This is my final day as a Classified Civil Servant, the end of a 25 year career. At least LASERS says it's 25 years. Their calculations work in the employee's favor. That doesn't happen much in Civil Service (common knowledge to the contrary) but I feel I should give credit where credit is due.
Since I have just reminded myself that it has been a 25 year career, I hope you will indulge a little stroll down memory lane. (I started the first draft of this about a quarter to ten this morning, intending that little stroll to be a brief recap of my civil service career. By two in the afternoon it had turned out to be a memoir of my first interview. It may show up around the 2nd of April, but right now I'm going to try to find my way back to the original path.)
I started with Civil Service on April 4th 1990, as a Human Resource Development Specialist (that's a trainer) for the Corrections Training Academy. (We trained Correctional Officers, not inmates. Some people have trouble wrapping their minds around that. Others aren't sure of the difference between the two.) Anyway, I really enjoyed the job, but after about 2 years there were some budget cuts and my position was eliminated. I had a few options, but the one I chose was to become a Correctional Officer and continue at the Academy doing pretty much the same thing I had been doing (except I had to shave and wear a uniform.) That lasted for about a year, but around November of 1993 I had the opportunity to go to Big Charity Hospital in New Orleans as a Network Technician.
(I see another path leading off to the side here, but I'm going to try to stay on the main road.)
I found a semi-furnished, relatively inexpensive one bedroom apartment in the French Quarter, a short 15 block stroll from Big Charity, and started learning IT. (Yes, started learning, but that story is down the path I just avoided.) I stayed there for a little over 5 years (or as I counted time at the time, 6 Mardi Gras.)
There were political changes in the wind again, and I began looking for someplace to go. I had over 7 years in Civil Service and I wanted to get my 10 in so I would be vested in the retirement system. (Nobody 'splained to me back then that I coulda bought five.) I didn't have much luck until mid-1998, when I got an inquiry from the Louisiana Ethics Administration Program. I went to Baton Rouge for an interview, and had a good feeling about it. (I started to compare it to my interview at Angola, but that story is down the first side path, you probably won't hear it 'til later. I also seem to have failed to mention HERE that the Corrections Academy is located at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. April.)
Anyway, back at Big Charity..., I had an office. I had been detailed as Network Technician Supervisor for a year. The detail expired, but I kept the duties. So it goes. I was in the aforesaid office and my phone rang. It was JoAnn Johnson, Executive Secretary of the Ethics Board, asking when I could start. Actually she asked if I would take the job, and I said yes. When I hung up the phone I felt a great sense of relief. Since I had no idea what I was getting into, which should have been stressful, I knew I had made the right decision.
As I said, JoAnn asked when I could start. I had a bunch of stuff I was involved in at Big Charity. Ethics had a problem: they had one IT person (actually, she was an investigator who liked computers, had taken on the duties, and learned enough to get a private sector IT job before the Ethics Board managed to get an IT position) who was leaving in a couple of weeks.
Everyone needs to know the HR people. There is always one who knows how to do what needs to be done. I went to the HR Director at Big Charity to see what I could do. I wanted to give them 2 weeks, but I needed to spend a week learning the Ethics systems from someone who'd be gone by then.
SO..., on July 1, 1998 (start of the fiscal year is always nice) I started at the Ethics Administration Program, learning from Betty, who would be leaving at the end of the week. There were a couple of others leaving then too. (I also learned that a relative of mine had left a couple of months before I got there.) Anyway I spent a week at Ethics, then went back to Big Charity for two more weeks before settling into Ethics for good.
More so than I had planned. I remember telling them when I got there my plan was to make my 10 years, get vested in the retirement system, then find an IT job in the private sector. That was 6072 days ago. (Not counting today. That's 16 years, 7 months, 13 days.)
So, even though I've been with Civil Service for 24 years, 10 months, 10 days LASERS rounds that up to 25 years, and at midnight tonight I will be retired.
YOU KIDS GET OFF MY LAWN!
(And Happy Valentine's Day!)
