The CC: Wars

In the past two days, I've been caught in the crossfire of two cc: wars. CC: of course is net slang for "carbon copy" or "courtesy copy" on an email. When I write an email, I try to send it to as few people as possible - only those directly involved in the issue. Many of my coworkers choose to cc: everyone they know on almost every email they write.

My one coworker Henry is the worst offender - he's responsible for one of the two cc: wars this week. Henry will write an email to someone and cc: pretty much our entire staff. The recipient will inevitably respond (by hitting "reply-to-all" - how are they to know that everyone else is pointlessly cc'd?), starting the cc: war! Henry will respond in turn, again hitting "reply-to-all" to fan the flames. The volleys continue on for days, sometimes weeks while everyone on the cc: list just sits there silently as their inbox gets massacred.

There are three main reasons why people here overuse the cc: 1. to prove to everyone that they're "doing work", 2. they don't understand how use email, and 3. to shirk accountability.

Reasons 1 & 2 aren't surprising based on the monkeys I work with. Reason 3 is tied to the hierarchical structure of all FederalEntities. Nobody wants to be held accountable for anything, ever. Nobody wants to have their name attached to a decision. Workers pass issues to their staff directors, who raise them to their directors, who send them to the big bosses, who convene workgroups to gather as much input from as many sources as possible -- all hoping that the issue will just die or resolve itself before a decision has to be made. Even "experts" don't use their expertise freely - nearly everything gets sent through the chain.

The best bosses can streamline the b-s, smothering the smaller issues and only elevating the really important stuff. But my office (nay, the Government) is full of horrible managers. Everything becomes an "important issue" that requires someone else to make the call. Everything requires feedback from a million different sources. Nobody wants to take the fall if things go bad so when an issue comes up, they cc: a thousand people on it hoping that it will help to spread the eventual blame.

My friend Ben works in the private sector as a contractor to the Federal Government. He's repeatedly mentioned to me that decision-making is the opposite there (not always, but as a general rule). In the private sector, managers are trying to carve out their niche. They want to claim their territory. Project leaders love their power, and try to shield it from others so they can reap all the glory (bonuses?) that comes with success. There's a real sense of ownership to the work, and it's all done in an effort to get ahead - to climb the ladder. Here at FederalEntity, ownership only leads to blame and retribution, and moving up the ladder is hardly based on accomplishments - whats my motivation to attach my name to any decision??

Ben gets maddeningly frustrated when he works on a contract for any FederalEntity. He'll make some small decisions, show them to the Federal project officer for concurrence, and that project officer will send it up the chain, making a mountain out of a molehill. Working with the Federal Government must feel like driving on the Autobahn stuck behind a car going 35 mph.

Henry's cc: wars will undoubtedly continue unless I do something drastic (and it needs to be more creative than replying-to-all with "unsubscribe."). My coworker John came up with a good solution to the cc: madness. A few months back his staff director yelled at him for NOT cc'ing her on an unimportant email chain, upset that he wasn't keeping her "in the loop". For the next week or so, he cc'd her on every single message he sent. She promptly changed her opinion.

You're Fired!

In my time at FederalEntity, I've encountered over 100 people who I've felt should be fired immediately. From sleeping under desks to selling bootleg DVDs; from looking at pornography while at work to not even coming to work at all - I am surrounded by a sea of underachievers who would have been given the boot ages ago if they worked in the private sector. It's nearly impossible to fire a Fed, though. In 2.5 years, we've successfully gotten rid of 2 people on my staff (out of 20 who deserve it) and believe me, the process is long and painful. Their stories are below:

1. Sarah the Crazy Secretary - Sarah was a secretary on in our division. I only met her once, and fortunately never had to work with her. My coworkers John and Jessie were not so fortunate. Apparently Sarah wasn't just crazy, she was vicious. Even a simple hello would elicit a mean response. If you asked her to do some basic aspect of her job (filing, for example) she might snap at you. She probably did it to frighten people - thinking it would keep them from asking her to do anything (it worked). The tasks she did take on were completed incorrectly and past deadline. She had behaved this way for years, but this wasn't enough to fire her.

Keep in mind, doing your job poorly isn't grounds for being fired. Maybe the expectations weren't clear? Maybe you were never provided the necessary skills or resources to complete the task? Maybe you can attribute it to "everybody makes mistakes!"? Of course, those are all BS excuses, but they actually work in the Federal Government. You may not have done your job correctly, but at least you tried! How can you fire someone for trying??

From what I've gathered with Sarah the Crazy Secretary, she was finally done in for two reasons. First, she eventually stopped trying. When she was given a task by her manager, she would outright refuse to do it. As in "no, I will not even attempt to do the most basic elements of my job". This is not easy to prove, however. Staff members had to document when they had assigned her work and if the work was completed correctly / at all. This went on for months and months before they had enough "proof" that she wasn't doing her job!

The second reason she got fired: She was crazy and created an unsafe work environment. This next part is going to sound like a lie, but I promise it's not. Sarah would post biblical passages outside of her cubicle. The passages she posted were the ones where God enacted his fiery revenge upon evil sinners. But she would replace the names of those sinners with the names of her bosses. Imagine being a boss and seeing your name in a re-written biblical passage outside of your secretary's cube!

("And God smote Bill Johnson, sending him to the eternal fire pits of Hell to be tortured for an eternity!")

Towards the end, she would go into her boss' office and just scream at him. She was heard on more than one occasion calling him a "plantation owner". Yeah, it went there. They fired her a few days before Christmas. Armed security guards came to her desk with an empty box, gave her 20 minutes to pack, and then escorted her out of the building. Her picture was posted at every entrance of the building so that all of the security guards knew not to let her in. That evening, the guards escorted her boss to his car as a precaution, lest she be lurking in the bushes.

I wish that's where the story ends, but it isn't. Sarah appealed her firing - saying that it was racially motivated. The Union jumped in to fight for her. Despite the mountains of evidence against her, Sarah won her appeal and had the "firing" expunged from her record (it now just looks like she quit). I'm not sure if she won any money in the settlement, but it's a very real possibility. Even scarier, she may very well be working at another FederalEntity.

2. Firing #2 is shorter and less interesting. I don't even remember the guy's name (doesn't matter, all the names/genders on this blog are made up anyways). He sat in a cubicle sort of near mine - it was down the hall and around a corner. He always came to work, but I could never figure out what his job was. I think it had something to do with ordering office supplies. There were rumors that he had gotten into screaming matches with several bosses, but I always found him to be quiet and pleasant. He was the #1 fan of my motivational mirror!

It was a known fact that he had severe mental health issues and he took long periods off for "health" reasons. I think it eventually got to the point where his mental state was preventing him from doing anything. My staff director had been diligently gathering evidence and when the case was strong enough called a meeting with him. The proposition was laid out: "Here are the facts. I'm about to file the papers to start your termination process. If you don't want to go through with all that, you can quit and it won't show on your record that you were 'fired'". The guy knew that he hadn't been doing his job, so he agreed to "quit" and that was that.

After recounting those two stories, I'm actually a little depressed. It's so hard to hire good people. It's nearly impossible to fire the worst people. If that's not the recipe for a sinking ship I don't know what is...

There are, of course, a number of offenses that can get you fired right away - stealing Government property, physically assaulting someone while at work, selling secrets to a foreign country, etc. but unfortunately the people who deserve to get fired know better than to do any of those.

I guess the question that remains to be seen is: can I be fired for writing this blog? It would be an interesting court case, that's for sure. Just to be on the safe side, do me a favor - if you think you know who I am or where I work, keep it a secret when you send the blog to your friends. Thanks!

I'm Still Here

Today they made me take down my "Wall of Awesomeness". The "Wall of Awesomeness" was where I hung all of my meaningless certificates from the countless online training modules and other pointless events that I've completed over the last 2.5 years. Anyone who ever came into my cube would immediately notice how awesome I was. That's how impressive the "Wall of Awesomeness" was.

When I switched cubicles a few weeks ago for my rotation, I didn't bother to take down all of these certificates (32 in total, meaning that I've earned an average of 1 certificate per month! Huzzah!). But now it seems that they've found someone to temporarily do my job while I'm temporarily doing someone else's job... so I had to completely clean out my old cube. I'd rehang them in my new cubicle, but the person who used to sit here will be reclaiming her old work space in 2 weeks. So I will soon be homeless - what's the point of decorating?

When I was cleaning out my old cubicle, I found an old staff directory from shortly after I started working here. I've been looking at the names on this list for the last hour wondering, wishing, dreaming about the people who once worked here. There were 57 employees on staff in my office when I first started in June 2005. Of the 57, 29 of them no longer work here. That means that a whopping 51% of the people who were here when I started have left! In the last 2.5 years! Talk about a high turnover rate... Of the 29 who were able to escape this place, 3 retired and 2 were fired (I'll write a post about how painfully difficult it was to fire these two people next week). The other 24 must have realized that there are far better options available than staying here.

How do I feel knowing that I'm one of the surviving 49%? Lazy and apathetic. I guess that explains a lot...

Fun With Dick and George

Every morning when I walk in the building, this is what greets me:


Yep, big pictures of the President and Vice President, in gold frames, right when you walk in the door!

Cheney’s smirk makes me feel like he’s giving me a personal greeting every single morning: “Who’s your daddy?? Yeah that’s right… I’m your daddy. Welcome to work!”

If they really wanted me to feel good about working here, they should take down those two pictures and hang this one instead:



***UPDATE***
I have been asked if those are the actual photos of George and Dick that hang in the entry way, or if I just chose the worst/most evil looking shots I could find for comic effect. I assure you, those are 100% the same shots that greet me every morning. Which leads to only one conclusion - it's impossible for Vice President Cheney not to look maniacal.

Work (?) Week

I have a 3 day work week this week - it’s pretty rad. Monday was President’s Day (ok, technically it's called "Washington's Birthday", thank you very much section 6103(a) of title 5 of the United States Code). So obviously as a Fed I didn’t have to report to work. And this Friday is my day off (compressed work schedule rules!). Tuesday, my boss was out sick so I had very little to do. Today and tomorrow I’m in training. If you’re keeping score at home, I guess technically you could argue that this is a 1 day work week for me, sandwiched by two 3-day weekends and a 2-day siesta (training = mental naptime). It feels like I’m barely working this week!

I love having days like President’s Day off. In college, the ONLY holiday we observed was Martin Luther King Jr. Day. None of this “Columbus Day” foolishness. Veterans Day? Yeah right! Having President’s Day off got me thinking about all of the other days off that Federal employees get.

For example, there are 10 Federal Holidays (sometimes 11 if Christmas falls on a Tuesday like in 2007). Additionally, every Fed gets at a minimum of 4 hours of vacation time each pay period (26 pay periods a year = 13 vacation days). Once you’ve been a Fed for 3 years, this jumps up to 6 hours per pay period (19.5 vacation days annually). And if you make it to 15 years of Federal service, you get 8 hours of annual leave per pay period (26 vacation days a year!). On top of that, my compressed work week schedule gives me one Friday off every 2 weeks (another 26 days off!). If I choose to work on my “day off”, I can bank the hours as “comp time” and use them whenever I want.

Right off the bat, an entry level employee working a compressed work week schedule has 49 days off in their first year. And that’s not even counting sick leave (an additional 13 days, bringing the total to 62 days off). If you used it all (plus sick leave) in one year, you’d only actually be working for 9 months out of 12… as an entry level employee! Stick around for 15 years, your total jumps to 75 days off earned per year (the equivalent of 15 five day work weeks). Can it possibly get better?

If you’re like my boss, you like to save your vacation days instead of use them. At the end of any given year, you’re only allowed to carry over 240 hours of vacation (30 days). He carries this full amount over every year – he’s simply gets so much leave that he cannot possibly get rid of it all. But, if he were to take all of his days off in a 12 month period, here’s how ridiculous it would be:

30 banked vacation days + 26 earned vacation days + 10 Federal holidays + 26 compressed work days + 13 sick days = 105 days off in one year. That’s the equivalent of 21 five day work weeks. He could essentially take over five months off in one calendar year! And he wouldn’t miss a penny of his GS-15 salary ($142,227). Feels like barley working indeed…

The Water Cooler Club

Two posts ago, I made a reference to the "Water Cooler Club" that has raised some questions. Well, specifically one question: "What's the Water Cooler Club?"

If you work in the private sector, you probably take advantage of lots of "freebies" that us public sector employees don't get. Coffee and bagels at morning meetings... office sponsored dinners or happy hours... holiday parties... birthday cakes... farewell luncheons... and of course, the beloved water cooler.

Every office I've ever worked in has had a water cooler. But I never realized, until becoming a Fed, that those gigantic jugs of Deer Park and those useless cone-shaped paper cups (you can't put a cone-shaped cup of water down anywhere! why!?!) cost a pretty penny.

(Cone shaped cups - useless.)

The companies I've worked for, from gigantic multi-national retailers to small research organizations, always picked up the bill for water. Not so for the Federal Government! If we want to drink from the water cooler, we have to pay to join the "Water Cooler Club" ($10-15 a month).

It makes sense - why should your tax dollars cover my drinking water at work? Why should your tax dollars be used to pay for my breakfast meetings, birthday parties, or farewell luncheons? (If you are asking "Why should your tax dollars pay for me to sit around and write this blog?" then we are no longer friends.) Because we are such good stewards of the American public's money, we have to cough up some cash every time we have an event. Yesterday we had a farewell celebration for a coworker who moved on to another job. In order to pay for the party, my coworker Ismail devised the following contribution payment scheme:

GS 14-15: $5 or more.
GS 13: $4 or more
GS 12: $3 or more
GS 11: $2 or more
GS 9: $1 or more
GS 0-8: you are too poor to pay for anything.

With the out-of-pocket funds that everyone contributed, we gave her a send-off of cookies and juice in the conference room!

Maybe I'm just whining, but over time these small contributions add up. There's an average of 2 occasions where I am *asked* to contribute each month. They usually run about $3-5 each, sometimes up to $10-15 depending on the event. That's over $100 contributed every year to pay for events that would be free in the private sector. Think of all the beer that could get me! And it would be even more if I joined the "Water Cooler Club" - over $200 annually!

That’s why I have a Brita pitcher, and it suits me just fine.

Clothes Make the Man?

Monday was the second day in my Federal career that I wore a suit to work. I actually like wearing a suit from time to time - it makes me feel important. Suits are like a British accents - they give you instant credibility that you didn't earn and probably don't deserve. That's why all of my managers are always so well dressed!

The dress code at FederalEntity is technically Business Casual. In practice, it ranges from "homeless" to "black tie" depending on the individual:

The Politicos - These employees are either politically appointed, they are a staffer for someone who is politically appointed, or they are a high level manager or director who reports directly to someone who is politically appointed. The men always wear suits; the women wear whatever you call those power-pant-suit getups. This group reminds me of the stereotypical 1920's workforce - jackets, ties, and bowler hats.

The Middle-Managers - There are two sectors here - "Risers" and "Dead-Ends". "Risers" are middle-managers who will shortly be promoted to the Politicos level. They are smart and talented and are dressed to impress (always suits) as they climb the ladder. "Dead-Ends" are middle-managers who somehow got their management level jobs through luck, by accident, or simply by sticking around long enough. They have no chance of moving up the ladder any further than they already have. They are clearly in over their heads, so they dress very nicely to try to cover it up (a la my British accent reference). While they may look alike, it's quite easy to tell the difference between "Risers" and "Dead-Ends"... just ask them a work-related question...

The Workers - These are the employees who do the grunt work that makes the government wheels turn ever so slowly. The dress code for this group is business casual – maybe a little more relaxed on Fridays and during the summer. For the most part, the “workers” are trapped in cubicles all day with nobody to impress. If they have an important meeting, they'll snazzy their dress up a little - maybe a tie or something. If they have a REALLY important meeting - a suit. But don't expect them to get dressy more than 3 times per month. There's no reason to "dress to impress" on a daily - most of the workers aren't yet eligible to become managers tenure-wise, so what's the point?

The Gave-Ups - These are the "workers" who have given up on their dreams. They are content with making absurd government salaries and not doing any work. They never have important meetings. They have no chance of advancing to the management level. In essence, they're just showing up to collect their paychecks until they can retire. They wear jeans, sweatshirts, tshirts with weird logos and designs on them, shorts, sandals, burlap sacks...

I'd classify myself as a "worker" (don't laugh!), although my dress standards have steadily declined over the last 2.5 years. I wore a suit on my very first day at FederalEntity - orientation day. I quickly realized that it was absurd and unnecessary. For my first year, I wore khakis and button downs and kept a tie in my desk for emergencies. Eventually, I started wearing jeans on Fridays. Then my coworker Kevin and I embraced the policy of "Casual Footwear Fridays", which allowed us to wear sneakers, sandals, Crocs, etc. Then I started to wear sandals every day during the warm months, and switched from button-downs to short-sleeved polo shirts. Then it was jeans, sandals, and a polo every day - I became a "gave-up". But my new (temporary) job has me hobnobbing with the politicos, so for the time being it's back to dressing respectably. Until summertime, at least, then all bets are off!

UPDATE:
The following was written by a friend who is also a Fed - apparently I missed a category. Thanks for the catch!

"Federal Divas." These are the support staff who, no matter what day of the week, wear their best clubbing outfits and gold hoop earings. They often wear shirts that are too small with ridiculous seaquins and shiny print as well as boots with six inch heals over the bottoms of their bebe jeans (often just a size too small). You never know of it their going to make a copy or drop it like its hot.

Coworker Profile: Frank

There are a ton of fascinatingly strange people who work in the Federal Government, moreso than I have encountered in my private sector work experiences. I think this is caused by the fact that it's impossible to fire anybody in the government. There is nothing to deter federal employees from growing weirder and weirder as the years go by. The most intriguing example of this is my coworker Frank.

Frank works part-time on my team, and part-time on another team. He's been floating around our division for the last 10 years or so - the managers take turns having him on their staff. It's not that he's a bad worker, or even that he's stupid or cantankerous - in all of my encounters with him he has been quite the opposite. Frank's main problem is that he has a horrible short-term memory (which he personally attributes to his heavy drug use in the 60s and 70s). If you tell him something in the hallway, he'll forget it by the time he returns to his desk. The most effective way to get Frank to do something for you is to send him an email. Although he has also been known to forget to check his email for days at a time...

Frank is so intriguing because he has a never-ending supply of amazing stories. Every time I talk to Frank, he reveals another fascinating tidbit about his past. He is easily the most interesting person I have ever met (assuming that everything he says is true, which I strongly believe is the case). I will share the ones that I can remember:

- He was one of the original groupies of the band "ZZ Top", way back before they had beards
- He once worked at a kosher butcher shop and knows all about different cuts of meat
- He was one of the original skateboarders in Santa Monica, California - he used to hang around with the guys from Dogtown and Z-boys
- He worked in a box factory
- He used to drive a truck that delivered live fish to restaurants
- He has an MBA with concentrations in finance and accounting
- He used to write test questions for a standardized test company
- He speaks an African tribal dialect fluently
- He was once a school teacher in California
- He spent 3 years dumping garbage bags of fish (transported by bicycle) into lakes and ponds in the Congo
- He runs a non-profit organization that fights for the rights of Veterans (he is not a Veteran)
- He is close friends with a member of the band "The Monkees"
- He has written a novel about an African tribe where the tribesmen ritualistically pretend to transform into crocodiles (including a sex scene between a woman and a crocodile-man)

Those are just the ones I could remember off the top of my head - my coworkers will chime in with more, I'm sure. He's such an interesting character; it's a shame that he now spends his days lost in a cubicle farm. The only remnant of his free-spirit, Peace Corps. hippy past is his green thumb. Frank is a horticulture fiend - he has covered all of the windowsills in all of the office suites on our floor with cacti and other small plants. He spends at least an hour watering them every day… with water from the water cooler! No wonder it costs $20 a month to join the "water cooler club"!

Other Updates:

- Crazy secretary lady is now selling bootleg DVDs. She has a spreadsheet with hundreds of available titles, many of which are still out in theaters. My staff director bought some.

- I have officially moved into my new cube. It only took 2.5 days to get my computer moved across the hall! In the process, I think I started a turf war between the two IT guys.

- Government-wide 3.5% pay raises went into effect on this week's paycheck! An entry-level employee now makes $39,330!

- My annual performance evaluation is tomorrow. Should be a blast!

Quote of the Week:
"If I worked for a bunch of retarded monkeys, I'd at least be able to train them to give me the information that I need" - coworker, referring to management.

New Job (kinda...)!

Today I started a new job here at FederalEntity. Yes, after doing the same 10 tasks over and over again for 2.5 years, I was finally offered the chance to try something new - I'm going on a detail!

In the Government, such opportunities are called "Detail Assignments" or "Details". Essentially, a detail is a 3-6 month work assignment in another office, (occasionally even at another FederalEntity). You go to that office, learn some new skills, and then return home to your original, miserable job. If you're an ambitious Fed, it's a great way to gain work experience to round out your resume and move up the ladder. If you're an underachiever, it's a great way to underperform in a new setting when your staff director starts hassling you too much about your poor performance. This is the dilemma for Staff Directors when assessing potential detail candidates, because they all fall into two groups: they are either stellar employees or they are on thin ice at their old job and looking to escape for a bit. I'd like to think I'm stellar (although I'm definitely looking to escape)!

My old boss promised me that if I stayed around here for 2 years, he'd let me go on detail to which ever office I wanted. To his credit, he's stuck to that promise even though our team is severely understaffed at the moment. Our team is fully staffed at 7 employees, but with my departure will be down to 3. Sucks for my coworker Kathy...

So how did my first day on the new job go? Well, this morning I showed up 2.5 hours before my new boss so I sat around reading the newspaper all morning. I got chastised by two IT guys about trying to move my computer to my new cubicle (my new desk is literally 50 human paces down the hall from my old desk, but apparently I need a waiver to move my computer or something...). And I've received 6 phone calls and probably 20 emails from people who don't know that I'm on detail and/or still expect me to be doing my old job.

Regardless, I'm still pretty excited and don't worry, I'm sure I'll have some more fun stories to share soon. Like I said in my very first post: regardless of where you work in the Federal Government, it's always the same monkeys running the show.

The IT Guy

This morning I was locked out of my computer for 2 hours. I arrived at 7:05 AM today (almost on time!) and had to sit in my cube staring at the wall until 9:00 AM when the IT guy called me. As I mention in the "Cast of Characters" panel to the left, the IT guy hates me.

Whenever I tell coworkers this, they always say "Qari hates you?? He's always sooooo nice to me!" And indeed, I've seen him interact with other people and he's always nice and friendly and cheerful with them. But with me, nope! He won't even look at me when we pass each other in the halls. He'll speak to me from my coworker's cube rather than come into mine. He responds at the drop of a hat for everyone else, but no such luck for me! He actually got in at 8:30 AM this morning, I know because I heard him come in. I left a huge note on his keyboard requesting his immediate assistance, but he waited until 9:00 AM to reset my password. To kill time, I did both the crossword puzzle and sudoku.

So why does Qari hate me? It all stems back to my 2nd day here at FederalEntity. The computer that was provided for me when I first started in 2005 was a real crapbox. It was a Pentium 3 (Pentium 4 came out in 2000, just for reference) and it had a floppy disk drive. Remember floppy disks?? Anyways, this computer was super old and it was painfully slow. It took almost a full minute to open up simple MS Word documents. PDFs? Forget about it!

I told my boss that my computer was really really slow, and he asked the IT guy Qari if he would look into getting me a new PC. I'm not sure if Qari was just having a bad day, or if he wanted to show the "new kid" who was boss, but upon receiving this request from my boss he completely flipped out. He stormed down to my cube, accused me of lying and exaggerating about how slow my computer was, then went into my boss' office and scolded him for having the audacity to request a new PC.

My second day and I had already been spurned for making a simple and completely reasonable request. Foreshadowing for the rest of my Federal career???

To make a long story short, my boss told his boss about the incident, and Quari (who is a contractor) got into some kind of trouble with his contracting company. I was assured by several levels of management that such an incident would never happen again. And from that day on, Qari has made every effort possible to hate me without verbalizing his disdain.

In general, I'm fine with it, although it's really awkward when I run into him in the men's room.

Blue Shirt Day!!

Today, two of my coworkers and I accidentally wore strikingly similar light blue shirts to work. Of course, this warranted us having our picture taken:

(faces have been changed to protect the bored)

Sadly, this will undoubtedly be the highlight of my work week.

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!

Holiday Party!

It's taken me over two weeks to come to terms with our 2007 holiday party. Immediately after the party, I wanted to run back to my desk, write an expletave filled rant, smash my computer, and storm out of the office never to return again. I decided instead to go on Christmas vacation, relax, and then once I'd come to terms with everything, write just a simple presentation of the facts. Without further ado:

Our holiday party cost $13 per person to attend. It was held in the conference room at the end of our hall, from 12:00 - 2:30 PM. On a Tuesday. There was a buffet of turkey, ham, mashed potatoes, macaroni & cheese, and stuffing all served slightly above room temperature (this is what the $13 paid for). The meal was not catered by a restaurant or professional caterer, but a woman who works in another office on our floor and does it as a hobby. Dessert was NOT included. Instead, there was a "dessert contest" that forced employees to spend their time and $$ to prepare dessert for everyone else (very clever of the organizers - keep those costs low!). There were not enough spots for everyone in our office to sit down and eat. Some people ate while standing up, others simply grabbed food, went back to their desks to eat, and never returned. Holiday music was played from an iPod hooked up to computer speakers. For entertainment, we played a game of "Name That Christmas Song" and had a "Wrapping Paper Fashion Show" (3 teams designed "clothing" made out of wrapping paper and then modeled them). Winners of these games received holiday coffee mugs. And most importantly, there was NO alcohol this year, because the party planning committee didn't bother to get the proper request forms signed (you need a special approval form to bring booze into a Federal building). After the party was over, everyone returned to their desks to work. The big bosses even scheduled important meetings for the rest of the afternoon that several of my coworkers were forced to attend.

Government holiday parties are inherently lame. The Government can't subsidize our holiday parties with your tax dollars, and nobody wants to pay a ton of cash from their own pockets for an office party, so there is little to work with. But I never could have imagined that a holiday party would make me want to quit! Sadly, the biggest disappointment was the lack of booze. Usually, I go into the holiday party with the mindset of "well this is gonna suck, but at least I can get drunk". Take away the booze, and all you have left is the suck.

Side note: Remember the college friend from a few posts back who got hired as a Contractor instead of as a regular Federal employee? His holiday party last year -- Black tie gala at the Ritz Carlton. Yep...

Secretaries

I mentioned in an earlier post that I've had 5 staff directors since I've been here. I've also had 5 secretaries in my office. We don't really need a secretary as far as I'm concerned - we have a Copy Boy who does all of our copies, faxes, and deliveries. The secretary seems to just sit around all day, talking on the phone.

Secretary #1 - She was here when I started. She was young-ish, seldom at her desk, and ALWAYS seemed to be talking to someone on the phone. I used to think that she was really busy with work, but a coworker who sat near her said that all she did was call her friends who were secretaries in other offices and gossip with them. Kind of like how cab drivers are always on the phone with other cab drivers. She would also make bold statements that I never knew how to respond to like: "Sorry I'm moving slow today, I was up until 4am crying and screaming at my boyfriend." Current location: secretary at another FederalEntity.

Secretary #2 - This woman was just downright strange. She always had a weird plastic-clown smile on her face. Whenever you asked her to do something she would say, with a weird plastic-clown smile on her face, that she understood exactly what you wanted and seemed really excited and eager to do it. But then it would take her a long time to complete the task and she would mess it up. She always assumed responsibility for her gaffes at least, and apologized profusely. With a weird plastic-clown smile on her face. I have no idea what she's doing now (birthday parties?).

Secretary #3 - This one was a male and he hated to be called a "secretary". "Executive assistant", he would interject immediately when someone would say the word secretary. He was probably 20 years old. He would eat Five Guys cheeseburgers at least 3 days a week. He also wore some ridiculously office-inappropriate clothing. Like huge sweaters that said "Sean John" in giant bright letters, or saggy jeans and Timberland boots with a chain wallet. He was also a wannabe Slam poet. He left to go back to school, and I am friends with him on Facebook.

Secretary #4 - I don't have much to say about our fourth secretary. In 6 months I don't think I ever heard her say a word. She just sat at her desk looking bored out of her mind and playing solitaire. Seemed pretty miserable to me. Then one day she was gone, never to be spoken of again.

Secretary #5 - Our current secretary. She is a tough cookie (used to be a NYC bus driver). She'll tell you what's what and will make you regret that you ever asked her to do something for you. During this past summer, she would bring her kids in 1-2 days a week and they would just sit in an empty cubicle all day. She leaves scary custody battle lawsuit papers on the printer. I could write pages about how interesting she is, but I'll leave it to this one conversation I had with her on October 31st:

me: Happy Halloween!
secretary: (defiantly) Naaah-uh, I don't celebrate Halloween.
me: (silence)
secretary: I celebrate The Harvest.
me: (puzzled) Uh, well then, Happy Harvest!
secretary: (frustrated) The Harvest is NEXT week.

Tomorrow: Government Non-Religious Holiday Party!

Office Crazies

There are lots of crazy characters working in the Government. And while there are surely crazy people in any office setting, the nut jobs in the Federal Government are 10x crazier because they can't get fired! There's nothing to reel them in - nothing to keep them rooted to reality. The old-timers tend to be especially askew - years of mindless work can destroy one's brain.

For example: there's this one guy in our office who is absurdly territorial. If he's working on a project, he doesn't want anyone to help him or give him feedback out of fear that they might, um, steal his glory I guess. He always wants to know what you're working on - just to be sure that you're not infringing upon his projects. He even gets steaming mad if he's not CC'd on emails are barely pertinent to him. This territoriality spills over into other aspects of office life as well.

He strangely feels that he has the right to leave his dirty dishes in the office kitchen sink for days, and even SCREAMED at my coworker who had the nerve to ask him to wash them (it's HIS sink I guess...). Another time, he yelled at our secretary for printing a very important memo on "HIS" color printer. Our office has 3 color printers in various locations, but in this guy's mind you are only allowed to print to the printer that's nearest to you. Anything else is an infringement of space and property.

The printer incident set me off. We all work for the same boss - I should be able to print to whatever printer I want. And if the color printer near me is broken (which is has been for the last several months), I'm going to have to print elsewhere.

So to get him back, I started printing on "HIS" printer as frequently as possible. Oh, and I would only print pictures of puppies...

I would find the cutest puppy I could on the internet, blow it up in MS Word, and then send a couple of copies to his printer and just leave them there. I did this 3-4 times a week for about a month.

My coworker John was in on the prank towards the end. He sits right near the disputed printer, and every time he would find a puppy picture sitting in the printer bin he'd loudly proclaim "Who keeps printing these damn puppy pictures on our printer?? They're wasting all our toner!" This would inevitably set crazy printer guy off. He would even tack the pictures to the wall right by the printer to serve as a mocking reminder.

Did it teach him a lesson? Probably not. But it taught me a lesson. A lesson I have since forgotten.

An Exercise in Futility

I frequently get asked by friends and acquaintances: "I have a friend who wants a job at FederalEntity. Can I send you their resume?" My answer is always "You can send it to me, but there's absolutely nothing I can do to help them get a job here." Allow me to explain.

When our office has a vacancy, we contact our HR department (notoriously awful), who prepares a vacancy announcement - a generic document that briefly lists what we do and who we are looking to hire. The announcement is sent to the Office of Personnel Management (OPM, a separate FederalEntity) who eventually posts it on USAJobs.gov. Everybody and their mother can then apply to the vacancy with a few clicks of their mouse.

After 2 weeks, the announcement closes on USAJobs.gov. Someone in OPM (on the West Coast, no less...) then takes the hundreds of submitted applications and ranks them on a 100 point scale. You get an automatic 10 bonus points if you are a veteran. For those of you keeping score at home - all of our applicants are ranked based on a vague position description by someone 3 timezones away who has no clue what my office is, what we really do, or what type of person we are hoping to hire!

We've gone through this process 5 times in my 2.5 years here, and each time the list of suggested candidates that we get from OPM is shockingly awful. They supply us with the "top 3" point earners who we have to interview, and if all of these candidates are unsatisfactory, sometimes we can request to see the "next 3" on the list. However, it's extremely difficult (read: impossible) to justify hiring someone from the "next 3" list over someone from the "top 3".

Blah blah blahhhh, what does this all mean? Well, last time around we had an applicant with undergraduate and graduate degrees in physics and applied mathematics from great schools, plus great work experience. For some stupifying reason, she was ranked #4. All of our "top 3" candidates were horrible. Eventually 2 withdrew (found other jobs?), but the guy who was ranked #1 really wanted the job. He had been a plumber for 30 years, had never really used a computer, never worked with Excel (that's all I do all day long), and his writing sample had 13 typos on the first page (including the misspelling of his company's name!). He was ranked #1 partly because I think he "exaggerated" some things on his application, plus he was a veteran. Our request to skip over him to hire the #4 applicant was rejected by OPM. The reason? It was an entry-level job opening, and those skills that we claimed he clearly did not have (computers/excel/writing?) were learnable! We could hire them both if we wanted to, but we couldn't skip #1 and hire just #4.

This was over a year ago, and that vacancy still has not been filled. In 5 tries over 2.5 years, we've only successfully hired 1 new person. In that same timespan, 3 people have retired, quit, or moved to other offices. Ever get the feeling like you're on a sinking ship?

Coming up on Wednesday: How I became a Fed and how my friend didn't.

Too young to die

Yesterday I had a moment where I very briefly but very seriously considered jumping out of a window.

My office is in the process of hiring new people to join our staff. We have several openings that we're trying to fill and a list of about 15 potential candidates. We are giving everyone a 30 minute preliminary phone interview, and we will invite the people who impress us in for an hour-long personal interview.

Yesterday we conducted 5 of these interviews. It's really true what they say - almost everyone on the interview panel makes up their mind about the interviewee within the first 3 minutes. This oftentimes results in the next 27 minutes being quite painful. Bad interviews aside, allow me to recount a moment of Government ridiculousness:

One of the people applying for the permanent Federal job (lets call her Tami) currently works in our office as an outside technology contractor. Tami sits about 8 cubes away from me (she could hear me right now if I were to shout her name). I thought - "Oh great, at least we get to do ONE of these interviews in person rather than over the phone". Au contraire... In the Government hiring process, everything has to be fair and equal! The same staff members have to sit in on all interviews. The exact same list of questions must be asked to all candidates. And yep, if you're doing phone interviews, ALL candidates must be interviewed by phone.

So at 2 p.m. the 4 other members of the hiring panel and I filed into my staff director's office and called up Tami (who was sitting no more than 40 yards away, seriously) for her phone interview. When the half-hour phone interview was up, I walked out of my staff director's office and at the other end of the office suite, I saw just-interviewed-Tami walking out of her office. This moment of absurdity left me completely flustered. I quickly looked away, saw the window, and for 0.00001 second pondered hurling myself through the glass. I imagined myself falling towards my death screaming "Whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!"

Instead, I went to Starbucks. MUCH more on the Federal hiring process coming soon...

It's Official!

Today I released this blog to the general public. I've been working (slowly) on it for a few months, but wanted to get some thoughts written down before telling the whole world.

You may have stumbled upon the Federal Wasteland randomly. Perhaps a friend or coworker sent you the link. Maybe I sent it to you myself. Who knows how the information superhighway works. Regardless, let it be noted here:

1. Everything written here is true. My coworkers read it, so I can't lie.

2. Feel free to pass this blog on to anyone (but refrain from using my real name/workplace if you know it, you know, so I don't get fired...). Actually, let me rephrase that: It is your DUTY as an American to send the link on to everyone you know. Technically, you're paying for it.

3. Also go ahead and make comments if you'd like.

4. Now that I've released it to the public, I'll try to update 1-2 times a week, so check back for more on how your tax dollars are being flushed down the drain!

What's the Password?

I have 16 separate passwords for work. Yes, 16: Computer log-on, network access, email, office instant messenger, voicemail, financial mainframe, financial system, timesheet reporting, electronic pay-stub, web-based data report tool, web-based data storage, financial planning system, travel system, electronic file cabinet, room reservation tool, e-learning site.

I would have no problem with this password overkill if I could use the same password in all sixteen instances. However, some of the passwords listed above have annoying requirements, which oftentimes conflict with others. Some must include a number, a symbol, a capital letter, and no string of consecutive letters that form a word found in a dictionary. Some passwords are numerical only. Some of the passwords are just "assigned" to the user and never change. Some of the passwords are linked to other passwords (so when you change one password, you unwittingly change 3 other passwords without notification). One system briefly had a requirement that passwords be in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. Fourteen of my 16 passwords must be at least 8 characters long, but none can be longer than 10.

When I first started working here, I devised a single password that met all the password requirements for all of the systems. I thought I was a genius! Little did I know that each system has a different "valid for" period, which quickly rendered my super-password useless. Some passwords need to be changed every 6 months, most are valid for 90 days, several expire every 45 days, and 2 of them never have to be changed. These varying timetables, applied over the last 2.5 years on a constantly rotating basis, have led to my passwords becoming really f--d up!

I would say that I currently have 5 major passwords, spread across the various systems. But there's no logic to how I have them grouped. All of my financial passwords are different. All of my Lotus Notes based passwords are different. I literally have no clue what my electronic file cabinet password is (starting 6 months ago we were supposed to save copies of ALL important emails using this system - orders from the President!). To keep it all straight, I have a sheet of paper tucked away in a desk drawer that lists all of my passwords for each system. Yes, I understand that keeping a written list of my passwords right next to my computer defeats the purpose of having passwords and/or rotating passwords so often. But it's way better than forgetting one!

My coworker forgot her password to the financial system this morning. Up to 50% of our day is spent working in this system. She has sent several emails and even called the system helpdesk to try to get her password reset, but as it turns out there are only 2 people in the whole FederalEntity that have the power to do so. One is on vacation today, and the other isn't answering his phone (he's probably out as well). So it looks like she's off the hook on a lot of work until tomorrow. Hmm, now that I think about it, forgetting a password doesn't sound so bad!

A Mobile Workforce

Over a year ago I was told that I would be receiving a laptop computer. You see, during the Great Pandemic Bird Flu scare of 2006, all government entities were directed to come up with what they call a Continuity of Operations Plan (COOP) - a backup plan to keep everything running in case something catastrophic happens. My boss and I were deemed "essential" employees (hah!), meaning that if some doomsday event hits, we still have to come to work so that the FederalEntity can keep running. What our FederalEntity would do during such a doomsday event is beyond me... Regardless, in the case of a pandemic flu they advise everyone to stay locked up in their homes. If this ever happens, my entire staff has been picked as being "important" enough to be forced to work from home, so the Government has to supply us with computers.

Thus began our great quest to get laptops. The laptops were ordered by the IT staff from a technology vendor that gave them a great price quote. But alas, the deal could not be completed because that vendor was not approved to sell computers to the Federal Government. Apparently there is some list of approved vendors, and they were not on it. Instead of finding a new vendor to buy the laptops from, the IT folks just waited until the original vendor found a way to get onto the approved vendor list (6 months).

The computers were finally ordered and paid for, but then they were on back-order so we had to wait for them to be shipped (2 months). When they arrived in our office, our IT chief took them to load them up with the proper software. There they sat (4 months), just out of my reach. I assume there were issues with installing the computer programs and setting up the proper firewalls and such, but the IT chief hates my guts so I never bothered to ask him what the delay was. Our precious laptops sat, neglected and unloved, for so long that at one point it was reported that they had been stolen! They were found under a pile of boxes the following week.

Then last week came the good news - we were finally getting our laptops! This event ranks in the top 10 greatest letdowns of my life. After such a build-up – over a year! - I was thoroughly disappointed when I finally got it in my hands. I was hoping for a sweet new Mac (nope) or maybe even a sleek little Dell Notebook (nope), but instead my laptop is a huge, clunky 14" Acer. Acer is the generic crapbox computer - it's what you'd get if you crossed an iBook with a refrigerator. They couldn’t GIVE these things out to poor children in Africa. A total bummer!

The icing on the cake: as I was handed my laptop, I was told that I couldn't bring it home yet! I needed to get a "property pass" first. To get a property pass, you have to provide a receipt to prove that the Government owns the item in question. And of course, the receipts for our laptops had been lost! So close I could taste it!

Yesterday, I finally received my property pass and after a process that took over a year (glad that whole pandemic flu thing didn't pan out, huh?), I'm get to bring my laptop home today! I'm fully convinced that once I get it home, I will have password issues and I won't be able to connect to any of our systems or servers. Essentially, it will be a paperweight. But at least I HAVE it, that's what matters, right? And lets be honest, I'm never actually gonna use it to do work…