So. *cough* Right, a way forward. Sure.

Why am I hesitating so much? Because this instalment is inherently challenging to nuance correctly. When I write, I try to stick to “explaining what is”, not “what should be” nor even very often “what could be”. I describe, I elaborate, I explain. I unpack complex elements. I try very hard to leave “shoulds” to others. And even in this post, I’ll try to stick only to what is possible, not what we “should” do.

As I’ve argued in the last four posts on this topic, there are certain realities we have to face:

a. There is nothing sexy about the rack rate (i.e., how much it costs for you to get out of bed), and any room for enhancement is likely limited to arguing that certain basic human needs (like food) might have gone up by a much larger inflation rate than the average consumer cart/basket;

b. Within the commute rate, there might have been some room to build out some nuances around transportation or childcare, but well, the narrow group of FMs who didn’t understand the issue and yet went on blast with their opinions forced TBS into a blanket one-size-fits-all response that stifled any hint of creativity.… Read the rest

In a previous post, I argued that most rhetoric espoused by some of the f***muppets (i.e., a narrow group of PS who disseminate ill-informed opinions on blast and crowd out more productive conversations) doesn’t accurately reflect how wages and labour markets work, not even in the public service context. My original argument was that the PS combines three wage elements (reworded here for simplicity) that are already baked into wage rates:

• R — The “rack” rate, i.e., how much it costs for you to get out of bed;
• C1, C2, C3, C4, C5 — The commuting compensation to leave your house to go to a job site; and,
• L — the cost for actually expending energy to do the “physical” labour of the job.

I also apologized to academic specialists for renaming the elements and ignoring the long history of these elements, and to non-academics who will likely still find me too wordy.

What about C(ommute) costs?

As I outlined in my initial post, wages in the public sector agreements are based on rates that were in existence before widespread telework and the wages already had commuting costs baked in. They weren’t and aren’t generally visible, but they’re there.

And as I said above, there are some very important groups who go off the rails when sh**diots and f***muppets wrongly suggest that we should suddenly “start” getting a premium for RTO, when in fact, we are already paid for our commuting costs.… Read the rest

It was interesting to see various reactions to my last post about f***muppets who don’t understand how wages work in general, or PS labour pay rates, in particular. While some readers engaged on the substance, some had serious misgivings about using the term f***muppet. If you want to see my original post, you can find it here:

Someone subsequently shared my post on the Reddit forum, so if you’re so inclined, you can read the reactions and analysis of the post over there.

I have follow-up posts planned on wage components, but I want to explain what and who I mean with the term f***muppet. I assure you, I didn’t choose it lightly, but it was not as broad-based target practice as some people interpreted.

No, not all PS are sh**diots or f***muppets

It’s strange to have to say that, but I wasn’t referring to all PS people as being problematic, only a specific subset. If a PS is ignorant in the literal sense or uninformed, that does not make them an idiot. I never said that, not sure why people would choose to interpret things that way, but that’s the nature of the internet, I suppose.… Read the rest

Over the last twenty years, I’ve given numerous presentations on preparing for competitions in the federal public service (aka my HR guide called Be The Duck!). Lately, it is less of a presentation and more of an “Ask me anything (AMA)”-type format. I did one a few years ago with Health Canada, and they invited me back again this year as a joint presentation organized between Health Canada and PHAC, plus various friendly departments around town.

My presentation was called Career Compass: Navigating your career in the public service, and I knew some of the Qs in advance. I grouped eight of them in two questions before moving on to general Qs from the inbox. I promised to follow up on any of the ones I missed in the group AMA, and I’ll cover a bit of the first two again just for comprehensiveness (I’m anal retentive, I admit it!).

As always, these answers are my personal opinions based on my experiences in the public service, presented as candidly and transparently as I can. Even for some of the tough ones where I don’t think the government track-record is great.

With fewer job opportunities today, are there other classifications besides EC where there is policy work?

For those of you who have read my PolyWogg guide for competitions, you know that I have the general “slogan” of “Be the Duck!”. The idea being of course that if a manager wants to hire a duck, then your best chance to get hired is to tell them you’re a duck. Not someone who speaks Duck, or who knows Ducks, or who has worked with Ducks, but rather that you are indeed a duck. Preferably the best dang duck they’ve ever seen. But definitely you want to say “I’m a duck”.

I developed the cover long before I had the guide written…seeing the cover is “visually motivating”. So what if I do ones beyond the Duck?

For example, are there times when you might want to do something other than say you’re a duck? Sure. Like when you’re managing your career, not just going through a selection process. Then, you want to…dun dun dun…

As you can see, I maintained the same look and feel. Same frog, top swath in green, bottom swath for name and website address. I added an edition, but ignore the year, not sure when I’ll get it written. Volume 2 — Be the Swan — is more about how you strut your stuff to be a great employee and to develop in your career.… Read the rest

If you read through my PolyWogg HR guide, Be the Duck, you know that the general approach to a federal government competition looks like this:

1. POSTER: Job goes up with elements for eligibility, experience, knowledge, abilities, personal suitability, language, security and conditions of employment
2. APPLICATION: People apply and are screened in/out for eligibility and experience;
3. WRITTEN TEST: Remaining candidates are tested for knowledge and some abilities;
4. INTERVIEW: Remaining candidates are tested for some abilities and some personal suitability;
5. REFERENCE CHECK: Remaining candidates are tested for some abiliteis and some personal suitability;
6. LANGUAGE TEST: Candidates are tested by PSC for French and/or English oral, written and reading;
7. POOL ESTABLISHED: All candidates who have passed steps 2-6 are put in the pool, which means they are all considered fully assessed and can be offered a job.
8. SECURITY CLEARANCE and CONDITIONS OF EMPLOYMENT: As part of the letter of office process, the selected candidate will be assessed for security (if necessary) and asked to agree to conditions of employment (most often travel or overtime, as required) before the letter is issued.

That is the whole process start to finish, generally speaking, for a fully-assessed pool. By contrast, a partially-assessed pool would be if they stop / pause their process any time before Step 6 (the last assessment phase before language testing).… Read the rest

I mentioned in a previous post that I was going to do some Friday Questions, and there is a really persistent question that people in non-managerial positions have trouble wrapping their heads around. In the shortest form, someone wants to go on an assignment, and their boss said no. They think it’s mean of their boss, and they want to know why the person is such a jerk. Even some inexperienced managers frequently want to say, “Well, of course, you should say yes. Holding people back is just short-sighted”.

If that is your frame, it DOES appear to be mean or short-sighted. So let’s look at why.

Understanding assignments

In short, within the public service, you occupy a “box”. It is a specific box, with a specific level and classification, let’s say PM-02. There’s an actual position number for that box, you get a letter of offer that appoints you to that box, and it comes with a job description of what you will be doing (albeit often a very generic one). That box is what you have been hired to do, and let’s make it simple and assume you’re in an indeterminate/permanent position (not casual or term, etc.).

An assignment would say that you, as the Employee who works for Manager A, are authorized to go and work for Manager B for a set duration of time.… Read the rest