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  I have a question concerning the policy for the Jan. 2 observance of a federal holiday out of respect for President Gerald Ford. All Defense Department offices and installations were closed with the exception offices the Secretary of Defense determined must remain open for reasons of national security, defense or other essential public business. Employees who were scheduled to take annual leave on Jan. 2 will not be charged annual leave or any other form of paid leave or compensatory time off. Those employees were supposed to ensure any use or lose leave initially scheduled for Jan. 2 was rescheduled prior to Jan. 6, the end of the leave year. There was no provision to restore forfeited annual leave based on the Jan. 2 federal holiday.

  I think this is unfair; how can an individual use up the leave when they probably already had factored in that day and would not be able to use up by Jan. 6? That is impossible and outrageous to even contemplate. I am sure a lot of federal employees lost or forfeited that eight hours because they would be very close to not using that leave. I would have no problem donating that time to another employee who was in need of leave; however, I find unacceptable to be told that I will have to forfeit that time.

  I plan to forward to as many federal employees as I can to see how they feel about being told to just forfeit because the leave would not be restored. After giving 25 years of civilian service to the federal government, I am finally fed up with all the "fair" attempts of employment, promotions, recruitment (or lack there of). Of course it is just eight hours, but those add up when you take in the big picture of all employees affected by the inability to either restore or re-do paperwork. Will we get additional hours the end of this year to compensate for not being able to truly get the eight hours?

  This is just like the health care and/or lack of good quality health insurance for federal employees. After working for 25 years, someone finally saw the light to offer better dental and vision insurance. Yes, I have been blessed to have worked and been selected and progressed these years; however, in the big picture we have a long way to go to improve the quality of working for the federal government.

  Thank you for allowing me to voice my concerns. So do people really matter or is it too much to re-do paper work?

  Diana Blake Posted January 8, 2007 5:02 PM