Maybe Our System Really Is Broken
If you want the details, you’ll need to read the decisions. However, to a lay person trying to understand our civil service oversight system (and I include our leaders in Congress in this grouping), these are the only facts that matter and that make our civil service protection system appear to be bollocks:
- In 1996 (Billboard Number One Song of the Year: Macarena), MSPB held that the appellant had probably been constructively suspended relative to absences from work that commenced in 1990 (Billboard Number One Song of the Year: Hold On).
- In December 2016, in its “Final” Order in this case, 26 years after things started, MSPB ordered the Postal Service to pay the appellant’s attorney $100,734 in legal fees and costs. As part of its adjudication of attorney fees in this case, MSPB had to decide whether3 hours sending a fax was professional legal work or simply clerical work, among other high level decisions, Schultz v. USPS, PH-0752-94-0233-M-1 (2016)(NP).
Whether you fiercely love the civil service as we do here at FELTG or loathe the civil service as some of our elected officials seem to do, you have to admit that there’s something wrong with this process.
In Hold On, Wilson Phillips sings, “I know there’s pain. Why do you lock yourself up in these chains?” For those planning our new civil service, these lyrics might be a good mood setter. Also, Holding On might be a good approach to take for all civil servants for the next couple of years.
However, here at FELTG, we’re sticking with the Macarena view of life: “Dale a tu cuerpo alegria … Hey, Macarena!”
