I worked for the Forest Service for 30 years and 0 days. Every new endeavor was a challenge created by the Bureaucracy. Fortunately I had a Purchasing Agent who would help me find loopholes. We couldn't buy computers, but there was no restrictions on computer components. We built two computers from scratch. You couldn't buy computer software. A University student who worked summers sent us software on 5 inch floppy discs. We were doing CAD work on $500 computers while the Regional Office was purchasing $20,000 CAD stations that nobody could figure out how to use.
A renegade Trimble dealer who posts on here often, figured out how to sell us a three unit 4600 GPS system that passed the IT Department's scrutiny. Our Eastside Forest Land Surveying group, which consisted of two people was the most technically advanced group in the Forest Service. We bought a plotter by calling it a digitizer verifier.
If I worked for them today, I'd probably be heading for prison.
I worked for the Forest Service for 30 years and 0 days.
I hope you got a great retirement package after that length of time!
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I tested for a federal position once.?ÿ Passed with high marks but decided that the bureaucracy would drive me crazy and ultimately passed on the offer.?ÿ I'm glad I did.
@notsomuch Yes, I've got the old CSRS retirement plan. They screwed the newer employees out of it with the FERS retirement plan. Those guys are still working.
You made a good decision. All they do now days is sit in the office and read emails.
I worked for a large State agency for a while and after a few weeks observed more than a few coworkers were pretty much worthless, away from their desks often, phones set to "leave a message",?ÿ sleeping in their cubicles, surfin' the Web, etc.?ÿ More than once I'd request some work from a slacker and be told they'd get right on it and after a few weeks realize they'd never git her done, just keep responding "Yah, I'm working on it" forever. Quicker just to do it myself.
I finally talked with my boss about my problems with some of my coworkers and he said he was well aware but crippling union policy dictated "rehabilitate, don't?ÿ terminate."?ÿ His said his practical solution was to shuffle them around to where they did the least damage and when the opportunity arose promote them to a different department.?ÿ He said the only way to quickly fire somebody was if they killed a coworker or stole something.?ÿ
The only exception I witnessed was a few months after 9/11 when the FBI hauled off a Middle Eastern employee, his computer and all his cubicle paper records, never to be seen again. Rumor was that he was a member of a US based terrorist organization; and please Wendell, I'm just reporting my observations, not denigrating any ethnic group.
An unpleasant memory of those long ago days just popped into my head.?ÿ There was a gal in charge of?ÿ supplies and she ran a tight ship.?ÿ If you wanted a pen, magic marker or pencil you had to turn in the empty pen/pencil stub to get a new one.?ÿ If, perish the thought, you needed a CD/DVD you had to fill out a form describing the reason and billable project number and in a few days she'd get back to you after checking with the project manager. I finally bought a spindle's worth with my own money to avoid the aggravation.?ÿ She was also in charge of ordering business cards and somehow we got off on the wrong foot so I never got business cards during my entire stay.
Oh, and the chair situation.?ÿ If your chair broke it was a mound of paperwork to request a new one and it could take months or even be denied if your chair was still "serviceable", i.e., only missing one wheel.?ÿ So everybody would dump their broken chair in an unused cubicle or in the back of a storage room and scrounge up a better chair from somewhere.?ÿ I had a fresh nice captain's chair (I'm 6'4") and behold, I show up one morning and my chair is gone, replaced by a cripple scrounged from junk chair storage.?ÿ I went ballistic and spent over an hour searching the entire building (600 employees) and found it in an upper level supervisor's luxurious corner office as a seat at his conference table.?ÿ I told him "that's my chair!" and he said "I don't know what you're talking about" so I grabbed the chair and told him to "talk about this" and wheeled my chair back to my cube and dumped the junker behind a gap in the cube walls.?ÿ
A few days later my supervisor called me in and told me not to mess with that guy as he's an axxhole and could make trouble for our department, but technically I did not steal so my supervisor refused to write me up.?ÿ He advised me to respond to any inquiries concerning the incident with "I don't know what you're talking about."?ÿ He then stood up, shook my hand, winked and said we'd never speak of this matter again.?ÿ I have several other chair stories including the "flying chair" and the 450 pound employee's battle for a medical chair but I'm trying to be brief.
So if you win an interview for a government job on the second face to face meeting meekly ask for a tour of the facility, be observant and if it's a beehive of activity that's a +1, but if it's as quiet as a morgue with junky equipment that's a -10.
If you are interested in this position, make sure you ask a lot of questions about current equipment, software, ability to purchase/upgrade, personnel, and ability to hire.?ÿ
You will have no ability to purchase/upgrade, personnel and ability to hire.?ÿ As a new hire Party Chief, PLS, etc., those tasks are way above your pay grade.
@bushaxeWhen I retired the Regional Office Land Surveyor showed up at the Forest Office, collected all the RTK GPS equipment and hauled it away. Nobody used it since.
That's one of the best candid and relevant postings on govt work. There's always a few great people and unfortunately gobs of mediocre and worse, pension downhill avoiders of anything work related.
The one thing that really burns my ass ( other than a 3 ft flame) is the people who state they only have 3?ÿ more years, and dont want to do too much.....
Results can vary greatly, but in general, it's hard to get larger groups of people who know/ believe they're nearly irreplaceable to get deeply motivated to really work hard, save the Military.
@holy-cow I took your advice and I am now a Cadastral Surveyor with the BLM. I still really appreciate the comment you left. God bless?ÿ
Congratulations.?ÿ Making a move of any kind mid-career is challenging.?ÿ It's good to hear you are capable of taking that challenge.
Looking for a job as a Land Surveyor? The Forest Service is hiring! The duty station is at the Regional Office in Albuquerque, New Mexico. This is a GS-1373 position. If you are interested comment your email address and I will send you the Outreach Notice.
I worked for the Forest Service when I first got out of college.?ÿ One of the most rewarding experiences of my professional career.?ÿ Very inspiring.
My sister works for USDA-Forest Service.?ÿ She runs a visitor center.?ÿ She wears the "pickle suit."
She explained their requirements for various things, the level of paperwork and beuracracy is astounding.?ÿ I thought we were bad but the Federal Government takes red tape to a whole new level.
My motto is "no purchasing," I'm not purchasing anything, don't send me to purchasing training I will refuse to go.?ÿ I told my boss last year that he needs an Analyst for that sort of thing, take one of these new positions and change it from Land Surveyor to analyst. It would make your life a whole lot easier.?ÿ What happened to the idea of having a secretary or executive assistant for mundane paperwork tasks and interfacing with the drones in accounting??ÿ Why do you have a high paid boss doing typing? It's stupid.
@skeeter1996 It is all about the word play for sure. When I had just EAS??ed out of the USMC and was a Trimble Certified Instructor an particular agency had purchased some equipment and software. ?ÿWe had given instructions on how to properly install TGO and other software and in which order. ?ÿWell when I arrived to perform my training on the Survey side non of the software would work. ?ÿADMIN Rights was not a person local and well everything was scrambled. They got me on the phone with the IT guy who passed me up the chain to another and another. Finally the Lady with the credentials gave the rights to a local person so we could uninstall and remove everything Trimble from the registry and reinstall. After 2 days of this we were finally ready to get on with TGO training. Then they had installed something on the TSCe that prevented the field guys from even using the darn thing. Was a nightmare. Bluetooth was the boogie man and windows CE net was not secure enough to hook to the computer??s. So they bought a stand alone computer one to download and then transfer via a external hard drive to the office computers.?ÿ
Ah, yes.?ÿ Security is Job #1.?ÿ Computers are the Devil's playground.?ÿ Avoid them.
I have told the story before of my days working for a Government contractor and the fight I had to go through to purchase a programmable calculator.?ÿ The highest muckety-muck in charge of all things computable up my chain of authority denied my purchase request.?ÿ I had to prove to him that all data would always be contained within that handheld calculator and not transferable in any other way.?ÿ The calculator was never to leave the property.?ÿ I also had to show him some programs I could create to greatly simplify some of the mundane tasks required under our contract.?ÿ Now, that is what sold him.
