A-100 – Week 1

Week 1 and Weekend 1 are both over.  They often say that you’re drinking from a fire hose.  Where else have I heard that?  Oh yeah, in the Navy.  I would have to say it’s true, but somehow I just don’t feel as overwhelmed.  Maybe it’s just coming out of the school environment, maybe it’s being in the right job, but I’m not feeling as though I’m drowning in information.  I’m tired and I ache from sitting all day, but my brain is not full.  Perhaps it’s just hungry for info that I suspect I will use in my job.

Day 1 of Week 1 was in-processing – badges, benefits, and briefings.  I met folks in the lobby of Archstone Courthouse, thinking it was Oakwood Rosslyn and not really knowing the difference, and heading in.  We got to know each other in long lines and metro trips home.

The rest of the Week 1 blurred together as we learned everything from how our fate for the next few years is sealed – a complicated jigsaw puzzle of preferences, skills, luck (serendipity as they call it), and needs of the service – to how the State Department does its thing, to what happens when you leave your laptop unattended at a conference.  As you might guess, your laptop gets stolen.  It’s part of our cybersecurity awareness and training.

Overall, I’d have to say getting the bid list was exciting (Oh the Places I may go), but not the most exciting.  The most exciting was a serendipitous conversation with a fellow A-100 colleague where he said he just felt like he was in the right place with good people.  That’s how I feel, too.  It’s great to have all the benefits, but when you’re doing bad stuff – like packing bad mortgages you know will fail into a product you sell to other people just so you can bet against them – it just doesn’t nurture the soul.

Although the work I’ll do is not development in nature, there are opportunities to be involved in the US efforts to rebuild broken places and build local government capacity.  It’s heady stuff.  My work will most likely be on the visa line first, but it will lead to some cool assignments.  With that, Week 2 begins.