Week 13 of Training: SIMOPS

The end is in sight! This week we started the 'Simulated Operations' portion of training. SIMOPS is a two week capstone that reiterates everything we've learned, to make sure we're prepared to hit the ground running at post. Of course it doesn't cover managing Locally Employed Staff (LE Staff, formerly known as Foreign Service Nationals, or FSNs), which is pretty much the only part I'm nervous about. Oh well.

I was surprised to find out on the first day, that we actually had new material to cover. My portion of our class (we were once again split up on account of our unusual size), started the week by taking the two-day course "Classified Equipment Lifecycle Management." I'll include the excerpt from the FSI catalog so that I can really drive home how boring this class sounded.

"Training program provides students an insight to Classified Equipment Lifecycle Management (CELM) with specific emphasis on the destruction of obsolete TEMPEST equipment. Additional topics include the..." 
Blah, blah, blah. What that translated into was... taking things apart and then (more importantly) hitting them with a hammer! Essentially, it was every IT professional's dream. I wish I could say it was similar to the printer scene in Office Space, but that'd be a bit of an exaggeration.

After CELM, we spent a day running scenarios based on the DoS Applied Systems class, and finished the week by practicing terminating cables (and by terminating, I mean putting ends on, not ending the lives of). Friday was also the School of Applied Information Technology's (SAIT) summer potluck, so we spent a slightly extended lunch mixing with each other, our instructors, and the management for our little piece of FSI.

Note: The President was not in fact in our SIMOPS... Also, we don't wear suits anymore... Oh yeah, and that room is way nicer than ours!

Two Weeks Notice

Today, I gave my job two weeks notice that I am going to work for the Foreign Service. Although I wouldn't call myself a "pro," it's safe to say I'm no stranger to quitting - I've worked for four companies in the last five years. Unlike most job markets, seeing a person that's changed jobs every year or two is not really a red flag. In fact, it's not unusual for contractors in my field and job sector to change companies frequently.

In the past, I had always worked in overhead (non-billable) positions, supporting the facility and other (billable) people. For the past two years, I have been working as a billable subcontractor on multiple projects, as well as spending some time on overhead supporting our corporate systems. It's not unreasonable to equate my current situation to the Office Space quote: "And here's something else, Bob: I have eight different bosses right now." Each project has a boss, the contract I work under has a boss, and I have a couple bosses at my company. My immediate superior, one of my close friends, had known about the possibility and imminence of my departure for awhile, but the others had no idea. So, I had the dubious pleasure of giving my notice half a dozen times today.

It wasn't actually that bad; people around here are used to staffing changes, but most were quite surprised as to where I was headed next. My departure is in some ways well timed, as my primary project recently moved from development to production. That seems like a good milestone with which to take my leave.