This business of government employees being lazy and not competent and all that stuff,
I've never run into that in the professional side. Most everybody that I run into were
pretty conscientious and intelligent and really wanted to do their job right.
Q ..
Well, there are enough organizational levels and layers in the Corps that the good people
will naturally percolate up, I think. This whole professional development program that
they have for engineers with the levels of responsibility and the movement of people
around is a very good program. I think that's a very good idea.
A
It worked out before somewhat like that, even kind of on an ad hoc basis people would get
their own training by moving around because they couldn't get a promotion here. They'd
say, "Well, how do you get promotions. The way to get promotions is to move to
another office because the office you're in, they think you're going to stay there forever.
You can threaten to leave and that doesn't make any difference. Then after you tell them
you have a job someplace else, "Oh, you shouldn't have left, we would have given you
a promotion here. But that's the way it works, that there are a lot of
that have
to move around to different jobs just because they were trying to advance their career.
But the people that were so intent on staying in one location, they didn't usually advance
very far. They had to really be outstanding to advance and stay in the same place because
there was so many people willing to move to another location.
Q ..
Who had a variety of experience?
Oh, I was really fortunate when I was in Garrison District before Icame into Washington
A
because when I got in that Hydrology and Hydraulics Branch, I worked in the hydrology
section for awhile doing all different types of hydrology studies. Then I moved over into
the report section, which was really a planning job, and I worked there for a while.
Then I moved in the hydraulic design section and worked there for some time before I
finally went into Washington. So I got really a good variety in a relatively short time,
which most people don't get. Usually, you get stuck in one area and you have to stay
there for quite a while before you get any new experience.
Q ..
Yes, that's a valuable thing to have, that breadth of experience early in a career.
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