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| Journal 17: Turning Blue |
Thank you for your patience as my blog was hidden for a few weeks. The reason for that was, in preparation of transitioning to Federal Employee Status, there were a few issues and I was asked to set my blog to private until they were resolved. I will get more into those details shortly, but I wanted to make clear that at no time was there a desire by the program to silence my voice, only to make sure regulations and policy were followed as I ended my time as a civilian contractor and student for the Human Terrain System. Throughout this blog, the security officers have been aware and (theoretically) following them, and I have now submitted my blogs for formal review and have received permission to repost them, as is with no changes whatsoever. Granted, by the end of this story you may well wonder why I care what they think about my posts, but I do. You never know how things may turn out.
At the moment I am back home in Denver, and will be for the foreseeable future. Bear with me as I explain a bit about the system so we can be on the same page when I try to get back into my life.
I began the job of Social Scientist as a contractor for BAE Systems, a defense contractor charged with recruiting for the Human Terrain System. Once hired, the plan was to transition to a government employee just prior to deployment. As many of you know, working for the Federal Government is not an easy process. It requires a series of steps, trainings, etc that are often handled by different agencies or groups. There are six such “bottlenecks” to go from independent civilian temporary employee to 14 month semi-permanent federal employee under the Department of Defense. These bottlenecks run simultaneously, so chronologically they can be relatively hard to track.
The biggest step is to pass the training. While there is minimal “grading”, there is comprehensive teamwork and product-oriented presentations throughout; each subject is considered part of the “toolkit” necessary to do our jobs downrange. “Classes” run the spectrum from workshop intensive skill training (such as anthropology, methods, Weston Resolve, etc) to “briefings”, two or three hour PowerPoint lectures and discussion sections. This aspect of the training takes the entire five months, and it is during this time that people are evaluated on the second criteria: teamwork and efficacy. The 50 or so of us were divided into five or six teams, and expected to work together to varying degrees. These teams were subdivided, shuffled, and given tasks to evaluate the students for leadership, personality “needs”, etc.
Those parts I did fine with. In fact, I received a lot of very positive support during the process of transition there at the end, including offers to write recommendation letters and quite a few people who went to bat for me. Students and staff seemed satisfied with my work, so I feel confident that was not part of the issue.
The next major step was passing a medical exam to meet deployment standards. This included a full physical (ow), full dental (that was the most painful $6 grand I have ever spent), physical conditioning (self-motivated), and inoculations against everything I could possibly run into (I *so* love needles). This all culminated in a single sheet of paper with “Yes” checked three times, so I guess I passed. The medical check was frustrating for a lot of people, because it involved a lot of records being dredged up from doctors all over the world, was difficult to schedule, and some people came pretty close to being denied due to health concerns. In some ways, we had a little agency passing this step, but only as much as we have over our health at any time.
The fourth step was something that ostensibly we controlled, but that once they started looking we had no idea how they did what they did, had to fill out hours of paperwork, and ultimately had people we would never meet judging us. We had to pass not one, but TWO security checks. This involved submitted our entire lives for review, threats of being denied if we forgot or made a mistake on anything, and a near-complete lack of knowledge about the process. The first check was for the contractor company, the second was for the Feds. I now have a secret civilian clearance. That was resolved mid October. The federal clearance was obviously more involved, and I was well into the process when I had to leave, so it was stopped. There were absolutely no security issues, and I have been assured by the security people for both the contractor and Army that it was just paperwork and an interview left.
The final, sixth, step, is going through the Army OCONUS (Outside the CONtinental United States) deployment center. This involves certificates of your training, your medical, and your security clearance. They also double check you medically (again) with a physical and test your patience and humility throughout the week-long processing system. I never got to this step.
It was the fifth step during which there was a problem. This step involved sending our resumes to the CPAC (Civilian Personnel Advisory Center) for them to be evaluated for approval to work for the Army. Normally, the process includes sending our resumes through a computer that tracks keywords and then is reviewed based on a point-matrix where if you meet certain scores (such as “overseas experience”) you are approved for your job. If your resume is found wanting, you are allowed to appeal to a supervisor, who makes the final call. This process is in no way related to the training program, occurs 4 months into your time in Leavenworth, and the people who have been “interviewing” me for five months have zero influence over who is approved, or for what. The reason for this is simple: CPAC is designed to mitigate favoritism, Old Boys Networks, and political pressures when it comes to hiring for the Federal Government. This is a good thing.
The problem then, is what happens when they do not have job descriptions to evaluate those resumes. Add on top of this, the positions are incredibly high on the GG scale (12-15), are going off of vague duties lists (none of which include the word “anthropology”), and CPAC staff do not have a good relationship with HTS staff and leadership wherein minor issues could be resolved easily. Those are the facts. Being (ostensibly) human, I cannot help but work out a great deal more going on, based on interviews, beer-chats, and my own research, but I will leave those for a future day (maybe). Needless to say, they are not the point, and would be supposition anyway. The facts are enough to see where people may encounter issues.
Of those original 50 or so, more than half have been rejected by this process, people from across the age, experience, skill, and educational spectrum. Any given case might be rationalized, but collectively patterns emerge. These patterns are coincident with various HR, procedural, policy, and political changes within the program. Correlation, however, not causation.
The official statement from the program is that this is considered a bureaucratic issue, and has no bearing on my skills or performance. They may, eventually, work it out and ask me to return. I would very much like to get downrange and help people, should they ask. As for my ethical concerns, I am absolutely convinced that the individual CAN and usually DOES practice ethically and the program supports them. That being said, it gets a lot more complex than that, but that fact alone is enough for me to know I could go downrange and do the right thing and not be somehow tricked, cajoled, or forced to violate anthropological ethical standards. I also feel I could help people, Iraqis and Americans, on many fronts, and that the MISSION of the HTS is sound.
My life continues, and I am back in Denver and looking for my next step. This means invading my darling Charlotte’s life a bit sooner than expected, but we will cope. This job has broadened my perspective on a lot of things, and opened up a lot of doors I didn’t even know could be opened. I have learned a lot, and I can’t say five months in the city of Blues and BBQ was purgatory. My research into the HTS and military applications of anthropological research will continue, and I have enough to publish some things already. We will see. I was able to do many interviews while I was there, and hopefully have something structured to say soon. Far and away, this hasn’t been a waste of my time. And hopefully I will be able to get back to the HTS, or something similar, soon enough.
I don’t know where this blog will go from here, but I’ll keep you posted.
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Posted by boltbait on 2009-11-26 21:17:14 | Rating: | Views: 325
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