September 2017 Federal Employment Law Training Group Newsletter

Here at FELTG, given the nature of our work, we get a lot of feedback and we generally appreciate it, whether it’s good or bad. Last week, I heard from a class participant who suggested that I had “San Francisco values.” Being a citizen of that great city (I will trade my property tax bill for yours sight-unseen), I thought that might be a compliment. Then, I decided to look it up. I see that the term is “often used pejoratively and as an ad hominem phrase to refer to cultural, social and moral attributes associated with the city of San Francisco’s liberal politics and pluralist culture.” After then looking up “pejoratively” and “ad hominem,” I see that the guy actually was not giving me a compliment after all. Ha ha ha! After looking up “pluralistic,” I see that he thinks we San Franciscans believe in the coexistence of different values. Well, we do. With 8,000,000,000 people on Earth, some of us are going to have different values. And if we’re not going to kill each other, we probably are better off by choosing to coexist. So I have decided to wear the label as a badge of honor, thereby reducing the sting of the intended critical feedback. There are a lot of deficiencies in my character, but being accepting of others is not one of them. Yep, I am from San Francisco! (But, what happens when people find out I live on “Russian” Hill?)Bill Signature

Welcome to the Show

By William Wiley, September 13, 2017 A few weeks ago, I was holding forth in a seminar of supervisors about one of the big secrets in our business. Learn the minimum and focus on that when confronted with a problem employee. With this philosophy of accountability,...

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Accommodating Sleepiness into the Future, But not the Past

By Deryn Sumner, September 13, 2017 It was a hollow victory for the complainant in a recent case where the EEOC’s Office of Federal Operations found the Department of Transportation failed to accommodate him, but also found his termination during his probationary...

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Do Supervisors Have Any Appeal Rights?

By Deborah Hopkins, September 13, 2017 A couple of weeks ago, I was teaching a class to supervisors on holding employees accountable for performance and conduct. The day after the training ended, I received the following email from an attendee. Thanks for the...

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Avoidable Conflicts in EEO Complaint Processing

By Deryn Sumner, September 13, 2017 Conflict is a fact of life (of course, we seem to be experiencing a bit more than usual since January 2017).  And one type of conflict that sometimes can’t be avoided is a conflict of interest in processing EEO complaints.  These...

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Negligence and Federal Employees

By Barbara Haga, September 13, 2017 Sometimes a particular charge is used in a case that really piques my interest.  Negligence is one of those charges, and this month I am writing about two cases where this charge was used. Culpable negligence in performance of...

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Solo Scriptura

By William Wiley, September 13, 2017 A couple of things happened last month that caused me to do some personal psychoanalysis. In the first incident, I had just completed a training class for agency lawyers. As is my usual introduction to the seminar, I had said that...

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Life Goes Better with a Plan

By Deryn Sumner, September 13, 2017 Sometimes at work, we can feel like we’re simply jumping from one urgent matter to the other, without stopping to look at what’s coming ahead and plan for the next steps.  I’m certainly guilty of that myself.  As a litigator, work...

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