Just another cut in the death of a thousand cuts

I've worked for SSA for 18 years, and I have never seen the agency operate like this.

Since the Trump administration took office, we've seen a series of changes that, in my view, are undermining both the workforce and the agency's ability to serve the public.

Telework has been dramatically reduced or eliminated, despite the fact that many federal employees demonstrated for years that they could perform their jobs effectively from home. At the same time, some of the agency's most capable and experienced younger employees have left federal service rather than work under these conditions. Losing experienced employees means losing institutional knowledge that takes years to replace.

But what concerns me most is what is happening to SSA's customer service operations.

Hundreds of IT employees and other employees with little or no experience in SSA policy or claims processing have been reassigned to answer the national 800 number. These are people who were hired and trained to do completely different jobs. They are now expected to provide members of the public with critical information about their Social Security benefits after receiving only about six days of training.

For comparison, employees whose actual career is serving the public through SSA's teleservice operation traditionally receive extensive training and experience before being expected to work independently.

This isn't about blaming the employees who were reassigned. They are being put in an impossible position. They are being asked to provide accurate answers about complicated Social Security programs without having the background necessary to do so.

And there is an obvious consequence: incorrect information can create more work rather than less.

If a caller receives inaccurate or incomplete information, they may have to call SSA again, visit an office, file something incorrectly, or spend hours trying to resolve a problem that could have been avoided if they had received the correct information the first time.

So if the goal is simply to reduce the amount of time a caller spends on the phone, that may produce a better statistic—but it doesn't necessarily produce better service.

And now, after only six days of training, we have been told that our performance will be monitored. We are being monitored for how much time we spend in "available" status, and our calls will be listened to and evaluated.

Today we were also informed that we are expected to indicate our intention to use paid time off six months in advance. In my 18 years at SSA, this has never been a requirement.

Taken individually, any one of these changes might be explainable. Taken together, they paint a very different picture.

It feels like the objective is increasingly to make the numbers look better rather than actually improve the service Americans receive.

And that is particularly troubling at an agency whose decisions can determine whether someone receives the income they depend upon to pay their rent, buy food, or obtain medical care.

I have spent much of my career working for this agency because I believe in its mission. I don't think the employees being forced into these new roles are the problem. Most of them are doing the best they can under circumstances they didn't create.

The question is whether the people making these decisions understand what they are doing to SSA's ability to serve the American public.

And, frankly, I am increasingly concerned that the current leadership isn't trying to strengthen Social Security at all.

It appears to me that the leadership of SSA is aligned with the Trump administration's broader effort to shrink government and undermine the social safety net—a system that millions of Americans have paid into throughout their working lives and depend upon when they retire, become disabled, or lose a spouse.

After 18 years at SSA, watching this happen is incredibly frustrating.

Is anyone else inside SSA seeing the same thing?