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Post by badger on Apr 30, 2023 16:12:26 GMT -5
I am a former aa and saa at SSA. I'm thinking of trying to go back to SSA. Does anyone know if I would have to serve another 2 year probationary period? I am pretty sure you'll have to do the probationary period again and come in at GS-11. I know people who went through the DW training multiple times because they left and came back. They also usually make AAs who switch from OHO to the AC go back to GS-11. |
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Post by operationalj on May 1, 2023 6:18:16 GMT -5
I am a former aa and saa at SSA. I'm thinking of trying to go back to SSA. Does anyone know if I would have to serve another 2 year probationary period? Depending on what you did after leaving the SSA, you may bring back skills and experience that can benefit the Agency and be of interest to SSA hiring officials. For example, in 2021 OPM created a rehire opportunity for former fed employees in the competitive service to come back in at a higher pay scale because of the skills and experience acquired in the private sector or academia. This rule partially acknowledges that younger employees tend to seek other opportunities and move around more than previous generations and it can be an advantage for everyone. This new OPM rule does not apply to the excepted service (it should) but the concept is there nonetheless. fedmanager.com/news/opm-releases-new-rule-former-feds-can-be-re-hired-at-a-higher-pay-scale#:~:text=History%20Admin%20Bulletin-,OPM%20Releases%20New%20Rule%3A%20Former%20Feds%20Can%20Be%20Re%2Dhired,at%20a%20higher%20pay%20scale. |
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Post by barkley on May 1, 2023 21:23:06 GMT -5
I am a former aa and saa at SSA. I'm thinking of trying to go back to SSA. Does anyone know if I would have to serve another 2 year probationary period? It never hurts to ask when you apply as you might get lucky. A thousand years ago, when I went to initial decision writer training, there was another attorney starting out with SSA and I can remember her having some heated discussions with the trainers because when she had been interviewed she had been promised to come in at a certain level due to her prior work experience. I was not close enough to her to get the details, but at the time, it had not occurred to me to try to negotiate a higher GS level based on outside work experience. Bottom line - they can do it, the question is will they want to. |
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Post by natethegreat on May 2, 2023 6:05:22 GMT -5
I know at times SSA has hired new attorneys in at GS12 (based on outside experience). Hard part is if you leave SSA and come back, at OHO you basically are limited to at best a GS12 attorney slot when you return unless you land SES or ALJ slot.
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Post by rightspeech on May 2, 2023 7:46:21 GMT -5
I am a former aa and saa at SSA. I'm thinking of trying to go back to SSA. Does anyone know if I would have to serve another 2 year probationary period? If I were a former saa I would go for GS-12 step 10 or as high as possible under MPRR www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/pay-administration/fact-sheets/maximum-payable-rate-rule/#:~:text=Description,received%20in%20another%20Federal%20job. Not entirely sure the answer on your original Q but I asked my friend Google Bard real quick and he said: Q: in federal employment, does an employee in the excepted service with prior service need to satisfy a new probationary period? Whether or not an employee in the excepted service with prior service needs to satisfy a new probationary period depends on the specific circumstances of the appointment. In general, an employee who has completed a probationary period in one excepted service position is not required to serve a new probationary period in a different excepted service position. However, there are some exceptions to this rule. For example, an employee who is appointed to a position that is classified at a higher grade than their previous position may be required to serve a new probationary period. Additionally, an employee who is appointed to a position that is subject to a different set of rules and regulations may also be required to serve a new probationary period. The best way to determine whether or not you will be required to serve a new probationary period is to contact your supervisor or human resources office. They will be able to review your specific circumstances and provide you with an accurate answer. Here are some additional details about the probationary period in the excepted service: The probationary period is a period of time during which an employee is evaluated to determine their fitness for the position. The length of the probationary period varies depending on the position, but it is typically one year. During the probationary period, an employee may be terminated for any reason, with or without cause. Once an employee has successfully completed the probationary period, they are considered to be a permanent employee and are protected from termination except for cause. Q: can you cite legal or regulatory authority for your prior response Sure. The legal authority for the probationary period in the excepted service is found in 5 U.S.C. § 7301(b). This section states that: (b) Except as provided in subsection (c), an employee who is appointed to a position in the excepted service shall serve a probationary period of not more than one year. The regulatory authority for the probationary period is found in 5 CFR Part 315. This part sets forth the rules and regulations governing the appointment, pay, and other conditions of employment of employees in the excepted service. Section 315.801 of this part specifically addresses the probationary period. This section states that: (a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this section, an employee who is appointed to a position in the excepted service shall serve a probationary period of one year. (b) An employee who has completed a probationary period in one excepted service position is not required to serve a new probationary period in a different excepted service position, unless the new position is classified at a higher grade than the previous position or is subject to a different set of rules and regulations. I hope this helps!
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Post by hillsarealive on May 2, 2023 10:42:31 GMT -5
Not entirely sure the answer on your original Q but I asked my friend Google Bard real quick and he said: I've been following this AI stuff from a distance. It is equal parts fascinating and terrifying. As I understand it, ChatGPT and Bard don't understand anything. They just follow probabilities and syntax rules to serve up a word salad based on things that humans wrote in the past. This is probably fine as long as they are dicing and rearranging things that humans wrote. They will get things wrong around the edges, but I doubt they stray too far from source material. But just wait until they start feeding on their own work, making bad copies of bad copies (let's call it the Multiplicity model). Pretty soon the nonsense will crowd out everything else. Alright, I'm done shaking my fist at the clouds for today. |
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Post by natethegreat on May 2, 2023 10:59:21 GMT -5
As far as probationary periods, whether appropriate or not, I have heard of current agency employees who transfered offices or step back down to an attorney adviser slot being told they had to repeat the probationary period.
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Post by operationalj on May 2, 2023 11:24:46 GMT -5
Not entirely sure the answer on your original Q but I asked my friend Google Bard real quick and he said: I've been following this AI stuff from a distance. It is equal parts fascinating and terrifying. As I understand it, ChatGPT and Bard don't understand anything. They just follow probabilities and syntax rules to serve up a word salad based on things that humans wrote in the past. This is probably fine as long as they are dicing and rearranging things that humans wrote. They will get things wrong around the edges, but I doubt they stray too far from source material. But just wait until they start feeding on their own work, making bad copies of bad copies (let's call it the Multiplicity model). Pretty soon the nonsense will crowd out everything else. Alright, I'm done shaking my fist at the clouds for today. I've noticed old SSA law come up (Listing 1.04) when I messed around with AI a bit. |
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Post by pumpkin on May 2, 2023 18:21:45 GMT -5
Watching the Writer’s Guild strike with interest as they have a concern jobs will be eliminated by AI joke and script writing.
I plan to pay attention to the analysis associated with their strike. We need to ponder the future applicability of AI in the SSA disability determination process.
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Post by trp888 on May 4, 2023 9:49:32 GMT -5
I am a former aa and saa at SSA. I'm thinking of trying to go back to SSA. Does anyone know if I would have to serve another 2 year probationary period? Depends on if you’re still a federal employee. Contact the person listed on the Job Announcement and they should be able to tell you that. |
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Post by nylawyer on May 4, 2023 9:54:44 GMT -5
Watching the Writer’s Guild strike with interest as they have a concern jobs will be eliminated by AI joke and script writing. I plan to pay attention to the analysis associated with their strike. We need to ponder the future applicability of AI in the SSA disability determination process. Given the way my agency computer functions, I don't think anyone alive today need worry about this. |
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Post by charlsiekate on May 4, 2023 12:59:54 GMT -5
Watching the Writer’s Guild strike with interest as they have a concern jobs will be eliminated by AI joke and script writing. I plan to pay attention to the analysis associated with their strike. We need to ponder the future applicability of AI in the SSA disability determination process. Given the way my agency computer functions, I don't think anyone alive today need worry about this. Haha I had this exact convo yesterday. I think it could be…a while. Before this is a problem for us. |
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Post by arkstfan on May 5, 2023 21:49:53 GMT -5
Not entirely sure the answer on your original Q but I asked my friend Google Bard real quick and he said: I've been following this AI stuff from a distance. It is equal parts fascinating and terrifying. As I understand it, ChatGPT and Bard don't understand anything. They just follow probabilities and syntax rules to serve up a word salad based on things that humans wrote in the past. This is probably fine as long as they are dicing and rearranging things that humans wrote. They will get things wrong around the edges, but I doubt they stray too far from source material. But just wait until they start feeding on their own work, making bad copies of bad copies (let's call it the Multiplicity model). Pretty soon the nonsense will crowd out everything else. Alright, I'm done shaking my fist at the clouds for today. Most AI experiments have turned racist and/misogynistic after attacks by people dedicated to those ideas. I’d hate to see what would happen after inputting remands, especially those magistrate decisions that apply the regs wrong or just toss junk out to justify remand because magistrate disagrees with the ALJ. |
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Post by bourbonmanhattan on May 5, 2023 22:30:17 GMT -5
Watching the Writer’s Guild strike with interest as they have a concern jobs will be eliminated by AI joke and script writing. I plan to pay attention to the analysis associated with their strike. We need to ponder the future applicability of AI in the SSA disability determination process. Given the way my agency computer functions, I don't think anyone alive today need worry about this. Interesting though all in all. Anyone with RPA ideas? |
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Post by generalsherman on May 6, 2023 17:31:05 GMT -5
I am also not worried about AI yet. It is good for some things but I wouldn’t trust it with big analytical stuff, because it is good at sounding smart but underneath the surface it falls apart. My kid was goofing around with it and so I gave it a try and asked it to explain the vague ending to a certain movie. It spit out this 500 word essay, which, in the end, did not even get the final scenes correct.
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Post by hillsarealive on May 8, 2023 17:05:52 GMT -5
I am also not worried about AI yet. It is good for some things but I wouldn’t trust it with big analytical stuff, because it is good at sounding smart but underneath the surface it falls apart. My kid was goofing around with it and so I gave it a try and asked it to explain the vague ending to a certain movie. It spit out this 500 word essay, which, in the end, did not even get the final scenes correct. I guess I am worried already, but I share your view that there may be less to AI than meets the eye. Current AI isn't smart in the normal sense of the word. At the same time, there are a lot of lawyer tasks that ChatGPT could handle now or in the near future. Summarizing medical records for example. Perhaps writing or responding to generic arguments using an appropriate dataset of earlier briefs. With a human on the back-end to review and sign the finished product. I think the ABA is paying attention to ChatGPT, and that's a good thing. In the long run, though, any lawyer jobs that don't require actually understanding or applying legal concepts are vulnerable to not existing in the not-so-distant future. More long term, I really wonder how AI will affect the availability of jobs when my kids enter the workforce. I was talking to a radiologist. She said that AI wasn't great at spotting things on scans, but she tells medical students to maybe consider specializing in something other than radiology since the long-term outlook. I think it was Paul Krugman who warned many years ago that jobs that involve manipulating symbols were more likely to disappear than jobs that require doing physical activities (think plumbing, HVAC repair, nursing, etc. etc.). If I were in school right now, I would take that advice to heart when charting a career path. As a middle age goverment lawyer, I plan to coast things out, while steering my kids towards jobs that are harder to replace. One parting thought. There's another guy--David Graeber--who has this notion that many jobs are BS anyway. His argument may be overblown, but he is also on to something I think. I am very curious to see how AI impacts the ranks of the people who, in his view, are already performing meaningless "pseudowork." |
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Post by operationalj on May 9, 2023 3:12:32 GMT -5
AI is promising but coming up short as it is now. I just completed training on AI that summarizes medical evidence. The software turned a 1500 page file into 6000 pages. There was a very small portion of the summary that was helpful. It was not able to read handwriting, well, MSSs are often handwritten and very important and not even mentioned in the summary. This is the best AI for medical summaries on the market at this time. The cost benefit analysis was a clear no for me.
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Post by seaprongs on May 9, 2023 9:36:38 GMT -5
AI is promising but coming up short as it is now. I just completed training on AI that summarizes medical evidence. The software turned a 1500 page file into 6000 pages. There was a very small portion of the summary that was helpful. It was not able to read handwriting, well, MSSs are often handwritten and very important and not even mentioned in the summary. This is the best AI for medical summaries on the market at this time. The cost benefit analysis was a clear no for me. A medical records summary is the only viable thing I can see AI doing for us in the future, and from the sound of it, that technology may still be way off. A summary would be helpful for case reviews and decision writing, but I think attorneys will be needed to bridge the gap between records and the findings of fact. AI seems to fall short on reliable, detailed analysis. Even if the technology was there, I don't think AI will replace human ALJs as fact finders. I think (hope) there is at least a human element to consider soft factors, even if AI decision making is used at other levels of the disability process. My dream would be that fewer decision writers are needed bc of AI, and we skew towards more ALJs. Use the technology to process cases faster and get a decision sooner. |
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Post by hillsarealive on May 9, 2023 11:58:09 GMT -5
AI is promising but coming up short as it is now. I just completed training on AI that summarizes medical evidence. The software turned a 1500 page file into 6000 pages. There was a very small portion of the summary that was helpful. It was not able to read handwriting, well, MSSs are often handwritten and very important and not even mentioned in the summary. This is the best AI for medical summaries on the market at this time. The cost benefit analysis was a clear no for me. A medical records summary is the only viable thing I can see AI doing for us in the future, and from the sound of it, that technology may still be way off. A summary would be helpful for case reviews and decision writing, but I think attorneys will be needed to bridge the gap between records and the findings of fact. AI seems to fall short on reliable, detailed analysis. Even if the technology was there, I don't think AI will replace human ALJs as fact finders. I think (hope) there is at least a human element to consider soft factors, even if AI decision making is used at other levels of the disability process. My dream would be that fewer decision writers are needed bc of AI, and we skew towards more ALJs. Use the technology to process cases faster and get a decision sooner. This seems realistic. I agree that you need a human in the loop to exercise judgment and sign the decision. But the decision writer function (as I understand it) may be vulnerable to being replaced--at least in part--by AI in the not so distant future. Elements of brief writing as well. And many other jobs and job functions besides. Relevant Washington Post article re AI impact on careersLike I said, I plan to coast through to retirement, but if I were say 18 right now, I would pick a career that is not so vulnerable to being automated. Remember, automation doesn't mean that all the jobs in the field disappear. But there's less work to go around, meaning downward pressure on wages and other bad stuff for workers in that field. |
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Post by operationalj on May 9, 2023 16:53:49 GMT -5
A medical records summary is the only viable thing I can see AI doing for us in the future, and from the sound of it, that technology may still be way off. A summary would be helpful for case reviews and decision writing, but I think attorneys will be needed to bridge the gap between records and the findings of fact. AI seems to fall short on reliable, detailed analysis. Even if the technology was there, I don't think AI will replace human ALJs as fact finders. I think (hope) there is at least a human element to consider soft factors, even if AI decision making is used at other levels of the disability process. My dream would be that fewer decision writers are needed bc of AI, and we skew towards more ALJs. Use the technology to process cases faster and get a decision sooner. This seems realistic. I agree that you need a human in the loop to exercise judgment and sign the decision. But the decision writer function (as I understand it) may be vulnerable to being replaced--at least in part--by AI in the not so distant future. Elements of brief writing as well. And many other jobs and job functions besides. Relevant Washington Post article re AI impact on careersLike I said, I plan to coast through to retirement, but if I were say 18 right now, I would pick a career that is not so vulnerable to being automated. Remember, automation doesn't mean that all the jobs in the field disappear. But there's less work to go around, meaning downward pressure on wages and other bad stuff for workers in that field. Based on the interesting article, by the time the DOT is finally updated, AI will change all those jobs!  |
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