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The Director's email of yesterday announced a re-examination of how CDC works to position it for greater success. The last director did the same thing -- who's giving Dr. Frieden advice?

On June 19 we received an all hands announcement about new mandatory training in all buildings.

Purpose: "...occupant training will be provided to clearly differentiate between Fire Alarm notifications and a Public Address announcement....

I was a primary and secondary panel member of an objective review and was very nervous about participating since it was my first time. However, I was surprised to discover how little the other voting members read or understood the application.

I have returned to CDC after years of working in outside institutions. These are some reflections on what's constant and what has changed.

Organizational Issues Survey results are finally available.

Wage top-offs and special benefits given to foreign nationals causes a rift among their co-workers who make 25-30% less earnings.

In the recent CDC Connects profile, Dr Frieden was asked:

"Where on your priority list does considering organizational options fall? Is this something you’d like to address right away?"

Organizations are always changing. I look forward to hearing the ideas and insights about the organization and suggestions for improvements. I’m very interested in learning more about the organization and how it is structured and operates. It’s important to have a sensible structure, and it is also important not to have disruptive change. No doubt some changes will be needed. It’s important to be clear about the outcomes desired, to keep significant organizational changes to the minimum necessary, and to make changes in a way that minimizes disruption."

What are your specific suggestions for constructive structural changes needed as CDC moves forward? Does anyone have information on what happened to the compilation of the focus group findings that were supposed to be made available to all?

Anyone know how well CDC is doing on it's annual inventory this year? I submitted a board of survey 15 months ago and I'm still waiting for it to come off the system. Frustrating to inventory something stolen over a year ago, time for another AJC article and Congressional inquiry.

The Lancet, Volume 373, Issue 9679, Page 1919, 6 June 2009
Lancet editorial on appointment of Tom Frieden as CDC Director highlights challenges and opportunities for CDC. Dr Frieden touched on a number of these points in the generally well received all hands today.

Read the full Lancet article A New Manifesto for the CDC

(To see the full article, you must register at the website, no charge.)

From today's NY Times:

New York City Official Is Obama Pick for C.D.C.

By GARDINER HARRIS and ANEMONA HARTOCOLLIS


WASHINGTON — President Obama will announce on Friday that he has chosen Dr. Thomas R. Frieden, the New York City health commissioner, as the next director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, administration officials said Thursday.

Dr. Frieden, a 48-year-old infectious disease specialist, has cut a high and sometimes contentious profile in his seven years as New York’s top health official under Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg. He led the crusade to ban smoking in restaurants and bars, pushed to make H.I.V. testing a routine part of medical exams, and defended a program that passes out more than 35 million condoms a year.

At the C.D.C., he will inherit a host of immediate and long-term problems, including a looming decision about whether and how to produce a swine flu vaccine. Health experts say the agency must resolve serious morale and organizational issues even as the administration struggles to overhaul the nation’s health care system.

Would you sign an authorization form “blanket waiver” giving any federal investigator or representative permission to gain unlimited access to any of your personal information from any source? How much intrusion into your and other’s private affairs is too much?

President Obama recently stated that he was going to look from cost cutting suggestions from rank and file suggestions from employees. What is CDC's plan to collect and present these upward to HHS? The current suggestion program is a joke, you never get official feedback on bad or good suggestions, it often is killed below the level where the decisions should be made (i.e. killed at CDC when it's an HHS decision to be made). Is there a place for these suggestions he wants to be submitted?

Request for information regarding Public Health Advisors and Emergency Management Specialist.

I'm very concerned about the move from the mainframe to a server based system. If it turns out anything like Mid Tier Biosenseless, govtrip, or citgo that spell trouble!!!!!!!

What has happened to the appointment of the Reproductive Health Division Director?

"Employees at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention have generated about 4,000 pages of documents assessing risks to the agency’s reputation posed by The Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s reporting."

"But the CDC is keeping those records secret, despite directives from the Obama administration that federal agencies presume government records are open to the public under the federal Freedom of Information Act."

By ALISON YOUNG
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Sunday, April 26, 2009

Does the CDC have any authority to insist that commercial flights re-up the air exchange policy, at least during the Swine Flu outbreak? Several years ago, commercial carriers decided to save fuel by cutting the air exchanges from 34 to 4, or roughly so. I always turn off the air jet when I get on a flight. At least anecdotally, it seems obvious that with such a reduction, the incidence of flight-related flus has gone up. Why not re-up the air exchanges to reduce the risk of airborne infection during flights?

I am current federal employee who is looking to move to the CDC for employment. I wanted to get feedback as to whether it is a good place to work overall. Does it offer flexible work schedules, telework, etc due to the extreme traffic in the area? For anyone who's moved from another state for employment at the CDC, were your supervisors flexible on your arrival and giving you time to get settled, etc?

When I leave the office for more than one day, I always activate my Outlook Out of Office Assistant so that my staff, administrators and colleagues, both inside and outside of CDC, know that I am not available to respond to their E-mails. I also leave a temporary greeting on my phone for the same reason. I learned last week that if you are not on the “HHS system” you do not see the out of office message. This seemed strange to me so I tried to find a way to let my non-HHS colleagues know I am out of the office. On the ITSO site, a document describes how to create a RULE in Outlook that will let non-HHS colleagues see that I am out of the office. However, it turns out that it does not work and you cannot create this rule. I was told by ITSO that HHS does not allow us to let our colleagues out side of CDC see our Out of Office Assistant message. PLEASE will someone that has some common sense and is not a security-phobe please find a way to solve this problem. If security is an issue, then why can we leave an out of office message on our phone?

I love religion as much as the next person and discussing it can be very educational. But I have to ask, how far is too far in the workplace? While walking through the office I routinely hear co-workers playing religious songs, sermons, they sing and stop short of having a full blown religious service. However, I have to ask if I was to playing county western, rap or heavy metal (no offense) at a volume where others could hear it; wouldn’t I be told to turn it down? And if I broke out into song (besides the fact that I cannot sing) I assume I might get at least a couple of “stop choking that cat so I can work!”

At least in conversation it can come to an end with a "that was great info", "thanks for sharing" etc. However, if it is continuous stream of background noise what do you do? I do not want to offend anyone especially when it comes to their religion but then again it’s not about religion is it?
Really it’s about workplace etiquette...

Signed

Anonymous but not sacrilegious!

Basis for assignment of work/office space

Obama prefers federal employees to all the contractors.

http://www.salon.com/env/feature/2009/04/10/cdc_lead_report/

"The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention withheld evidence that contaminated tap water caused lead poisoning in kids."
By Rebecca Renner

A CDC employee was placed on a long term training assignment. The employee's program approved a PCS relocation to move household goods to the new city. The program then issued TDY orders, even though supervisors were alerted to this violation of federal regulations by another governmental agency. Given the length of the employee's assignment, the supervisors then directed the employee to sign a 1-year rental apartment lease. After six months of TDY, the program abruptly canceled the travel orders and have offset TDY payments by the amount paid under the approved relocation package. A change of duty station was then initiated and now the employee is in an apartment that they is unaffordable and that the lease cannot be vacated. The employee claimed recently that all of their savings had been spent in an attempt to pay rent and continue training.

Is working in PGO hazardous to employee health?

Anyone going to respond to the request for CCID honor award nominations?

Equipment Development Section Closing?

What does this mean?

How will science drive policies and programs at CDC?

Since when can contracting award ceiling amounts be raised by up to $20 million in the question and answers section of a solicitation?