Working for the government SUCKS! NSR [rant]
The time had finally come. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel. It was still a damp, dark, dank and rainy tunnel, but the end was in sight. As of Friday, I only had 7 days of work left before the papers would be signed and I’d have my independence back. I’d be gainfully unemployed with nothing to dread except the month of downtime I would have before the beginning of ski season. Friday was a dreary, rainy day just as the past 2 weeks had been. Morale was low, most of us were hungover, we hadn’t seen fire in almost a month, the only thing we had to look forward to was the end. October first…the last day of work. The supervisors came into the office looking more morose that usual. Something was wrong. The light at the end of the tunnel flickered. We were warned not to count on getting laid off on the first. The forest was hashing out the budget and may have found extra money to keep us funded for another month. That was the last thing any of us wanted to hear. No one has their minds in the game anymore. We’ve given up hope of going on another fire this season. The bank accounts are suffering, but not as much as our spirits after putting up with the bureaucratic bullshit of working for the forest service for the past 5 months. Another month of doing project work in the rain and living out of my truck might very well put me over the edge. I couldn’t handle it anymore. I had to get out of there. I left work early because I knew I was liable to snap and do something that I would regret in the future. I couldn’t afford to walk out on my job completely, so I told my supervisors I probably wouldn’t be in on Monday unless it was absolutely necessary.
Friday afternoon I got a message from my boss saying that we would definitely be working at least another month…possibly longer. Complete darkness. The light had gone out. I had to hold myself back from chucking my phone out the window while going 75 mph and saying fuck it, I’m outta here. I have everything I own in my truck. I could just keep driving and let them know I’d quit at the end of the weekend.
What’s the point of keeping an entire crew available for fires when our area has received over 2 inches of rain in the past 3 weeks? They are afraid California is going to have another fall fire season like last year and they’ll need all the resources they can get…which is horseshit because CA has more resources than they know what to do with during an average fire season. And this season is far from average… only 1.3 million acres have burned in the continental US this year. That’s 2.5 million acres fewer than average over the last 10 yrs. Ok, I’m done bitching…
:mad:
[/end rant]