In late 2024, I wrote two personal checks to pay some small bills and put them in my home US mailbox. I was aware that there had been some mail theft in my neighborhood, so shame on me for not taking better precautions. Neither check reached their recipient. So begins the tale.

It has been a long 41-year largely continuous run, but I have decided to hang my instructor gig up in 2026. Tomorrow, I will teach my last virtual seminar for Federal Publications. And this summer I will teach my last in-person live session. All things must pass. Here is a thank you to all my students.

Slotting and conformance are two distinct processes under the SCA and DBA used by both DOL and contractors to determine appropriate wage rates for employees when the provided WD does not explicitly list a specific job title. Slotting is the process of mapping a job to an existing, similar classification found in the WD based on comparable duties and skills. Conformance is a formal process used when no suitable classification exists in the WD, requiring the creation of a new, approved labor category and rate..