Pitting the FAA

[Boyo Jim]

... for trying to grind a former employee under the wheels of its bureaucracy run amok.

Poor schlub takes a job with the FAA and then leaves for a private job. As he leaves, some payroll clerk is on vacation, and schlub doesn't actually get taken off the payroll, so the FAA sends him two more paychecks in error. Alright, mistakes get made, and the guy is willing to pay pack what he paid to the FAA.

But that turns out to be not not enough. The FAA withheld part of his pay and paid the IRS and the state of Virgina (where schlub lived at the time) a portion of his income tax. They also paid two more pay periods worth of his of his health insurance benefits. Of course, he didn't know that and made no claims. It turns out , surprise surprise, that none of these other institutions will pay back the money the FAA overpaid them. And the FAA decides he has to repay all of it -- he has to repay them for the money they overpaid to these others.

It's not a whole lot of money -- less than a thousand dollars. He's even tried to reach a compromise, saying that if the FAA gave him a revised W2 for the year to reflect all this as lowered income, he would pay. And while they tried, the W2 that showed up was for the wrong amount. The dispute has been going on nearly 3 years now.

Just one of those stories that's kind of funny at a distance, and probably a nightmare to be in the middle of. I can see this as a plot line in a black comedy of a movie about yet another working stiff who goes berserk and loads up on automatic weapons.

[Uncle Jocko]

I have worked for the FAA for over 20 years. This doesn't surprise me.

It's not just the typical slog of government bureaucracy - their human resources department is, I believe, willfully and actively working to make life more difficult for the entire FAA workforce.

They are also completely lost at doing anything outside their standard box-checking duties. I bid on a higher-level position late last year. HR offered me a pay rate only 1 percent higher than I was scheduled to receive in my current job as of the start of this year, for a position with a ton more hassle and paperwork. I tried to negotiate with them, knowing their second choice (already being at a higher level of pay than I was) was going to cost them significantly more, especially since his raise would be based on his higher 2012 rate instead of my lower 2011 pay. Nope. No flexibility. They would rather pay their second choice more money than I was asking than go outside their standardized boxes.

Not as bad as this guy in Virginia, but still ... FAA HR seems to take pleasure in the pain of the workforce.

[Baracus]

Originally Posted by Uncle Jocko

It's not just the typical slog of government bureaucracy - their human resources department is, I believe, willfully and actively working to make life more difficult for the entire FAA workforce.

Doesn't sound any worse than my experience with the EPA HR/payroll.

One time I received a mysterious extra deposit in my checking account. Called everyone I could think of and nobody had a clue where it came from. Finally like two weeks later I got a call that someone had accidentally keyed in my old contractor number when trying to pay someone else. They acted a little annoyed that I didn't have a check with me to pay back the money that afternoon and like I had been trying to get away with something.

Then when I left at the end of my term appointment things got really ridiculous. Just a week before I was supposed to be done I had not heard a single peep about my departure other than one unremarkable line on my paystub. Nothing about when my insurance coverage ended, getting COBRA, what happened with my retirement contributions, what to do with my badge, nothing. Had to call around to get that figured out. I knew my health coverage ended a month after I left, but I didn't receive any official notice that it was terminating until two weeks after it had terminated. I didn't receive my SF-50 and some other form I would need to file for unemployment until like two months after I left. Then the kicker was ten months after I left I got a letter from the fed health insurer that their records showed I was no longer an employee and my coverage would be terminated if I didn't contact HR if that was in error. So, apparently HR waited ten months to terminate my coverage. I hope they don't try to bill me for that like in the story, because that would be a nice chunk of change!

[Chefguy]

I knew a guy in the Navy who, while an E-2 still in school, noticed that his paycheck suddenly took a giant leap. He went to payroll and told them, but the disbursing clerk (DK) told him it was correct. This was before computerized records. This went on for months, with him going back repeatedly and being told the same thing by his DK.

He finally asked to talk to the Disbursing Chief, who pulled his file and said "Everything looks fine here, Petty Officer Smith." The guy holds up his left arm, which is noticeably lacking any insignia, and says "I'm not a Petty Officer." Turns out, there was someone with the same name, and whose SSN was very close to his, who had been complaining bitterly about the lack of money on his checks. The pay records had been misfiled in their folders.

In those days, the Navy would dock your pay for nearly your entire check until any large amount was paid back. Luckily, my friend had just banked what he knew wasn't his, so his six months of $.12 checks wasn't a critical blow for him. You can always tell the government; you just can't tell them much.

[Simple Linctus]

A friend of mine who went to join the British army as an officer but then decided not to (before even enrolling at Sandhurst, it's not as if he dropped out half way through the course or anything) somehow ended up being paid by them for 18 months at whatever level junior officers get. He kept the money in a savings account.

But even better, when they finally caught up with him, they said he could pay it back over the course of 5 years (or thereabouts) so as not to cause him hardship!

[Really Not All That Bright]

I was about to ask if he didn't have a Congressman or something, and then I noticed he lives in Orlando. I haven't seen or heard anything beyond old bumper stickers from Daniel Webster since he was elected.