longer.blue

I always cared about the environment. But when I was hired for FEMA, one of the first things someone at DHS told me during orientation was “You know everyone here hates you, right?”. Apparently, the Environmental and Historic Preservation branch was despised by many within FEMA because we are one of the last lines of defense and do a lot of compliance checks. More so than my previous jobs, I was good at what I was hired for and I was pushing out projects for flood damaged areas every week. Some projects over $1 million dollars for school districts, irrigation systems, roads, bridges. I was only hired as a reservist and my coworkers were pushing me to apply to work full-time and be a full-time employee. I finally applied and was told I was not qualified because I needed more experience. I’m usually not ambitious but I wanted to stay so I pushed for the experience opportunities with supervisors. It’s funny, they say everything happens for a reason. I’m still not “qualified”. Maybe that’s a good thing. Sure I would’ve made more money but, because of the long probation, I also probably would’ve lost my job last week. Anonymous Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)