My First Day at the FAA

I’ve been working for the FAA now in one capacity or another (both as a contractor and a federal employee) for almost 20 years. I recently shared the story of my first day of work at the FAA with a co-worker and decided to capture and re-share the story here as well.

(SOURCE. Note: No one is allowed to take pictures on federal property without prior written consent. The pictures used in this article came from Google Images. I did not take them.)

This story begins as many of my stories from the 80s and 90s begin, with a phone call from my buddy Jeff. It was the spring of 1995 and Jeff had been working on an FAA helpdesk for about a year. When news leaked that the company that staffed the helpdesk was set to lose the contract later that year, people began to bail and the company needed to fill those positions as soon as possible. I considered myself an expert when it came to personal computers but didn’t know anything about networks at the time, so Jeff got me a set of Novell 3.1 manuals and showed me how to set up config.sys and autoexec.bat files to get machines to connect to an IPX network in DOS.

During this time I was working at Best Buy making $6.50/hour, and the helpdesk job was offering $12/hour. My plan was to take the helpdesk job for six months and then return to Best Buy when the job ended. I dropped my resume off with the company and waited for a call. They did not call. Years later I was told by another co-worker that I had submitted a resume so horrible and tacky that it was literally legendary. (Note to self: even if the guy at Kinko’s assures you that purple paper with lighting printed on it is guaranteed to get a potential employer’s attention, stick with white.) Eventually Jeff poked the right person and an interview was scheduled.

I arrived at the interview looking slightly less tacky than my resume. The interview consisted of three parts: a general interview, a set of technical questions, and a typing test.

The interview began normally. I answered some questions about my work history and about my general computer experience. Then it was on to the technical portion. The manager slid across a piece of paper with an autoexec.bat and config.sys printed out on it. He asked me to identify what the file did. I immediately started pointing things out. “Well, this is allocating extended memory,” I said. “This loads the mouse driver.” “Here’s your network drivers. Oh, an IPX network, interesting…” I said. After three or four comments he took the papers back, tossed them in the trash, and asked me when I could start.

“Immediately.”

Now throughout the interview, the manager had been scratching himself the entire time as if he had just taken a bath in poison ivy. His face, neck and arms were red from all the scratching, but he also scratched his chest and armpits throughout the interview as well. Abruptly, the man stood up and said, “I’m sorry but I’m going to have to excuse myself. My wife bought a new brand of detergent and I think I’m having an allergic reaction. Get with the secretary for your typing test.” He then quickly exited his office, leaving me alone to go find the secretary.

The secretary had a computer waiting for me with Microsoft Word already running. Next to the computer was a magazine. “What you’re going to do is just pick a paragraph from here,” she said, pointing at the magazine, “and type it a few times over here,” she said, pointing at the monitor. “Just type it over and over, as many times as you can.” She then noted the time and left. I typed the paragraph once, made sure nobody was looking, ran spell check, copied it, and pasted it about 40 times. Two minutes later the secretary came back in the room and told me the test was over. She then clicked on “word count” in the menu bar. I realized I had pasted the paragraph too many times when she did the math and told me I had typed roughly 400 words a minute. She either didn’t know what I had done, didn’t care, or figured if a guy knew how to run spell check and copy and paste, he knew enough to do the job.

My interview took place on Monday, April 17th, 1995, and I was told to report to work one week later at the Mike Monroney Aeronautical Center (MMAC) FAA campus on Monday, 24th, 1995. He said he and his partner would meet me outside one of the buildings. I said I’d be there.

Two days after my interview on April 19th, 1995, Timothy McVeigh set off a truck bomb and blew up the Alfred P Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people including 19 children and 99 federal employees.

All federal facilities understandably, including the MMAC, went on high alert.

On Monday 24th, 1995, I showed up for work at a federal building in a federal campus with no idea whether or not I was in the right place. At exactly that same time, someone phoned in a bomb threat. Hundreds of people spilled out of the building I was heading to and into the parking lot. As I approaching the building in my car, I was stopped by security.

“Who are you?”
“I’m Rob.”
“Where’s your badge?”
“I don’t have one.”
“What do you mean you don’t have a badge?”
“Today’s my first day.”
“Where are you supposed to be?”
“I’m not sure. Here, I think. I’m meeting two guys.”
“What are their names?”
“Bill and… some other guy?”
“Bill who?”
“I have no idea.”

Right about the time the guard was about to shoot me, the all clear was given and people returned to work. The parking lot cleared and eventually the only people left in the parking lot were Bill, his partner, myself, and the security guard. Eventually I was shown to my office, and my new desk.

For the record, my first official business as a helpdesk analyst to was to go with a different Bill and move a refrigerator. “Other duties as assigned,” and all that. I’ll save that story for a different day.

(SOURCE)