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Hello thread- I recently got my hours cut in half, 40 to 20. I filed for unemployment already, but who knows how that’ll go. I look at rocks for the Texas Department of Transportation, at a TxDOT building, but my actual employer is a national technical consulting / engineering company that goes around and buys smaller companies that do that kind of thing. Crucially, I don’t have my bachelor’s degree in geology (I stopped 2 classes short to work- I have something like 114 credit hours), but I do have 3 years experience doing petrographic work for TxDOT under their contract with this company. Could I conceivably do something for FEMA? I live in Austin. I’m not a veteran. wolfs fucked around with this message at 03:10 on Aug 11, 2020 |
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Aug 11, 2020 03:03
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That’s part of the plan, yes, but the more immediate concern is income.
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Aug 11, 2020 04:45
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When you’re applying to these lower grade positions do they read your cover letter, or just your resume? I used the USAJOBS resume builder since I saw they wanted particular stuff about hours and dates and pay. I read back a few pages and customized my cover letter to have some of the buzzwords from the listings but didn’t change my resume between each.
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Aug 11, 2020 19:52
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speaking of the IRS! I applied to a few tax examiner positions - the latest one stopped taking applications on 9/14, and I haven't gotten any emails or updates aside from emails confirming submission. I'd imagine hiring is pretty slow? Or should I expect to get referred or rejected before the month is out? or will the (maybe) impending government shutdown slow down hiring? not a veteran or current government employee e: I also applied to a few FEMA things that had early September closings and got "not qualified" for a good handful, but for some I've still yet to hear back.
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Sep 22, 2020 18:19
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so you’re telling me to apply to everything and never expect to hear back until suddenly I find myself getting finger printed or whatever for it in ??? months
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Sep 22, 2020 20:58
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well I guess that’s good I have until at least June or July before the texas department of transportation is liable to just cut all their contractors as the budget situation unravels 
wolfs fucked around with this message at 23:03 on Sep 22, 2020 |
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Sep 22, 2020 23:00
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Toshimo posted:puritanical boomers. when will the scatological goons run the bureaucracy
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Sep 26, 2020 13:23
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Huh. I just got my first referral for a federal thing - soil conservation at the USDA, but then the email goes on to say, “only the veteran preference eligible applicants in the highest category were referred to the hiring agency.” I applied to that one at the start of the month. This is apparently pretty fast?
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Sep 29, 2020 22:34
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My fed resume already feels stupidly long. I just tried copying and pasting the specialized experience sections in and making them fit across some past jobs, and then answering E for literally everything. If I’m ever questioned about this I guess I can stretch the definitions of databases and automated reports and stuff to a notebook and excel?
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Oct 8, 2020 04:37
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Amazing. I did the all E’s thing and put partial phrases from the requirements / duties / skills needed parts of the application across my experience and got referred to a FEMA thing 2 days after it closed. e: the wild thing is this is an IC-11 grade job— I had put in for it just because there was an opening in Texas near where my folks are. I’d been limiting myself to grades 4 & 5 otherwise but if this is really how the people looking at resumes work... man. what a strange system. wolfs fucked around with this message at 18:11 on Oct 21, 2020 |
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Oct 21, 2020 17:49
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These FEMA openings that only take 100 applications before closing are somewhat comforting to me, since a 1 in 100 shot isn’t terrible odds over a long enough time
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Nov 6, 2020 04:18
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A few USPS goons have chimed in here before - and I was curious about some things. I applied to 2 part time associate rural carrier positions and got 2 job offers within 12 hours of each other 2 weeks later. Looking into it a bit further, it seems like the expectation for delivering mail is to either have a right hand drive car, or to convert a left hand drive car to right, or to straddle your center console and only use your left hand and foot to drive while reaching out the right front passenger’s window... Is the USPS so reviled by Congress they can’t buy a full fleet of right hand drive cars? I feel like I should start writing letters to my senator about it or something I tried this straddling thing out of curiosity in an empty parking lot and it was remarkably bad in a 2017 CR-V, so I don’t think I’ll be taking either offer— if I call these 2 post masters on Monday and they say they don’t have a mail truck I could use. But, if I were to take some other USPS job at some point, would that open me up to jobs for current federal employees? Or is the USPS too “different”? wolfs fucked around with this message at 16:28 on Nov 21, 2020 |
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Nov 21, 2020 16:26
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I got a tentative offer from the IRS, for “TAX EXAMINING TECHNICIAN, GS, 0592, 06, Step 01”. Should I read that as being GS 6 Step 1, and is 0592 the position’s number? Or is it GS 5?
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Dec 10, 2020 02:28
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On the IRS’ website, under the onboarding section, it says the position is grade 4 - but the email I received and the tentative offer letter pdf say grade 6. Should I ask the HR person who sent it which it is, or wait for a final offer after they get my fingerprints and whatever else?
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Dec 10, 2020 04:27
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laxbro posted:Congrats! Ignatius M. Meen posted:Just don't let the IRS return process drive you mad the way it did Discendo Vox. Xelkelvos posted:Is that the one where you're given a stack of forms to process and if you hit a certain amount that counts as your 8 hours? TheMadMilkman posted:What did the job listing say? By fun coincidence after I left the IRS office this morning I had received an email from FEMA’s Environmental Planning and Historic Preservation people asking for an interview — for a reservist position. I emailed back and I had the interview just now. 3 people dialed into the conference call and they were very nice. It was pretty low stakes feeling— they took turns asking questions and were generically positive about everything I said. At the end I mentioned I’d gotten fingerprinted for the IRS a few hours before and apparently actual federal employees are ineligible to be FEMA reservists. They were evasive about what the expectation was for a reservist’s non-FEMA job when someone could potentially be gone 30 to 90 days randomly (while taking great pains to clarify there was no guarantee of being sent somewhere), and even said that reservists’ non-federal jobs (“If you seek outside employment”) had to be cleared to avoid conflicts of interest. What a strange program. If?? wolfs fucked around with this message at 21:20 on Dec 15, 2020 |
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Dec 15, 2020 21:16
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Antivehicular posted:W&I tax examining in Austin is probably going to be a pipeline processing job working with submitted returns. I'm not sure which departments use the 4-6 ladder, but that's my best guess. Welcome aboard! oh, are you in Austin? thanks for the insight! I've been processing rocks for TxDOT for 3 years... just paper and pdfs seems a bit nicer. re: HR talk, it seems like the Austin IRS office's HR department noticed I exist all at once and I've now been marked as qualified and referred for a literal dozen jobs that I applied to between August and early November. Between cash clerk, clerk, tax examining technician, deposit clerk, and data transcriber are any of those preferential above the others? if, for instance, I'd prefer avoiding taking phone calls from the public most of the day? I have aspirations for the USGS, NRC, or FEMA in the long run if any of those titles jump out at you as offering a tangential jumping off point in a few years, but they all seem like different flavors of clerical work. Is it in bad form to accept multiple tentative offers? There are 3 on my IRS career connector dashboard now rather than just 1. I got fingerprinted and photographed for a tax examining technician position on Tuesday, but I've not received a firm offer yet - and it isn't a guaranteed thing at all, right? e: in looking at all of the vacancy notices it seems like cash clerk and deposit clerk are somewhat rarer - 10 and 4 vacancies respectively vs the 60 for tax examiner and uh.. 300 for just a "clerk". Are those marginally more responsible positions? wolfs fucked around with this message at 16:37 on Dec 18, 2020 |
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Dec 18, 2020 16:27
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So — I realize this may be a “just wait longer” situation, but: I got a tentative offer from FEMA for a 2 year excepted service reservist position today, 1/12, and a tentative offer for a GS 6 IRS tax examining position on 12/09. I accepted the IRS offer that same day and got fingerprinted on 12/15 and have heard nothing back since - I emailed the HR person asking if the position had been filled a few days ago to no reply. If I accept the FEMA offer will that derail the IRS process? I was told by the FEMA people who interviewed me that I can’t work for both at the same time. I’m leaning towards accepting the FEMA TO and waiting to see which one comes back with a firm offer first. I suppose I could try calling the Austin IRS HR department and seeing what’s up with their hiring timeline?
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Jan 12, 2021 18:51
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Dr. Quarex posted:That said, what FEMA Reservist cadre do you have the offer from? Environmental Planning and Historic Preservation! What are you in? I don’t mind the month wait so much. My whole thing is that I’m currently working part time rather than full for an engineering services company that has a long standing Texas Department of Transportation contract. TxDOT reduced their FY2021 contract budget a bit and my hours got cut. The company got acquired by a bigger national firm about a year ago and the final integration / rebranding will be in a few months — when I first started looking for work last August I remember seeing jobs from similar kinds of businesses that asked for Public Trust security clearance. Being able to tell the company I have a security clearance of any kind, eventually, seems nice. Even if I don’t get sent somewhere for a while.
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Jan 13, 2021 02:41
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well the IRS never got back to me but FEMA did and now I’ve been an EHP environmental compliance review specialist reservist for 4 days I got issued a fancy new iPhone and stuff yesterday and it’s received 3 spam texts and a spam call already? so that’s pretty cool I read the oath of office over the phone to an HR person in Alabama which was fun but at this point I still don’t actually know anyone else that works in or for the office/directorate of environmental and historic protection
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Mar 3, 2021 22:37
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So I’m a FEMA reservist now - which has mostly consisted of doing online training and not much else so far. I get all the FEMA-wide emails, though, and there’s loads of 120 day detail positions being offered. Are those not for me to apply for? Or is it gauche for me to do so after 2 months of only slowly accumulating training certificates? I’ve stopped shotgun applying to every somewhat interesting fed job in Texas so far, but might resume since I just got laid off from my not-FEMA job. Also, I might be better off asking the reservist advisory board this, but after I’ve actually been sent somewhere for FEMA and then come back home - would I then be eligible to collect unemployment benefits while waiting for the next disaster? I’ve read online that seasonal IRS employees pretty regularly file for unemployment between seasons.
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Apr 19, 2021 05:41
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Good luck to you both - Dammerung, I’m guessing it was a CORE or IM CORE position? Those are my eventual goals. Hurricane season starts in June and the overtime rate is pretty generous, so I can probably muddle through with something or another ‘til then and feel out what other reservists do in their off time. wolfs fucked around with this message at 22:26 on Apr 19, 2021 |
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Apr 19, 2021 22:22
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Dammerung posted:I'm going to sound pretty dumb for asking this, but how would I tell? This was the original job posting. Oh, no worries: that’s a reservist position like it says under the summary. This is a CORE position I applied to and got referred for, but which seemingly went nowhere before I got a final offer for this guy. Confusingly, these 2 listings have the same name as you browse USAjobs - Environmental Protection Specialist - but only the details under the summary section and the job’s announcement number will tend to specify if it’s CORE, reserve, or permanent full time. It’s my (loose) understanding from onboarding that it’s possible to move between reservist and CORE employment over time “easily”. This explains the 3 kinds of employees FEMA has.
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Apr 20, 2021 11:55
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confusingly, I did both - apply on usajobs and email the FEMA cadre I’d applied to my resume. when I was looking at my file on FedHR the emailed resume was in there but all the stuff on my job offer matched the usajobs posting! so I guess what I’m saying is doing both doesn’t hurt and may have gotten my usajobs app noticed
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Apr 21, 2021 19:12
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I just got an email today that my “Tier 2” background investigation was favorably adjudicated - but I’ve been a FEMA reservist since February 28th? Is your security clearance/ public trust status viewable anywhere, like the OPM website?
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May 12, 2021 04:47
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Do any of you have thoughts on how I should frame an email to an agency’s Schedule A hiring person / email address? Should I use my .gov email? For FEMA I can point to my being found qualified and referred to a hiring manager for a pretty broad IC 11 excepted service job last year. Their page on Schedule A stipulates you have to be qualified for the job and provide a letter, and then: quote:... send a resume, description of your career interests, your geographic preferences, and proof of disability to fema-schedule-a@fema.dhs.gov. I ended up getting in as a FEMA reservist (which is also excepted service), and if I ever get disaster deployed the money will be great, but something with regular hours sure would be nice. I also got referred to a competitive WG 7 Department of the Army job last year, so I figure their Schedule A contact is worth emailing, too. re: USGS, a friend of mine from my geology undergrad started there a few months ago now— up in Columbia, Missouri. he has a masters degree in geology! so at least some geologists end up there. I was mildly surprised when he said they just gave him an old laptop for work— FEMA threw a new pelican case, a touchscreen Dell laptop, and an iPhone XR at me during onboarding and all I’ve used them for is reading agency emails and clicking through learning modules. and I think EHP also wants to give us iPads because entering GIS data on an iPhone app apparently makes us look unprofessional and distracted? so that’s fun I was kind of under the impression that various levels of government get new electronics on the cheap. my old boss at TxDOT got an iPhone XR gratis as part of doing away with office phones. wolfs fucked around with this message at 11:22 on May 28, 2021 |
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May 28, 2021 11:18
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Spacewolf posted:How do you mean this, "don't select yourself out"? I think this also means — always select E on the screening questions. You are a godly expert at this position’s requirements.
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Jul 4, 2021 18:06
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woohoo my first fema reservist work has come in since onboarding in March and getting fired in April from my not-fed job after telling them I’m off to somewhere to support a federal vaccination center (which I thought had all shut down!) for at least a month ready to collect that sweet sweet per diem & M&IE money wolfs fucked around with this message at 08:26 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 07:39
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I think I’m now being paid to wait in a hotel lobby … ?
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Aug 18, 2021 17:38
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oh my god I spoke too soon I left my house at 4 AM to catch a 6:30 flight that got pushed to 7:30, got to the staging area at the hotel at around 10:00, got through waiting for and then IT’s check of my issued electronics pretty quick - 11:30 or so, and I’m then told to wait - 2 people tell me different things. One woman says I’ll get a destination in 24 to 36 hours. One says it should take 30 mins, tops. I get told around 2:00 to book a room at the hotel, and I do so. I wait in my room until 3:00 for a mandatory safety meeting on MS Teams to start but it doesn’t happen. At 3 PM I’m off the clock... At 4:00 PM I get a call telling me to demobilize and go back home! The vaccination center (rumored to be New Orleans!!!!) goofed! Now I’m waiting at the airport to board a flight originally for 6:50, pushed to 7:50, and once I get back to my home airport I’ll probably have to wait forever for my bags - and then call an Uber - and then when I reach home I’ll finally be demobilized. I think this means the government will owes me 16 or so hours…? Plus 75% per diem and M&IE since today was both my first and then only day of travel, and they foot the bill of my Ubers, airfare, hotel room enjoyed for a cool hour, and my one checked bag on both flights. I have receipts for all of these things. My nice manager man said he’ll put me back on an alert status and that I shouldn’t be bumped from the top of the list at this point. e: for reference I flew between Austin and Dallas airports and vice versa. If this staging area was farther away like on the west coast or something I’d probably be very sad instead of somewhat bemused at the extravagant spending of FEMA e2: I called multiple people and have been assured I’m not in trouble for this. I was told they might not pay me 16 hours for an entire day, but whatever. We’ll see. wolfs fucked around with this message at 23:21 on Aug 18, 2021 |
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Aug 18, 2021 23:13
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Dammerung posted:It took five months for them to deploy you somewhere? Well, I guess I shouldn't feel too bad that I haven't been sent anywhere in two months. Oh, I missed this: they actually tried to send me somewhere in June - but I was getting over my 2nd shot and felt like hot garbage, so I turned them down. It didn’t count against me afaik. I forget if you mentioned this, but did you get your position by emailing a specific cadre email or through usajobs? I checked with the manager that hired me and it was my emailed resume that they saw first, not my many usajobs apps… makes me more confident in getting around to emailing the schedule A hiring authority person and seeing what happens.
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Aug 24, 2021 15:03
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National Travel, the FEMA travel center, and Concur work together in my limited experience. DTS in FEMA context stands for Deployment Tracking System, not Defense Travel System, funnily enough. Anyway, that sucks. But look on the bright side. In a week or so when you’re filling out your time you can pretty reasonably claim all this waiting as travel I think. The day FEMA shuffled me between airports was technically 17 hours long and they approved the 7 hours of overtime without much prompting.
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Sep 3, 2021 15:44
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posting through it is a time honored tradition never not post
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Sep 3, 2021 19:22
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You can book on Concur as FEMA but my boss said don’t do that - do everything through National Travel since they’ll email you receipts for card vouchers and fight hotels / airlines for you as necessary
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Sep 4, 2021 09:32
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collecting a cool 5 hours of virtual waiting room pay for a virtual FEMA deployment … for sitting on the phone for 5 minutes as IT remoted in and checked my laptop is updated
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Oct 27, 2021 15:56
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virtually deployed for FEMA and waiting days to be given permissions to open Grants Manager just sort of reading documentation and looking up acronyms … it’s a living?
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Nov 2, 2021 17:10
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hey uh what are the odds FEMA will mail me an ergonomic chair for WFH purposes
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Nov 9, 2021 20:11
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What is an egg challenge project e;fb no wait scrambled wolfs fucked around with this message at 01:47 on Nov 17, 2021 |
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Nov 17, 2021 01:31
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finally emailed FEMA’s schedule A person after getting my doctor to write an eligibility letter up in April - will report back if I’m lavished with a new position by virtue of legal affirmative action 
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Nov 17, 2021 22:59
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EHP work for FEMA is remarkably straightforward when the projects I’m reviewing are small. And the big ones are, so far, mostly easily generalized about. If FEMA wants to call the tops of a bunch of roads “berms” for legal reasons - cool. Just a different box to tick. But now it’s the end of the day and I could bother some people with this question, or I could just wait ‘til tomorrow, but I’ve spent the last 45 minutes trying to find out on my own if roadside ditches count as wetlands in terms of executive order 11990… I’ll probably just submit and see if I get corrected. Learning experiences!
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Dec 8, 2021 21:58
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So I’ve been working virtually in Kentucky since October- no idea what my little team will be doing if anything so soon after a disaster. All our inspectors were in the process of going home for Christmas and New Years. Debris clearing and where it gets situated is a FEMA environmental concern I’ll probably be learning about.
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Dec 12, 2021 20:11
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