Patent Office Fiasco
The Patent Office had a lot of paralegals that were paid apparently when there wasn't a lot of work to do and to top it all off, a lot of these paralegals were telecommuting from computers at home and it it was difficult for supervisors to figure out what there underlings were doing, if anything.
Other time payments according to the OIG meant being paid while having nothing to do. It took complaints from "whistle blowers" to start the OIG investigation in May 2013. "According to the OIG report probably $5.09 million was wasted between 2009-2013 and sadly the problem was known throughout organization and until the OIG started no one seemed to take ownership of the issue.
This small story was on page three of The Miami Herald. The OIG report was issued on July 24, 2014. Money wise it may not seem to be a lot of money, but it is when on one hand the Patent Office has a backlog of work that is not being completed and there are resources that being squandered.
As a retired first line supervisor, I was lucky, we dealt face to face with customers. My interviewers saw people every day. Some cases were easy, some cases took more time, some interviewers had language skills that made them invaluable. Some interviewers were fast, others no matter what was suggested had problems meeting production goals. I shudder to think of all the problems encountered by supervisors when their staff can work from home and you start having problems with production, productivity, and some chiselers.
I hope I would have been one of those whistle blowers. Too often the process is perceived to be dangerous to your career or you just lose friends and are given the bums rush.
These OIG visits aren't fun. The actual report website is listed below.
http://www.oig.doc.gov/OIGPublications/13-1077.pdf
Other time payments according to the OIG meant being paid while having nothing to do. It took complaints from "whistle blowers" to start the OIG investigation in May 2013. "According to the OIG report probably $5.09 million was wasted between 2009-2013 and sadly the problem was known throughout organization and until the OIG started no one seemed to take ownership of the issue.
This small story was on page three of The Miami Herald. The OIG report was issued on July 24, 2014. Money wise it may not seem to be a lot of money, but it is when on one hand the Patent Office has a backlog of work that is not being completed and there are resources that being squandered.
As a retired first line supervisor, I was lucky, we dealt face to face with customers. My interviewers saw people every day. Some cases were easy, some cases took more time, some interviewers had language skills that made them invaluable. Some interviewers were fast, others no matter what was suggested had problems meeting production goals. I shudder to think of all the problems encountered by supervisors when their staff can work from home and you start having problems with production, productivity, and some chiselers.
I hope I would have been one of those whistle blowers. Too often the process is perceived to be dangerous to your career or you just lose friends and are given the bums rush.
These OIG visits aren't fun. The actual report website is listed below.
http://www.oig.doc.gov/OIGPublications/13-1077.pdf
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