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Post by moopigsdad on Nov 16, 2014 19:40:39 GMT -5
Quite frankly, if you have to be in the office to earn credit hours so be it. The fact you get to work from home using VPN is a real perk in itself, so go to the office for one week of the pay period and earn your credit hours there. To grind and gnash your teeth over the fact you can't earn credit hours at home seems a little excessive to me. I am not trying to pick a fight with anyone, but if you truly want to work that much at home and away from the office, you probably need a different position than that of an ALJ.  I agree it's not worth gnashing teeth; and I will likely just adust my schedule. I don't understand your comment about this job not being for you if you want to work that much at home. I truly find that I am more efficient at home, and I really enjoy saving the commute; I'm not sure what I miss by working at home. Anyway, I will either just work in the office, earning the same credit hours or I will forego my free Fridays and give up my eBB training in order to adjust for the difference. It's still a sweet job whether working at home or in the office. Cougarfan my post was not addressing anybody else's post. I was making a general observation, not a comment on your posts. So, please don't view it as anything other than a general comment and my own personal opinion. If you viewed it any other way, I apologize. |
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Post by moopigsdad on Nov 16, 2014 19:52:03 GMT -5
Quite frankly, if you have to be in the office to earn credit hours so be it. The fact you get to work from home using VPN is a real perk in itself, so go to the office for one week of the pay period and earn your credit hours there. To grind and gnash your teeth over the fact you can't earn credit hours at home seems a little excessive to me. I am not trying to pick a fight with anyone, but if you truly want to work that much at home and away from the office, you probably need a different position than that of an ALJ. Oh I don't know about the last comment. I love my job as a senior attorney but love it even more getting to work at home 3 days a week. No different for the ALJ position. It's a nice perk and frankly if you are not in hearings there is no reason to be in the office with VPN access. It saves gas and travel time. You still have immediate access to staff with instant messaging and email. I see it as a huge money saver for taxpayers too. I think office sharing and work at home is the answer to budget needs. It's a total win win. So I respectfully disagree with you MPD. I can respect your disagreement sratty, but I will say I don't have a problem with ALJs working at home via VPN, my problem is with those who say they should be able to earn credit hours at home. Hence, my comment that maybe a different job might be needed by some ALJs who want to earn 8 hours of credit time while working at home via VPN. I am sorry, the fact someone has their computer hooked up to a VPN doesn't mean they are physically working every minute or hour of the hook-up. I know this from VPN use in state service by others. We found people saying they were working when they were clearly not doing so. Please I am not saying any ALJ would do this behavior, but I can understand SSA's reluctance to allow ALJs to earn credit hours while working at home. |
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Post by hopefalj on Nov 16, 2014 21:08:12 GMT -5
Oh I don't know about the last comment. I love my job as a senior attorney but love it even more getting to work at home 3 days a week. No different for the ALJ position. It's a nice perk and frankly if you are not in hearings there is no reason to be in the office with VPN access. It saves gas and travel time. You still have immediate access to staff with instant messaging and email. I see it as a huge money saver for taxpayers too. I think office sharing and work at home is the answer to budget needs. It's a total win win. So I respectfully disagree with you MPD. I can respect your disagreement sratty, but I will say I don't have a problem with ALJs working at home via VPN, my problem is with those who say they should be able to earn credit hours at home. Hence, my comment that maybe a different job might be needed by some ALJs who want to earn 8 hours of credit time while working at home via VPN. I am sorry, the fact someone has their computer hooked up to a VPN doesn't mean they are physically working every minute or hour of the hook-up. I know this from VPN use in state service by others. We found people saying they were working when they were clearly not doing so. Please I am not saying any ALJ would do this behavior, but I can understand SSA's reluctance to allow ALJs to earn credit hours while working at home. Being physically in an office doesn't mean a person is working, either. I've seen enough non-work activity in my office to recognize that a person's work ethic isn't dependent on their location. Frankly, if you need to be babysat at work and have someone look over your shoulder to make sure that you're at least pretending to do your job, you shouldn't be an ALJ. Obviously I'm not directing that statement at you as you don't strike me as the type. I think the biggest reason credit hours can't be earned at home is because there isn't a metric that can be used to make sure any work is actually being done. With writers, you have x number of hours to write one type of decision and y number of hours to write the other type. So long as your hours worked, including credit hours, are met or exceeded by the number of hours written, you are good. If you don't, you get asked about it. There's no real way to measure what an ALJ does to see if they're being productive at home. |
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Post by moopigsdad on Nov 16, 2014 21:15:56 GMT -5
I don't disagree hopefalj. I think you are spot on as to why SSA says no credit hours for ALJs while at home.
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Post by prescient on Nov 16, 2014 22:05:17 GMT -5
. No different for the ALJ position. It's a nice perk and frankly if you are not in hearings there is no reason to be in the office with VPN access. It saves gas and travel time. You still have immediate access to staff with instant messaging and email. I see it as a huge money saver for taxpayers too. I think office sharing and work at home is the answer to budget needs. It's a total win win. So I respectfully disagree with you MPD. Going down the OT path, but I think there is a something lost with the complete removal of direct in-person interaction between ALJ and attorney/paralegal. Every ALJ I have worked with would vastly prefer to have me come down to their office to chat for a few minutes if I have questions, or have found potential issues with a case, as opposed to my sending an email or IM. Also, there's only 1 HOSA. Once the SCTs start working from home, I can't even imagine how long it will take to get a computer issue resolved, if multiple people are having major problems at once (and yes, the National help desk is pretty much worthless). I love having the 3 days at home, and generally, find myself to be more productive than in the office (but not as productive as when weren't tied to VPN). However, there are also still a lot of connectivity issues with DGS/Word that IMO waste almost as much time, as when we had to download the case files. Not to mention, if we have to make any type of phone calls to reps/or attempt to request med evidence, it's on our own dime. So it's definitely not "win-win". at least not yet. |
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Post by cougarfan on Nov 16, 2014 22:31:39 GMT -5
Going down the OT path, but I think there is a something lost with the complete removal of direct in-person interaction between ALJ and attorney/paralegal. Every ALJ I have worked with would vastly prefer to have me come down to their office to chat for a few minutes if I have questions, or have found potential issues with a case, as opposed to my sending an email or IM. Also, there's only 1 HOSA. Once the SCTs start working from home, I can't even imagine how long it will take to get a computer issue resolved, if multiple people are having major problems at once (and yes, the National help desk is pretty much worthless). I love having the 3 days at home, and generally, find myself to be more productive than in the office (but not as productive as when weren't tied to VPN). However, there are also still a lot of connectivity issues with DGS/Word that IMO waste almost as much time, as when we had to download the case files. Not to mention, if we have to make any type of phone calls to reps/or attempt to request med evidence, it's on our own dime. So it's definitely not "win-win". at least not yet. That has not been my experience. I'm in a satellite office, So 95% of my decisions are written by writers not in my physical office anyway. Our SCTs already work from home 1/2 the time. Speaking only for mysekf, I have not seen and drop off in productivity. And, I have had no issues with eBB, word, CPMS, or any other program; in fact I have had issues at the office but not while working VPN. Meh, I am sure we all have our own experiences. it's all good though; whether working at home or onsite it's still a great job. |
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Post by bartleby on Nov 16, 2014 22:43:39 GMT -5
The problem I see, the metrics and human nature. So writers can be measured by allocating so many hours per decision. The problem, the writer cuts ends to have free time at home. The Judges get back sloppier cases and there is little to nothing that can be done about it. That has been a complaint with both cases written out of the office by other offices and by writing units.
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Post by BagLady on Nov 17, 2014 13:55:06 GMT -5
If working CH on the weekend, are we still required to account for a half hour lunch after six hours? Or does that only apply to the regular work week?
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Post by cheesy on Nov 17, 2014 14:40:10 GMT -5
Without going into detail, VPN is capable of much more granularity. I'm not sure what consent to monitoring agreement you need to sign upon hiring or authorize everytime on login into SSA VPN, but tools outside SSA (and perhaps inside SSA) exist to ensure people are doing their jobs. Perhaps one solution the Union might consider might be, in exchange for at-home credit hours, individual ALJs may consent to increased monitoring after a certain number of hours, to ensure they are still doing their jobs when working 'overtime'. This doesn't mean the monitoring happens, but just that it's possible to be monitored. That's definitely something I'd sign up for, in lieu of hours of traffic, miles of wear and tear on the car, and becoming a spouse with significantly increased traffic-induced crankiness. I'd like to be a judge first, travel monkey second.
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Post by grassgreener on Nov 20, 2014 17:28:24 GMT -5
Except you can't earn credit hours from home. I do. what region are you in? |
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Post by grassgreener on Nov 21, 2014 15:49:09 GMT -5
FYI, ALJs don't earn credit hours from home while apparently decision writers can earn credit hours from home. |
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Post by cougarfan on Nov 21, 2014 23:48:04 GMT -5
FYI, ALJs don't earn credit hours from home while apparently decision writers can earn credit hours from home. Yep, thanks to you all for bringing that to my attention. My office was happy to let me go along earning credit at home because apparently I'm the only talk here to have worked at home and it was assumed that because writers and SCTs can work extra hours we all assumed I could as well. After I brought this discussion to their attention I will no longer be earning credit hours at home. So, thanks for bringing this to our collective attention. I think it's a misguided policy; but I will happily go forward working every other week at home. Its all good. |
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Post by karaj on Mar 4, 2015 0:27:46 GMT -5
Aw, Shucks, CougarFan~sounds like you had a good thing going there-maybe by the time your HO figured out ALJs can't work Credit hours from home, AALJ would have gotten it approved anyway. There really is no reason why ALJs shouldn't get CHs from home if attorneys do - from a production standpoint. They are just afraid of us taking too much time off from hearings.
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