Government travel
Effective immediately, if a meeting/conference includes the weekend, the Center Director, Deputy Center Director, or Executive Officer must not approve weekend travel unless the conference attendee is required to speak during the weekend, first thing on Monday morning, or unless the start of the conference begins over the weekend where participation in a specific conference activity is mission critical.
Welcome to stupid.
In the spirit of making sure federal employees don't look like they're enjoying themselves too much on your tax dollar, FDA employees aren't allowed to attend conferences over weekends, unless they absolutely, absolutely MUST be there. Why? Because weekends are made up of Saturdays and Sundays, and you know what happens on those days, right? Pa-a-arty time!
Obviously, if a federal nuclear medicine bioengineer attends a 2-day radiation oncology conference on a weekend, she will spend the bulk of her time drinking schnapps out of a shoe.
This is getting more and more stupid. In addition to making it well-nigh impossible to attend medical conferences over weekends, they've made it well-nigh impossible to get approval to go anywhere that sounds nice - like Palm Springs, Las Vegas, New Orleans, etc. But here's the problem - they aren't throwing these conferences to attract the FDA; they want doctors to come. And doctors are both very busy and fairly well-off. Nobody is going to hold an important conference mid-week, mid-February in Detroit. These conferences are usually held in a nice place, so doctors will want to come, and they are usually held over weekends, so doctors won't have to cancel their busy schedules to go.
These conferences are where the latest technology is presented and explained. Being the organization that has to decide if new technology is safe and effective, it's kinda important for the FDA to be there.
Welcome to stupid.
In the spirit of making sure federal employees don't look like they're enjoying themselves too much on your tax dollar, FDA employees aren't allowed to attend conferences over weekends, unless they absolutely, absolutely MUST be there. Why? Because weekends are made up of Saturdays and Sundays, and you know what happens on those days, right? Pa-a-arty time!
Obviously, if a federal nuclear medicine bioengineer attends a 2-day radiation oncology conference on a weekend, she will spend the bulk of her time drinking schnapps out of a shoe.
This is getting more and more stupid. In addition to making it well-nigh impossible to attend medical conferences over weekends, they've made it well-nigh impossible to get approval to go anywhere that sounds nice - like Palm Springs, Las Vegas, New Orleans, etc. But here's the problem - they aren't throwing these conferences to attract the FDA; they want doctors to come. And doctors are both very busy and fairly well-off. Nobody is going to hold an important conference mid-week, mid-February in Detroit. These conferences are usually held in a nice place, so doctors will want to come, and they are usually held over weekends, so doctors won't have to cancel their busy schedules to go.
These conferences are where the latest technology is presented and explained. Being the organization that has to decide if new technology is safe and effective, it's kinda important for the FDA to be there.