Travel Time

Greetings from America’s heartland! My coworker and I are on a work trip right now visiting one of FederalEntity’s satellite offices. Why are we here? Well, it’s been in our performance evaluation every year that we should visit a branch office and we’ve finally decided to do it. We’re calling it a “learning experience”. I’m not upset though - Government travel is WAY better than sitting back in my cubicle in DC:

1. Per Diem – I get reimbursed $60 a day for food and other expenses. I probably spend $20 a day on food and expenses. That leaves $40 per day in my pocket to waste at a bar this weekend!

2. Sweet Hotels – Fortunately, the Federal Government doesn’t skimp on hotels – the place I’m in right now is totally sweet. Last time I traveled, I had a penthouse suite with views of the ocean and city skyline! Don’t get too pissed off, you silly tax-payer. The Government has some deal worked with the hotel chains. Basically, if a hotel has rooms available and a Fed wants to stay there, the hotel has to book the room at the “government” rate, which is 50-70% less than what the room typically costs. On my first Government-related trip, I stayed at a Ritz-Carlton in Kansas for about $100 a night.

3. Frequent Flyer Miles – I get to keep them for myself! The Government has the same kind of deal with the Airlines for the “government rate” on flights. My flight on Travelocity.com was $500 each way. The government rate was $229. Everybody wins! Except for the Airlines I guess, but they’re used to always losing… If I ever take a flight over 7 hours long, I get to fly business class. Don’t worry, that will never happen.

4. Miscellaneous costs – The government also picks up the tab for all sorts of expenses related to my trip: internet connection fees at the hotel, transportation to and from the airport, airport parking, ATM surcharge fees, hotel taxes, long distance phone calls (assuming they are work related).

So yeah, I don’t mind traveling. It’s a shame I only get to go on 4 trips a year! As always though, there are a million little frustrations that go with every good part about being a Fed. For travel, it’s everything leading up to the trip.

First, I had to convince my bosses to let me take this trip, even though they told me that I have to take it. My justification was: “you told me I should take this trip, so I’m gonna take it”. It took over a year for it to come to fruition from that point. I set up all of the details and was ready to go the second week in December... when the bosses pulled the plug on me. They really wanted me to be at a half-hour staff meeting on the last day of my proposed trip, so I had to reschedule everything. The staff meeting ended up being a waste of time, but that's not surprising.

The next hitch came from our Travel system. We use a program that several other FederalEntities use to book their travel arrangements and boy does it blow. On my last trip, the system booked my airplane ticket in my name, but charged it to a woman who worked on the West Coast. Boy was she surprised when she got the $600 bill for a flight from DC to Chicago! It took 4 months to resolve.

This time, the system booked us on a “direct” flight. Everything was fine until we realized that “direct” and “non-stop” are quite different. A direct flight makes one or more stops, but you don’t have to transfer planes. Our flight was to take a 1 hour pit stop in St. Louis. As soon as we figured that out, we rebooked.

However, the travel system didn’t buy my plane ticket until 2 days before my trip. My coworker had an even greater surprise when she arrived at the airport to check her bags and they told her that her ticket had never been purchased! The travel system sent her a confirmation, including gate and seat numbers, but it never bothered to actually purchase the ticket! Luckily, there were lots of empty seats, so she was able to buy one on the spot, and still managed to snag the government rate.

When I return to DC on Friday, I’ll fill out an expense report. If history repeats, I’ll get my government credit card bill in 1 week demanding my payment, but my reimbursement won’t show up for a month or two. I’m not worried though – if the travel people’s slowness causes me to miss the credit card due date, the Government pays my credit card late fee. Today, I'm actually happy I'm a Fed - Huzzah!

I am a highly-trained professional!

My boss has been gone for the last two weeks. She has been in training. While I don't mind being unsupervised, I think the "training" thing has gotten out of hand in the Federal Government.

My cubicle walls are completely covered in certificates I have received for completing a multitude of training courses over the past two years. Some of them are useful - "Grants Training", "Advanced Microsoft Excel", "Dale Carnegie Public Speaking" (great class by the way). Some of them are annoying but necessary - "IT Security Awareness", "Public Records Keeping". Some are downright absurd - "Motivated Meetings" training... "Email" training... "Ethics" training... "Tribal Governments Management" training! My FederalEntity has NOTHING to do with Tribal governments, but they offered it on golearn.gov, so I took it.

After breezing through 20 screens of an online module and answering 5 true/false questions, I'm officially trained in both the unbelievably specific field of "ethics" AND the ever-politically sensitive arena of "tribal government management"! Who knew it was so easy? I figure I must be half way to my PhD from University of Phoenix Online.

There are two positive aspects regarding Federal training that, in fairness, I must highlight:

1. The Government cannot pay to enroll an employee in graduate school. However, the Government can pay for individual graduate school classes under the guise of "training". As long as the classes can be related in some way to the mission of the paying FederalEntity (note: the classes don't have to relate to one's specific job function, just the overall FederalEntity mission), the Government can pay for your classes. Some offices will only pay for 2-3 classes a year, others are more generous with their training money. Some will even give you administrative leave (extra vacation) so you can get your homework done! And hey, if you happppppen to get a graduate degree in the process, good for you! But remember the Government cannot, under any circumstances, pay for your graduate degree...

(Side note: I've been thinking about going this route for grad school, but I've resisted so far because it ensures that I will be tied down in this cubicle here for another few years... even for a free graduate degree, it's not worth it.)

2. There are times when I just really need a break from the office. And I'm not talking in the "lets go hide in Starbucks for an hour" way. This is when off-site training is extremely useful - it's like an elementary school field trip. This past Monday, I took a Microsoft Access training class at an off-site location. It was great - they had free pastries, granola bars, soda, cookies, and string cheese - and best of all, I didn't have to go into work at all that day! Nobody in my office even uses MS Access... for anything... ever! A waste of time? No way, man, free granola bars! My coworker once went to a week-long training class in Delaware. He said it was like sleep-away camp, and it included an all-you-can-eat buffet!

So now my cubicle walls are now completely covered in meaningless certificates - there is no space left for my achievements to be displayed. This morning I uncovered 3 more certificates that I needed to hang (CPR training, Emergency Management training, "Honorable Mention" Halloween Costume Contest certificate!), so I taped them to my file cabinet.

My boss jokes that I should list all of these accomplishments on my resume. I used to laugh at the thought until yesterday when I was reviewing job applications from current Federal employees who are trying to get hired onto my staff. One candidate had listed 2 pages worth of these "trainings" in his resume under the heading "Skills & Certifications", including many of the same pointless ones I've taken ("Ethics"!). Not surprising though - this particular candidate was also in the process of getting his PhD... from the University of Phoenix Online. I promise you I am not making this up.