Dennis Laurion:  

g local offices to observe their day to day operations. I am told she has never worked in a local office. On January 15, 2002, she issued a memo titled **FY 2002 Workload Plan, Action .** It set work standards that I consider impossible for the staffing patterns within her Area. In a staff meeting shortly after January 15, 2002, my Manager read something his Area Director had written about reaction to her memo. I think it was a letter from her to the Regional Commissioner or to District Managers. She remarked that instead of embracing the new goals, people were giving her **the same old tired excuses.** She explained the employment contract as meaning that employees who could not meet the goals of their employer **should look for employment outside the agency.** I think my half of a contract with the Social Security Administration was to work as hard as I could for eight hours a day, to be efficient, and to suggest improvements. I have been granted 19 employee suggestion awards during my career. I do not feel that my half of the contract was to meet goals that became more ambitious while staff was declining. In any event, I think that the employer half of the contract is to provide the employee the resources to accomplish his mission. I do not think the President, the Congress, the Commissioners, or Area Directors have done that. I got tired of letting my overpayment cases get older, while everybody with a phone was my boss. I rarely got to do case reviews that would produce overpayments and terminations, because I spent most of my week opening mail and answering phone calls from people who wanted to tell me that their job or their workers compensation stopped. They, and my Manager, expected me to accommodate each of them first. Therefore, August 2, 2002, was my last day of work for Social Security. I now have a manageable job that pays me half of what I was paid at Social Security, while Social Security continues to pay me the other half of what I was paid at Social Security. LinkinMall (dot) net Military USCG Station, Belle Isle, Detroit, MI 1966-1967 as Seaman on active duty. USCG Medical Department, Cape May, NJ 1966-1968 as Hospital Corpsman Third Class on active duty. Coast Guard Headquarters 1968-1970 as Hospital Corpsman Second Class on active duty. Coast Guard Reserve Unit Gary IN 1970-1983 as a Reservist Hospital Corpsman First Class and Yeoman First Class. Coast Guard Recruiter for Indiana 1983-1986. Worked for Recruiter in Chicago IL from a branch office in Gary IN as a Yeoman First Class. Coast Guard Recruiter Duluth MN 1986-1988 as Yeoman First Class, using a mixture of active duty and Reserve drills. Coast Guard Reserve Unit Duluth MN as Chief Petty Officer (Yeoman). I was the Assistant Training Officer. Temporary active duty sites included: USCG Training Center, Petaluma, CA, USCG Training Center, Yorktown VA, Ninth Coast Guard District Headquarters, Cleveland OH, USCG Air Station, Traverse City MI, USCG Recruiter, Chicago, IL, USCG Recruiter, Minneapolis, MN, Naval Air Station, Detroit, MI, USCG Air Station, Detroit, MI, and Selfridge Air National Guard Base, Detroit MI. During Desert Storm in 1991, I was on active duty in Personnel at USCG Ninth District Headquarters in Cleveland, OH. I retired from the Coast Guard Reserve in 1994 as a Chief Yeoman with 28 years of combined active duty and Reserve participation.