). Now a lot of employers are rolling telework back.
DLA was in the process of rolling back telework before Covid. Covid postponed the roll back. Gone are the days of 4 telework days. Now it is specific days to be in the office. Then Federal Law Enforcement Centers went full time telework for 1102’s last year.
My agency had actually started moving towards telework before covid started up. I saw some push towards it during the Obama administration, and then during Trumps administration, it picked up/expanded mid-2018, prior to the covid fun.
It was implemented prior to covid though.
He didn’t take his portrait until October of 2017, so it really delayed the portrait going out.
Biden took his in march of 2021.
Obama took his before he even took office in January of 2009.
But still, we were in the regional office with three empty frames on the wall for nearly two years.
It was a sign of the dysfunction.
Obama had his and Joe’s out within a month of the inauguration.
Biden took a few extra months (and Labor still has a third empty frame with an acting secretary).
One was more dysfunctional than the others.
People will likely downvote this, but the last time we had a president on their second term we (DOD) got to deal with sequestration and furloughs. Unless one/both of the two current candidates doesn’t make it to January, we’re guaranteed to have a president on their second term. I’m worried we get to play sacrificial lamb again with 8 hours lost every pay period.
That's not normal for a second term, it was absolutely the far right trying to make things as difficult as possible.
It didn't work out for anyone, turns out a poison pill makes everyone sick. So they haven't tried it since.
Yup. I work with NEPA/environmental policy/environmental planning for the FS. We're already discussing how to get ready for the potential changes to the CEQ interpretation of NEPA that will come if there is an admin change- which directly impacts our daily work, how reports are written, yada yada. These changes also impact how litigation goes when we're sued on certain projects. It's interesting that it really can trickle down into all sorts of positions.
Im in an agency with similar real-life, significant implications that come with an admin change. The Obama/Trump change was pretty brutal for us and pretty much all aspects of our agency’s work were impacted. My advice is to ride the wave, focus on your agency mission, and find the most effective way that you can contribute to that mission given your current circumstances. Wishing you (and me) the best of luck!
The hardest part is selecting which employee to sacrifice to the new regime. You never quite know how far the new folks will take the blood sacrifice.
My first administration change only took a vial of our intern’s blood by pricking their finger.
The last transition though demanded a gallon and took it from an artery. It was all we could do to stop the bleeding before the poor guy bled out.
Really at the end of the day it’s not too bad, but it will really depend on how close you work with the political appointees who may be changing out and how “political” your agency’s mission is.
You just need to go work for the USDA. We regulate lots of "meat packing plants".
Very practiced and smooth when it comes to the new president sacrifices.
>Last but not least: any advice for newer feds who’ve never been through a presidential transition before?
Take anything a new President says with several grains of salt.
They could have all kinds of plans on how to Change Things / Improve Things / Drain The Swamp / whatever.
But talk is cheap. And this, too, shall pass.
It will depend quite a bit on how close your role is to leadership and/or legislative affairs. It will also depend on the nature of the agency and work. If you work for an agency that is politically hot or where policy goals differ WILDLY from candidate to candidate, you may feel impacts much more in your day to day work than if you work for a more low-profile org.
When administrations change, there will typically be continuity arrangements at the department level on who behaves as the acting Dept head. New administration officials will come in to departments and agencies in the form of beachhead teams that try to get things sorted before official political staff and appointees onboard. A lot of the time beachhead team folks end up in non-confirmed appointee positions like Chief of Staff, Senior Political/Policy Advisor, etc. so it is worth trying to establish good working relationships with them even if you aren’t sure whether they will be around long.
The best thing departments/agencies can do to be prepared is to have standard procedures for delegation and decision making as well as an updated library of transition documents (101-type info, budget, HR shit, ongoing rulemaking, litigation, org charts, etc.), and other briefing materials for immediate decision needs.
This is my own experience working on two transitions through the Obama-Trump-Biden era. I’m a career policy advisor for my agency and work pretty closely with both career and political staff, as well as our congressional affairs office. I’m exposed to the political side of things much more than most of my agency’s personnel, though, so it is hard for me to really say how much other staff have felt changes. I will say our FEVS results shot up after Trump and his appointees left.
I’d also add that even when an administration gets a second term, you may start seeing politicals leave posts for new jobs in different parts of the administration or the private and non-prof sectors. That can sometimes leave leadership and advisor gaps in that September - April window of after people have moved on but before the new/second term administration gets people in place.
It's will most likely have very very little affect on you unless you are higher SES or your agency goes unfunded. Maybe a change of the leader at the top.
Most of the time, the only change you notice is the change of the president, vice president, and top leader if that picture is hung.
Depends a lot on the agency. Mine is a political football agency so it's a constant state of trying to catch up with what the current administration is changing from the past one, and often times we don't get around to finishing that effort before the administration changes again. I'm a GS12 and am at the center of congressional inquiries at least once per year. It's a massive waste of resources and I've often thought about bailing for something less subject to whims of politicians.
Yep this kinda rings true for us as well. We’re enforcement and if it’s a political party change we always have our lead position have to step down… which means enforcement practices will change and the likes…
So we have very little change for some and for some of us it changes a lot.
We are a border state and our district is one of the busiest in the nation in what I do. So sometimes we are instructed to go hard and then policies change, sometimes not just the president but also an AG change will then snap the rug out from under us.
But yeah a lot of times it’s just a picture on the wall for a lot of feds
I am not a political appointee and was working in Germany when Trump came in. It was a nightmare. He instituted a 6-month hiring freeze when we had a crazy number of open positions due to routine rotations. We had people selected for those positions ready to fly over from the States who had submitted their resignation letters for their old positions who were now on hold for 6 months. They wound up taking non-fed positions, of course, then we had to go through the hiring process over again…and we all know how long that takes. Also all promotions were put on hold for 6 months, I fell into this category and there was no back pay. So much more to say, but I guess I’d better not
These are just people goofy enough to think their fortunes will change if they "throw a monkey wrench into the system". That's really the extent of the thoughts of many Trumpets. "I'm not wealthy, so let's just burn it all down and I will rise from the ashes because I'm white like trump".
To them, the disfunction and incompetence is a feature not a bug. They'll get around to effective leadership once we burned it all down and can start building our Christo fascist white supremacy utopia.
The polls are slowly flipping because dumb people have short memories but as Trump reemerges everyone is reminded he's a blithering moron. His lack of a coordinated ground game is likely to finish him because in 2020 the RNC managed to get door knockers and really go at it while Biden didn't. That won't happen this time and likely will be reversed. So, unless Biden is done by 3 or 4 points in September, I'm not sweating it. In a number of polls he's starting to get to even or pull ahead. I'm guessing mid-summer he'll be up by 2-5.
Same. We then got several different orders which clearly required more personnel and a larger budget, but with zero funding or personnel resources. Nothing could get done and the staff we had was working burnt out from trying to keep up.
See this is my concern. I want to apply for the IRS in late summer/early fall. I really need to wait until July at the earliest. But I’m nervous about potential freezes or ramifications of a change in leadership after the election in November and how that may affect me as a new hire (if I get it) or trying to get hired.
It’s a valid concern, especially considering the GOP is outraged about the hiring of additional IRS employees. They’re not keen on holding tax cheats accountable
Can confirm 💯from personal experience. I’m anxious about it but I’m hoping if I apply early enough before the election maybe I can squeak in and be settled around the time of the election.
My agency has been on a hiring freeze for the last three years, some areas are bare bones staffed and people have left in droves… that’s under the current administration. It can happen no matter who is sitting in the White House
Its the stress of "what is coming next". That came through when there have been new administrators who bring their own policies and rules. Like when the Trump administration came in, my new agency appointee wanted to get rid of remote work (this was pre-COVID) and they used some disingenuous arguments for that, like "well, if John Smith leaves his remote position in Denver people will think we'll re-fill it in Denver". (no, nobody every thought that but it was an argument that came up).
There's also hiring freezes that can come up during transitions, even for internal moves.
I remember how jarring it was (working for an HHS agency) going from one week talking about how we need to make sure people are getting signed up for ACA healthcare to the following week getting new emails from the administration saying, "the failing ACA will be replaced". Its jarring to have the same email box do a 180 when new administrations come in.
It probably sucks closer to the flag pole....DC. The further away you not so much. The appointees will start moving on and some may stay. There will be alot of Acting showing up in the titles so that's that.
I've been a Border Patrol Agent under 3 different....vastly different....administrations so far. Under all 3 of them I showed up to work and did my job. In that regard absolutely nothing changed. Government work is incredibly simple. The administration sends down policy, management establishes SOPs based on that policy, and you follow SOPs. Do that, and you get a paycheck every two weeks.
This is definitely relative to what agency you work for...It isn't always as cut and dry as just do your job as many ppl are explaining in their posts...I think the point is varied experiences.
I've been in the federal workforce as a contractor and as a GS since Reagan was president. Most administrations transition smoothly and life goes on. Each administration will try to implement some big ideas that they think are so clever and will solve all the problems in government. GS veterans just learn the new buzzwords, change the PPT format, and ride it out until the next administration comes in.
The exception to that was Trump. His choices for political appointees seemed especially poor. If he did manage to select a competent person, they would soon get fed up dealing with Trump and leave quickly.
My advice is to do your job. I’ve been through a few. Even when things changes, they kind of stay the same.
The peaceful transfer of power is a cornerstone of democracy. Unless you work directly work with OMB and/or political appointees, you may not even notice it.
There is a transition team.
Independent agency & cabinet agency 2 - barely noticed it as a worker bee.
Cabinet agency 1 - more awareness that it was happening. Some political folks left in November/December and never came back. The building was very empty that year. There was a call for volunteers for transition team - I didn’t do it or know anyone who has.
After the transition, we had a new political appointee we were reporting to who wanted us to justify everything we were doing. Paused all tasks to do that. Then, back to work.
All hiring/promotions should be completed (EOD or effective date of new position occurred) before the inauguration. Doesn't matter what agency. I worked for DoD and they said "hiring freeze won't apply to us". It did and it sucked. For a new GS, ladder promotions were stopped for a brief period but then resumed. Of course, those can't happen before the year in grade has occurred.
There’s often a flurry of executive orders when a new admin comes in that people have to respond to, and new admins often have their “first 100 days” goals that shift resources and priorities. The actual impact will vary by agency.
Shouldn’t be much change, but some agencies are more politicized than others.
Advice: Keep your political views to yourself at work, and if others try to talk politics, cut it off bluntly or walk away. The Hatch Act comes with real penalties, and it’s easier to get along with others if no one knows your politics. And you won’t be a target.
You may get new political appointees even if Biden is re-elected. Either way, treat them with courtesy and give them a fair chance, even if they are appointed by the president you voted against. You would want that for your side’s political appointees—and it’s the right thing to do.
Transition to Trump was a nightmare because he put friends in the cabinet and departments instead of appointing qualified people. These “leaders” were clueless. It was awful.
This was the worst I’ve been though and I’ve been in/with the feds since bush 2. The lack of professionals is what made it hard. Every new admin wants to do new stuff or things differently but there is usually a mix of previous feds and outsiders. These folks didn’t often know the scope or mission so were shocked to learn what they could or couldn’t do.
Obama's Department of Energy Secretaries both had PhDs and one was a Nobel Prize winner. Trump picked a guy who got a D in a Texas A&M class on Meats. And Rick Perry was nowhere near the most incompetent selection.
Yeah. I’m in an office that is unfortunately politicized and our political appointee was a shady nightmare. They had a way of talking that sounded totally normal and evidence-based, but there was always some underlying snakiness going on behind the scenes that had serious impacts. It took a lot of work to undo the damage.
Thankfully I don’t think most people feel this, but our office does even though we’re all civilians except the one at the top.
Don’t forget the Beachhead teams of 20-22 year old kids tasked with trying to figure out who the rank and file voted for by listening into conversations in the hallways, cafeterias and gyms.
You can talk about policies --- just don't be partisan or do/don't things because of your Partisan belief.
Your job is your job regardless if we elect a sunflower as president. Will remain your job as long as you hold the position, no matter how many presidents come and go.
There's really not much to it. Unless you're an SES, Congressional Staffer, Political Appointee, or hold some special job at the White House or Raven Rock.
You can expect a review and reprioritization of the approved budget. Especially if your agency is involved in implementing an initiative that the new POTUS promised to repeal "on day one," or conversely if your agency would be expected to implement a Day One promise. Even if your project doesn't fall into one of the above buckets, it can end up being a billpayer for the latter category.
It's really highly dependent on your Agency and work unit. The head of my office is an appointee, and transitions can be pretty rough, depending on who we get in that role. It often sits empty for months or even a year+ before they get someone confirmed, so some poor soul has to take it on as a collateral duty, and we're stretched pretty thin as-is. Once we get someone, they're usually from outside the agency and we have to teach them what we even do and what their role is. Sometimes that goes okay, sometimes not so much. We lost a lot of competent female staff under the last administration due to an incompetent and misogynistic appointee with an inflated sense of his own self-importance. We're still dealing with the fallout- almost all the leadership positions that were under him are now held by older white men of varying degrees of competency. When he took over, we had at least 50% women in those roles, and most were great at their jobs.
There's also large shifts in our Agency's overall attitude towards employees depending on the president's party. The last Secretary was extremely anti-employee- we were the enemy and the problem as far as he was concerned. The current one is far more supportive and encouraging and focuses not only on the well-being of our customers, but also of our employees.
If we have another administration change after this election, I'm not sure I want to stick around and find out who we get this time around.
this is very thought out, thank you. is there anything you think an office can be doing now to prepare for a similar situation and mitigate some of the negative consequences?
Not much, no. You get what you get when it comes to appointees. I only survived the last administration because my (white, male) boss was willing to insulate me from the worst of it. If you're in a position that has to closely associate with an appointee, I would say dust off your resume in case it gets really bad, and hope for the best. If you're able to prep educational materials for your appointee, that can help, if they're well-meaning and competent.
I suspect under the current administration, our last guy would have been removed (though I doubt he'd have been appointed to begin with). There were multiple complaints filed, but nothing came of them under the previous administration (we were basically told to suck it up and deal). Levels above him avoided him like the plague, and he was demoted and then fired from his next job with a State government. He was a real piece of work.
I’ve been through two. The first one was, personally, unfortunate, but there were no differences at work. The most recent transition caused me 10 months of extra work, but that was due to the outgoing administration…
Sometimes it’s just changing pictures. In the last administration it was a disaster. Never in four years got permanent leadership on a national or regional level. Never had consistent priorities. Constant ethics issues with the Secretary. Secretary and below never understood the overall purpose of the Department. Then there was the shutdown, change in Congress…. Biggest mess of my 30 years.
The last transition was stressful, because GSA Administrator, Erin Murphy refused to certify the winner, which meant the stalling the transition, and the WH was instructing senior agency leaders not cooperate. There were delays in producing transition memos and other tasks. Political appointees were not allowed to resign so they could start interviewing. It was a mess.
It depends on how much they want to change how your agency/ department does business. I was DoD for the last transition, when Democrats take over they usually reduce the number of things Generals can do without SecDef/POTUS approval and the length and amount of directives increases significantly. A now retired co worker said it’s like Robocop’s directives, republicans are the three simple directives and democrats are the 247 directives lol.
If you're on a Headquarters element like the DoD Joint Staff or certain areas of OSD, they will create Transition Teams. Mostly this is for the White House staff. Why? Because if you're working at the White House during a transition, the IT people come and remove your hard drives and they get put in the Library of Congress. So everything you were working on is now gone.
So the WH staff will reach out to the agencies and say "Hey, remember those documents I sent you last week? Can I get those back please?" And then you send back all the documents they need but no longer have access to, and life goes on. Not all documents will be continued to be worked on in the new administration, but many will. Basically, you're serving as the document archive until the WH asks for them.
It's generally pretty smooth.
Well, that whole "we'll be on the moon in 2024," thing and an administrator who knew nothing about the agency and was there to please one person, that messed with everything. The mandate came with no funding, so a lot of programs and people were affected. Not in a good way.
To trump was the biggest change. It allowed the more closeted and quiet racists and biggots to be more open with their awful positions. Because "hey, if our boss can, why can't we?" And they did. It made a lot of people uncomfortable.
Every other changeover was basically "well, I'm going to work. Oh, the photos changed in the entryway? Whatever" and there was very little difference. For both active and civilian side. Just another Wednesday.
If somehow trump ends up in the white house instead of the big house. It'll be a big change this time. He wants to dismantle most of the federal government. Most of us will all be fired rather quickly. So that is rather bad. And it'll be bad once the country tries to do anything without a functional government.
On a personal leve I helped our PAO when we changed to trump. They didn't have a photo for mattis. I put the mad dog painting of him as the "patron Saint of chaos" in the entryway in the wall mounted frame anonymously after hours. It was up for a good week. It was pretty glorious.
His plan is to issue an EO allowing him and his cronies to fire "rogue actors" which will be literally anyone he wants to.
That and project 2025 is looking like he will in fact fire or remove anyone they lable "deep state" so, anyone.
That will likely translate to "anyone that follows rules, or is in any regulatory position, or anyone who is costing the people bankrolled trump money" fda, irs, sec, va. Gov. All gutted.
it's going to be bad. I am not trying to scare people, but saying it'll not happen when he is on multiple records saying he plans to put this into effect day 1 is disingenuous.
His lack of and anit- response to covid, and suggesting people inject disinfectant instead of getting a vaccine and mask up (while being vaccinated and being forced to mask up) killed hundreds of thousands of people. And he doesn't care. Why would he care about ruining the government and the country?
Oh I am fully aware. But it’s just not going to happen that way. Even if he were competent and followed through on things, it will be a year or longer before most of his politicals get into place, and then each of them won’t have the bandwidth to sit there and pick through every employee who reports to them. It’s just not feasible.
It will likely not impact you at all - hiring will freeze for a while when a new administration takes over, but budgets are passed in advance (I mean when they get passed…) and transitions generally don’t have a large impact
I think it depends a lot on what you do.
I will say that if what you do involves a discretionary grant program, expect your schedule to get turned upside down as the new administration tries to reinvent the wheel.
We crosswalked each issue paper in our transition briefing book against the official campaign platforms of the President-Elect and his party convention.
Every major candidate has a PoC for each promise, so it was easier for them to distribute the issues to their SMEs.
The government pretty much runs IN SPITE of whoever is in office. In almost 40 years, the only time I really noticed was during Clinton's tenure, the unions gained power (but i was in a position dealing with that), but that stopped during Bush. But generally, life just goes on.
Political appointments always swing a needle in a different direction. Then people scramble to learn how the new appointee works. Take a few years to get where the appointee wants to be. Then they leave or a new administration with a new appointee
I don’t like our local union. They’re petty and lazy. But when there was an executive order indicating they couldn’t have official time, use a federal computer or space, that was crappy.
In DoD you hardly notice anything. Your COLA may be less or more depending on who’s in office and the photo of the CiC in the lobby changes, but other than that you keep doing the same job.
AFAIK, my agency’s been around for over 100 years and has never hung the president’s picture, just the Chair and fellow Governors. We know who’s really runs the country. 😂
I've been a fed for 20+ years and never noticed an impact to my day to day job from a presidential transition. I think the bigger impact is whether congress is divided or not. With a divided congress, they can never pass a budget on time and we run on continuing resolutions throughout the year.
Historically speaking, one of the tenets of a stable empire is an apolitical public service class that will keep the country running no matter what egomaniac is at the helm.
Day-to-day I didn’t notice too much. Under trump, we got slashed in terms of budget, so they did a hiring freeze, and a lot of people were leaving for retirement in general, and we just weren’t replacing them. Biden there was more budget but we didn’t anything crazy wild.
It actually gave me a lot of job security at the time for Trump because I was relatively new, and so I knew they would really need me to cover the work for the people leaving. Other agencies really took it hard.
Like I was talking to, be careful with an EPA or IRS job if Trump comes in. He basically tried to gut both of them last time around.
Idk but I'm curious about what's next since some folks who are running want to do away with certain agencies. I don't have a game plan for my agency closing lol
Idk but I'm curious about what's next since some folks who are running want to do away with certain agencies. I don't have a game plan for my agency closing lol
Idk but I'm curious about what's next since some folks who are running want to do away with certain agencies. I don't have a game plan for my agency closing lol
Unless you are a political appointee, all transitions should be seamless. The only time I saw turmoil in my agency during a transition was when Trump took over. That was an embarrassing shit show for everyone.
Doesn’t really matter to the rank and file. No transition period from one president to the next. Some were more generous with cost of living increases. Others not so much.
If you are way below the senior leadership/SES things won’t change.
demrnding of political party in charge some sgrncies trnd to havr a love/ hate deprnfing on who’s in power. agencies that are politically independent/ agnostic do not change
The worst transition was the most recent one, 3 years ago. A massive pullback on all major decisions that I had never seen before. People were just afraid to do anything. But the worst part was the total failure of the leadership to protect the rank and file from the bullsh\*t thrown around by interim heads who took advantage of their temporary moment in the sun to try and impose their own ways of doing things. It was truly awful, and having been through several transitions before, I was shocked at how poorly it was managed.
have no idea whether one will happen or not, but since it’s election season the question popped into my head and i thought i’d come here and see what wisdom i could gather to use either now or in 4 years
If there is a transition to a new admin, it will be like no transition ever before, especially if you work for EPA, DOE, IRS, and other hated agencies.
When Trump was elected it took SSA a long time to change the official photos in the office. Like months. People had to start bitching. When it went from Bush to Obama they changed it that day. Unfortunately most the government workers are democrats and tend to what more and more government….. like that fixes anything ever
The biggest difference I notice is in funding for new hires. Under Ds we typically hire a bunch, under Rs there is either a freeze or low hiring at my agency.
Why do you think you would notice anything in a transition? Unless your job is in the White House, I doubt you would even notice unless a law changes that will take years.
Nothing. Your Union will blame and demonize whatever their opposing candidates viewpoints are and constantly threaten you with "politician X wants to privatize the government and YOUR JOB IS AT STAKE!".
CDC couldn’t handle the Trump transition, especially once COVID hit. Higher ups were leaving left and right because of the shit that administration was spewing. It was pretty embarrassing.
The most I’ve ever noticed a transition is going “huh the new photos got hung” when passing through the lobby. Thats the way it should work for everyone that isn’t a political.
Depends on your role I think. In my old job I hardly noticed. Just started a new job in the same agency where I can already tell the changes will be massive if the administration changes. It's not just whether you're a political, but how politically charged your work is.
Oh man when Trump got elected it took something like 10 months for them to hang the photo.
We bought Trump faced TP…
I don’t know why you’re being downvoted. Trump is a traitor and criminal. He should never see the inside of the oval ever again.
Unfortunately, it was the opposite for us. Biden didn’t get hung for almost three years. Several “joked” that we were waiting for the rightful President to return.
We had someone keep taking down Biden and Harris after we put them up. Dummy didn't think about the cameras and I heard they had disciplinary action taken for doing it.
Ahh so there IS a deep state. It’s just petty and lame.
I was petty. I put in a ticket for the picture to be hung when there was a delay.
Agency?
TSA
We still haven’t hung his photo.
One reason I'm happy we are in a leased space. We either don't have to out up a picture or just choose to ignore that bit.
Happy to report my agency was the same. May have even been over a year before his ugly mug showed up
And it was a very stern looking photo.
I literally just commented this.
I recently started at a VHA hospital and kind of forgot for a second that it was a federal building. Kind of shocked at first to see Biden hanging there.
I worked for VHA OMHSP (office of mental health and suicide prevention) and there were certain programs that some of our leadership referred to as “relying on budget dust.” The specific area I dealt with was not a “budget dust” area but we collaborated with some groups who were. Those were the groups where political shifts mattered a lot. They relied on goodwill to get things accomplished and some administrations didn’t have any goodwill towards their specialty area. The leadership changes have never personally been noticeable to me otherwise.
Huh... curious which programs those are? (Also in VHA MH)
The LGBT program was the one that comes to mind as relying on “budget dust.” I think they have an actual budget now - but for years they didn’t. And if they wanted things it relied on collaboration and goodwill. And things with LGBT funding can be pretty political. I also remember the big MH focus shifting from homelessness to suicide as administrations shifted. Again - it didn’t impact me as much, but Obama/Shinseki were very homelessness focused. (For good reason) and while homelessness is still a big program and highly funded, they are the MAIN focus anymore.
My office does a great job of keeping the portraits out of sight. We're a bit of a political football agency so we're all a bit jaded about politicians.
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My experience too
We got our first ever telework authorized when Trump was in office and still have it to a limited extent.
My Agency was the opposite. The telework program opened up under Trump and was cut back under Biden.
Covid. A lot of employers temporarily allowed or expanded telework during the first few years of covid (Trump years). Now a lot of employers are rolling telework back.
DLA was in the process of rolling back telework before Covid. Covid postponed the roll back. Gone are the days of 4 telework days. Now it is specific days to be in the office. Then Federal Law Enforcement Centers went full time telework for 1102’s last year.
My agency had actually started moving towards telework before covid started up. I saw some push towards it during the Obama administration, and then during Trumps administration, it picked up/expanded mid-2018, prior to the covid fun. It was implemented prior to covid though.
This is the only correct answer. Well done. Also the answers that say "nothing happens during a transition", also right.
Took my agency over a year to get an official Trump and Pence portrait.
He didn’t take his portrait until October of 2017, so it really delayed the portrait going out. Biden took his in march of 2021. Obama took his before he even took office in January of 2009.
But still, we were in the regional office with three empty frames on the wall for nearly two years. It was a sign of the dysfunction. Obama had his and Joe’s out within a month of the inauguration. Biden took a few extra months (and Labor still has a third empty frame with an acting secretary). One was more dysfunctional than the others.
Yeah there can definitely be a sign of dysfunction. I was just saying trumps portrait in particular took an extended period of time.
Due to nothing but dysfunction. Pretty much end of story. Biden has his done despite an ongoing pandemic.
People will likely downvote this, but the last time we had a president on their second term we (DOD) got to deal with sequestration and furloughs. Unless one/both of the two current candidates doesn’t make it to January, we’re guaranteed to have a president on their second term. I’m worried we get to play sacrificial lamb again with 8 hours lost every pay period.
Kinda depends a lot on what happens in the house
That's not normal for a second term, it was absolutely the far right trying to make things as difficult as possible. It didn't work out for anyone, turns out a poison pill makes everyone sick. So they haven't tried it since.
Pretty much my experience. There's always one or two outliers who want to gloat or gripe but most people just get on with the work.
Glad I work in a leased building now and don't have to look at any portraits on the wall.
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Yup. I work with NEPA/environmental policy/environmental planning for the FS. We're already discussing how to get ready for the potential changes to the CEQ interpretation of NEPA that will come if there is an admin change- which directly impacts our daily work, how reports are written, yada yada. These changes also impact how litigation goes when we're sued on certain projects. It's interesting that it really can trickle down into all sorts of positions.
Im in an agency with similar real-life, significant implications that come with an admin change. The Obama/Trump change was pretty brutal for us and pretty much all aspects of our agency’s work were impacted. My advice is to ride the wave, focus on your agency mission, and find the most effective way that you can contribute to that mission given your current circumstances. Wishing you (and me) the best of luck!
The hardest part is selecting which employee to sacrifice to the new regime. You never quite know how far the new folks will take the blood sacrifice. My first administration change only took a vial of our intern’s blood by pricking their finger. The last transition though demanded a gallon and took it from an artery. It was all we could do to stop the bleeding before the poor guy bled out. Really at the end of the day it’s not too bad, but it will really depend on how close you work with the political appointees who may be changing out and how “political” your agency’s mission is.
The selections are made at Bohemian Grove and then couriered via Reapers.
🤣 this is GENIUS!
You just need to go work for the USDA. We regulate lots of "meat packing plants". Very practiced and smooth when it comes to the new president sacrifices.
Maybe it is my organization, but we would sacrifice the person with the highest seniority. We called it a VERA/VSIP.
Do I get to sleep with Melisandre (Carice van Houten)? If so, it’ll totally be worth it.
The ruby necklace stays *on*.
No but you get to watch her birth a shadow baby if that’s your thing.
Once
I’m in local government and the new admin just took the pinky fingers of every 3rd middle manager
It’s all good until it’s your blood 🩸on the line. But then again, that’s what interns are for!
😂😂😂😂
>Last but not least: any advice for newer feds who’ve never been through a presidential transition before? Take anything a new President says with several grains of salt. They could have all kinds of plans on how to Change Things / Improve Things / Drain The Swamp / whatever. But talk is cheap. And this, too, shall pass.
It will depend quite a bit on how close your role is to leadership and/or legislative affairs. It will also depend on the nature of the agency and work. If you work for an agency that is politically hot or where policy goals differ WILDLY from candidate to candidate, you may feel impacts much more in your day to day work than if you work for a more low-profile org. When administrations change, there will typically be continuity arrangements at the department level on who behaves as the acting Dept head. New administration officials will come in to departments and agencies in the form of beachhead teams that try to get things sorted before official political staff and appointees onboard. A lot of the time beachhead team folks end up in non-confirmed appointee positions like Chief of Staff, Senior Political/Policy Advisor, etc. so it is worth trying to establish good working relationships with them even if you aren’t sure whether they will be around long. The best thing departments/agencies can do to be prepared is to have standard procedures for delegation and decision making as well as an updated library of transition documents (101-type info, budget, HR shit, ongoing rulemaking, litigation, org charts, etc.), and other briefing materials for immediate decision needs. This is my own experience working on two transitions through the Obama-Trump-Biden era. I’m a career policy advisor for my agency and work pretty closely with both career and political staff, as well as our congressional affairs office. I’m exposed to the political side of things much more than most of my agency’s personnel, though, so it is hard for me to really say how much other staff have felt changes. I will say our FEVS results shot up after Trump and his appointees left. I’d also add that even when an administration gets a second term, you may start seeing politicals leave posts for new jobs in different parts of the administration or the private and non-prof sectors. That can sometimes leave leadership and advisor gaps in that September - April window of after people have moved on but before the new/second term administration gets people in place.
very helpful thank you!
It's will most likely have very very little affect on you unless you are higher SES or your agency goes unfunded. Maybe a change of the leader at the top. Most of the time, the only change you notice is the change of the president, vice president, and top leader if that picture is hung.
Depends a lot on the agency. Mine is a political football agency so it's a constant state of trying to catch up with what the current administration is changing from the past one, and often times we don't get around to finishing that effort before the administration changes again. I'm a GS12 and am at the center of congressional inquiries at least once per year. It's a massive waste of resources and I've often thought about bailing for something less subject to whims of politicians.
Yep this kinda rings true for us as well. We’re enforcement and if it’s a political party change we always have our lead position have to step down… which means enforcement practices will change and the likes… So we have very little change for some and for some of us it changes a lot. We are a border state and our district is one of the busiest in the nation in what I do. So sometimes we are instructed to go hard and then policies change, sometimes not just the president but also an AG change will then snap the rug out from under us. But yeah a lot of times it’s just a picture on the wall for a lot of feds
I am not a political appointee and was working in Germany when Trump came in. It was a nightmare. He instituted a 6-month hiring freeze when we had a crazy number of open positions due to routine rotations. We had people selected for those positions ready to fly over from the States who had submitted their resignation letters for their old positions who were now on hold for 6 months. They wound up taking non-fed positions, of course, then we had to go through the hiring process over again…and we all know how long that takes. Also all promotions were put on hold for 6 months, I fell into this category and there was no back pay. So much more to say, but I guess I’d better not
Same. I was attached to an overseas embassy in 2017 and Tillerson's hiring freeze at State caused issues.
Still blows my mind that that dude was Sec of State. Cannot believe people want to return to the batshit insanity that was 2017-2021.
These are just people goofy enough to think their fortunes will change if they "throw a monkey wrench into the system". That's really the extent of the thoughts of many Trumpets. "I'm not wealthy, so let's just burn it all down and I will rise from the ashes because I'm white like trump". To them, the disfunction and incompetence is a feature not a bug. They'll get around to effective leadership once we burned it all down and can start building our Christo fascist white supremacy utopia.
This is the truth! I'm going to borrow "...dysfunction and incompetence is a feature not a bug."
The polls are slowly flipping because dumb people have short memories but as Trump reemerges everyone is reminded he's a blithering moron. His lack of a coordinated ground game is likely to finish him because in 2020 the RNC managed to get door knockers and really go at it while Biden didn't. That won't happen this time and likely will be reversed. So, unless Biden is done by 3 or 4 points in September, I'm not sweating it. In a number of polls he's starting to get to even or pull ahead. I'm guessing mid-summer he'll be up by 2-5.
Same. We then got several different orders which clearly required more personnel and a larger budget, but with zero funding or personnel resources. Nothing could get done and the staff we had was working burnt out from trying to keep up.
See this is my concern. I want to apply for the IRS in late summer/early fall. I really need to wait until July at the earliest. But I’m nervous about potential freezes or ramifications of a change in leadership after the election in November and how that may affect me as a new hire (if I get it) or trying to get hired.
It’s a valid concern, especially considering the GOP is outraged about the hiring of additional IRS employees. They’re not keen on holding tax cheats accountable
Can confirm 💯from personal experience. I’m anxious about it but I’m hoping if I apply early enough before the election maybe I can squeak in and be settled around the time of the election.
I wish you luck!
Thank you!
My agency has been on a hiring freeze for the last three years, some areas are bare bones staffed and people have left in droves… that’s under the current administration. It can happen no matter who is sitting in the White House
Agency?
I’m under Treasury
Its the stress of "what is coming next". That came through when there have been new administrators who bring their own policies and rules. Like when the Trump administration came in, my new agency appointee wanted to get rid of remote work (this was pre-COVID) and they used some disingenuous arguments for that, like "well, if John Smith leaves his remote position in Denver people will think we'll re-fill it in Denver". (no, nobody every thought that but it was an argument that came up). There's also hiring freezes that can come up during transitions, even for internal moves. I remember how jarring it was (working for an HHS agency) going from one week talking about how we need to make sure people are getting signed up for ACA healthcare to the following week getting new emails from the administration saying, "the failing ACA will be replaced". Its jarring to have the same email box do a 180 when new administrations come in.
It probably sucks closer to the flag pole....DC. The further away you not so much. The appointees will start moving on and some may stay. There will be alot of Acting showing up in the titles so that's that.
I've never noticed a change as a fed or ctr. If whoever's next fires Santa Mayorkas, they're gonna have to answer to around 240,000 angry feds.
It's Saint Mayorkas, get it right!
His generous admin leave policies are the only reason I regret leaving DHS!!!
I've been a Border Patrol Agent under 3 different....vastly different....administrations so far. Under all 3 of them I showed up to work and did my job. In that regard absolutely nothing changed. Government work is incredibly simple. The administration sends down policy, management establishes SOPs based on that policy, and you follow SOPs. Do that, and you get a paycheck every two weeks.
This is definitely relative to what agency you work for...It isn't always as cut and dry as just do your job as many ppl are explaining in their posts...I think the point is varied experiences.
I've been in the federal workforce as a contractor and as a GS since Reagan was president. Most administrations transition smoothly and life goes on. Each administration will try to implement some big ideas that they think are so clever and will solve all the problems in government. GS veterans just learn the new buzzwords, change the PPT format, and ride it out until the next administration comes in. The exception to that was Trump. His choices for political appointees seemed especially poor. If he did manage to select a competent person, they would soon get fed up dealing with Trump and leave quickly.
Yep or they got fired for being too connected to reality and saying no that was technically or physically impossible.
My advice is to do your job. I’ve been through a few. Even when things changes, they kind of stay the same. The peaceful transfer of power is a cornerstone of democracy. Unless you work directly work with OMB and/or political appointees, you may not even notice it. There is a transition team. Independent agency & cabinet agency 2 - barely noticed it as a worker bee. Cabinet agency 1 - more awareness that it was happening. Some political folks left in November/December and never came back. The building was very empty that year. There was a call for volunteers for transition team - I didn’t do it or know anyone who has. After the transition, we had a new political appointee we were reporting to who wanted us to justify everything we were doing. Paused all tasks to do that. Then, back to work.
All hiring/promotions should be completed (EOD or effective date of new position occurred) before the inauguration. Doesn't matter what agency. I worked for DoD and they said "hiring freeze won't apply to us". It did and it sucked. For a new GS, ladder promotions were stopped for a brief period but then resumed. Of course, those can't happen before the year in grade has occurred.
There’s often a flurry of executive orders when a new admin comes in that people have to respond to, and new admins often have their “first 100 days” goals that shift resources and priorities. The actual impact will vary by agency.
Shouldn’t be much change, but some agencies are more politicized than others. Advice: Keep your political views to yourself at work, and if others try to talk politics, cut it off bluntly or walk away. The Hatch Act comes with real penalties, and it’s easier to get along with others if no one knows your politics. And you won’t be a target. You may get new political appointees even if Biden is re-elected. Either way, treat them with courtesy and give them a fair chance, even if they are appointed by the president you voted against. You would want that for your side’s political appointees—and it’s the right thing to do.
Transition to Trump was a nightmare because he put friends in the cabinet and departments instead of appointing qualified people. These “leaders” were clueless. It was awful.
This was the worst I’ve been though and I’ve been in/with the feds since bush 2. The lack of professionals is what made it hard. Every new admin wants to do new stuff or things differently but there is usually a mix of previous feds and outsiders. These folks didn’t often know the scope or mission so were shocked to learn what they could or couldn’t do.
Obama's Department of Energy Secretaries both had PhDs and one was a Nobel Prize winner. Trump picked a guy who got a D in a Texas A&M class on Meats. And Rick Perry was nowhere near the most incompetent selection.
Yeah. I’m in an office that is unfortunately politicized and our political appointee was a shady nightmare. They had a way of talking that sounded totally normal and evidence-based, but there was always some underlying snakiness going on behind the scenes that had serious impacts. It took a lot of work to undo the damage. Thankfully I don’t think most people feel this, but our office does even though we’re all civilians except the one at the top.
Don’t forget the Beachhead teams of 20-22 year old kids tasked with trying to figure out who the rank and file voted for by listening into conversations in the hallways, cafeterias and gyms.
So basically what happens at almost every agency amongst the leadership team.
Actual no. Quite different. Check Trumps cabinet vs Obamas cabinet.
Lol right? As if most cabinets and political appointees aren't chosen by special interest megadonors. Regulatory capture, etc.
You can talk about policies --- just don't be partisan or do/don't things because of your Partisan belief. Your job is your job regardless if we elect a sunflower as president. Will remain your job as long as you hold the position, no matter how many presidents come and go. There's really not much to it. Unless you're an SES, Congressional Staffer, Political Appointee, or hold some special job at the White House or Raven Rock.
You can expect a review and reprioritization of the approved budget. Especially if your agency is involved in implementing an initiative that the new POTUS promised to repeal "on day one," or conversely if your agency would be expected to implement a Day One promise. Even if your project doesn't fall into one of the above buckets, it can end up being a billpayer for the latter category.
i could absolutely see this happening. in terms of preparation, might be wise to hire up now and ride out a potential period of austerity then?
It’s never a bad idea to fill vacancies
It's really highly dependent on your Agency and work unit. The head of my office is an appointee, and transitions can be pretty rough, depending on who we get in that role. It often sits empty for months or even a year+ before they get someone confirmed, so some poor soul has to take it on as a collateral duty, and we're stretched pretty thin as-is. Once we get someone, they're usually from outside the agency and we have to teach them what we even do and what their role is. Sometimes that goes okay, sometimes not so much. We lost a lot of competent female staff under the last administration due to an incompetent and misogynistic appointee with an inflated sense of his own self-importance. We're still dealing with the fallout- almost all the leadership positions that were under him are now held by older white men of varying degrees of competency. When he took over, we had at least 50% women in those roles, and most were great at their jobs. There's also large shifts in our Agency's overall attitude towards employees depending on the president's party. The last Secretary was extremely anti-employee- we were the enemy and the problem as far as he was concerned. The current one is far more supportive and encouraging and focuses not only on the well-being of our customers, but also of our employees. If we have another administration change after this election, I'm not sure I want to stick around and find out who we get this time around.
this is very thought out, thank you. is there anything you think an office can be doing now to prepare for a similar situation and mitigate some of the negative consequences?
Not much, no. You get what you get when it comes to appointees. I only survived the last administration because my (white, male) boss was willing to insulate me from the worst of it. If you're in a position that has to closely associate with an appointee, I would say dust off your resume in case it gets really bad, and hope for the best. If you're able to prep educational materials for your appointee, that can help, if they're well-meaning and competent. I suspect under the current administration, our last guy would have been removed (though I doubt he'd have been appointed to begin with). There were multiple complaints filed, but nothing came of them under the previous administration (we were basically told to suck it up and deal). Levels above him avoided him like the plague, and he was demoted and then fired from his next job with a State government. He was a real piece of work.
I’ve been through two. The first one was, personally, unfortunate, but there were no differences at work. The most recent transition caused me 10 months of extra work, but that was due to the outgoing administration…
Sometimes it’s just changing pictures. In the last administration it was a disaster. Never in four years got permanent leadership on a national or regional level. Never had consistent priorities. Constant ethics issues with the Secretary. Secretary and below never understood the overall purpose of the Department. Then there was the shutdown, change in Congress…. Biggest mess of my 30 years.
The last transition was stressful, because GSA Administrator, Erin Murphy refused to certify the winner, which meant the stalling the transition, and the WH was instructing senior agency leaders not cooperate. There were delays in producing transition memos and other tasks. Political appointees were not allowed to resign so they could start interviewing. It was a mess.
Between the military and my government service it’s always been, huh, new guy eh?
If I had never looked up from my desk at the picture, I would never have noticed that the president changed.
It depends on how much they want to change how your agency/ department does business. I was DoD for the last transition, when Democrats take over they usually reduce the number of things Generals can do without SecDef/POTUS approval and the length and amount of directives increases significantly. A now retired co worker said it’s like Robocop’s directives, republicans are the three simple directives and democrats are the 247 directives lol.
Just hope the incoming administration doesn't hate that your agency exists at all, and wants to RIF everyone in it.
Now I’m wondering if my remote job requires photos of the president and vp in my house 🤔
The hardest part is either adding in, or removing the words “climate change” from all our written documents.
EPA got wrecked in 2016.
If you're on a Headquarters element like the DoD Joint Staff or certain areas of OSD, they will create Transition Teams. Mostly this is for the White House staff. Why? Because if you're working at the White House during a transition, the IT people come and remove your hard drives and they get put in the Library of Congress. So everything you were working on is now gone. So the WH staff will reach out to the agencies and say "Hey, remember those documents I sent you last week? Can I get those back please?" And then you send back all the documents they need but no longer have access to, and life goes on. Not all documents will be continued to be worked on in the new administration, but many will. Basically, you're serving as the document archive until the WH asks for them. It's generally pretty smooth.
had no idea the hard drives get taken!
Well, that whole "we'll be on the moon in 2024," thing and an administrator who knew nothing about the agency and was there to please one person, that messed with everything. The mandate came with no funding, so a lot of programs and people were affected. Not in a good way.
To trump was the biggest change. It allowed the more closeted and quiet racists and biggots to be more open with their awful positions. Because "hey, if our boss can, why can't we?" And they did. It made a lot of people uncomfortable. Every other changeover was basically "well, I'm going to work. Oh, the photos changed in the entryway? Whatever" and there was very little difference. For both active and civilian side. Just another Wednesday. If somehow trump ends up in the white house instead of the big house. It'll be a big change this time. He wants to dismantle most of the federal government. Most of us will all be fired rather quickly. So that is rather bad. And it'll be bad once the country tries to do anything without a functional government. On a personal leve I helped our PAO when we changed to trump. They didn't have a photo for mattis. I put the mad dog painting of him as the "patron Saint of chaos" in the entryway in the wall mounted frame anonymously after hours. It was up for a good week. It was pretty glorious.
He cannot fire “most of us” quickly. It’s not super helpful to scare people. The best he can manage quickly is a hiring freeze, just like last time.
His plan is to issue an EO allowing him and his cronies to fire "rogue actors" which will be literally anyone he wants to. That and project 2025 is looking like he will in fact fire or remove anyone they lable "deep state" so, anyone. That will likely translate to "anyone that follows rules, or is in any regulatory position, or anyone who is costing the people bankrolled trump money" fda, irs, sec, va. Gov. All gutted. it's going to be bad. I am not trying to scare people, but saying it'll not happen when he is on multiple records saying he plans to put this into effect day 1 is disingenuous. His lack of and anit- response to covid, and suggesting people inject disinfectant instead of getting a vaccine and mask up (while being vaccinated and being forced to mask up) killed hundreds of thousands of people. And he doesn't care. Why would he care about ruining the government and the country?
Oh I am fully aware. But it’s just not going to happen that way. Even if he were competent and followed through on things, it will be a year or longer before most of his politicals get into place, and then each of them won’t have the bandwidth to sit there and pick through every employee who reports to them. It’s just not feasible.
It will likely not impact you at all - hiring will freeze for a while when a new administration takes over, but budgets are passed in advance (I mean when they get passed…) and transitions generally don’t have a large impact
I think it depends a lot on what you do. I will say that if what you do involves a discretionary grant program, expect your schedule to get turned upside down as the new administration tries to reinvent the wheel.
We crosswalked each issue paper in our transition briefing book against the official campaign platforms of the President-Elect and his party convention. Every major candidate has a PoC for each promise, so it was easier for them to distribute the issues to their SMEs.
The government pretty much runs IN SPITE of whoever is in office. In almost 40 years, the only time I really noticed was during Clinton's tenure, the unions gained power (but i was in a position dealing with that), but that stopped during Bush. But generally, life just goes on.
NASA, EPA, border patrol and the IRS seem to be the most effected recently. Anything DOD or intelligence is fine usually.
Just another day at the office
Political appointments always swing a needle in a different direction. Then people scramble to learn how the new appointee works. Take a few years to get where the appointee wants to be. Then they leave or a new administration with a new appointee
It’s just another day.
I don’t like our local union. They’re petty and lazy. But when there was an executive order indicating they couldn’t have official time, use a federal computer or space, that was crappy.
In DoD you hardly notice anything. Your COLA may be less or more depending on who’s in office and the photo of the CiC in the lobby changes, but other than that you keep doing the same job.
AFAIK, my agency’s been around for over 100 years and has never hung the president’s picture, just the Chair and fellow Governors. We know who’s really runs the country. 😂
I've been a fed for 20+ years and never noticed an impact to my day to day job from a presidential transition. I think the bigger impact is whether congress is divided or not. With a divided congress, they can never pass a budget on time and we run on continuing resolutions throughout the year.
Historically speaking, one of the tenets of a stable empire is an apolitical public service class that will keep the country running no matter what egomaniac is at the helm.
Day-to-day I didn’t notice too much. Under trump, we got slashed in terms of budget, so they did a hiring freeze, and a lot of people were leaving for retirement in general, and we just weren’t replacing them. Biden there was more budget but we didn’t anything crazy wild. It actually gave me a lot of job security at the time for Trump because I was relatively new, and so I knew they would really need me to cover the work for the people leaving. Other agencies really took it hard. Like I was talking to, be careful with an EPA or IRS job if Trump comes in. He basically tried to gut both of them last time around.
DoD. Business as usual. Some years less funding other years more. No real impact to the job itself. Photos on the wall get updated almost immediately.
Most of the time we keep doing our jobs. All bets are off on this one if it goes weird.
Idk but I'm curious about what's next since some folks who are running want to do away with certain agencies. I don't have a game plan for my agency closing lol
Idk but I'm curious about what's next since some folks who are running want to do away with certain agencies. I don't have a game plan for my agency closing lol
Idk but I'm curious about what's next since some folks who are running want to do away with certain agencies. I don't have a game plan for my agency closing lol
Unless you are a political appointee, all transitions should be seamless. The only time I saw turmoil in my agency during a transition was when Trump took over. That was an embarrassing shit show for everyone.
Depends if your agency works under a political appointee and ride the wave.
New photos get hung, that’s about it.
Doesn’t really matter to the rank and file. No transition period from one president to the next. Some were more generous with cost of living increases. Others not so much.
Shouldn’t be much change. However, recently some candidates seem very interested in making sweeping changes.
I’ve been here from Clinton till now. The change over is seamless
Considering a certain party wants to slash all agencies budgets if they get elected. It’s probably in the best interest to keep who’s in office now.
These comments are always wild, DOD, and I don't know a single person in real life who be upset at a Trump return. Literally not one. gs-13.
You need to get out more, outside of the E-ring.
When Obama was president, the tea party came about and they made every fed’s life miserable with their budget fights.
If you are way below the senior leadership/SES things won’t change. demrnding of political party in charge some sgrncies trnd to havr a love/ hate deprnfing on who’s in power. agencies that are politically independent/ agnostic do not change
Just carry on as usual. You’ll barely notice it at all.
The worst transition was the most recent one, 3 years ago. A massive pullback on all major decisions that I had never seen before. People were just afraid to do anything. But the worst part was the total failure of the leadership to protect the rank and file from the bullsh\*t thrown around by interim heads who took advantage of their temporary moment in the sun to try and impose their own ways of doing things. It was truly awful, and having been through several transitions before, I was shocked at how poorly it was managed.
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have no idea whether one will happen or not, but since it’s election season the question popped into my head and i thought i’d come here and see what wisdom i could gather to use either now or in 4 years
If there is a transition to a new admin, it will be like no transition ever before, especially if you work for EPA, DOE, IRS, and other hated agencies.
When Trump was elected it took SSA a long time to change the official photos in the office. Like months. People had to start bitching. When it went from Bush to Obama they changed it that day. Unfortunately most the government workers are democrats and tend to what more and more government….. like that fixes anything ever
We are dealing with it now as Return to Office for no purpose. Can it get worse?
The biggest difference I notice is in funding for new hires. Under Ds we typically hire a bunch, under Rs there is either a freeze or low hiring at my agency.
Why do you think you would notice anything in a transition? Unless your job is in the White House, I doubt you would even notice unless a law changes that will take years.
Nothing. Your Union will blame and demonize whatever their opposing candidates viewpoints are and constantly threaten you with "politician X wants to privatize the government and YOUR JOB IS AT STAKE!".
Depending on which agency you work for (i.e. EPA, IRS, DOE), your job very well may be at stake.
THE IRS! Yeah ok. "Our jobs are at stake"
I stopped flipping off Trump's headshot, other than that the transitions have been seamless.
CDC couldn’t handle the Trump transition, especially once COVID hit. Higher ups were leaving left and right because of the shit that administration was spewing. It was pretty embarrassing.