This time last year, behind an Embassy-funded computer screen in the drafty attic of a building which served as home to my NGO, I watched online the American economy finish its descent into the fringes of depression. Therefore, my impending unemployment clouded my return to America, and hung over the three month vacation which followed my departure from Ukraine.
I didn't quite know for sure where I was going to move to. I thought a long time about returning to the West, where I had always felt more healthy and comfortable. But I finally settled on the notion that I needed to find work, and in the middle of the Great Recession, that necessity trumped quality of life, and any preference of climate. So I picked DC, and moved there at the end of August.
Moving to a new city is never easy. But I had done it before and also with what I had then: a few bags of clothes and just enough cash to get started out. In many ways, aside from some golden crumbs of wisdom and a much heftier resume (with the student debt to boot), I had exactly what I had in a few years ago when I bought a one-way ticket to Colorado after my stint in Japan. But opposite of my Colorado expereince, finding a good job in a great organization with exceptional people turned out a smoother episode in the District than finding a nice, affordable place to live.
It was my great fortune to have my resume picked out of the Monster pile at AE Strategies LLC, one of the very best contractors in the DC area and find a fulfilling assignment as a Project Manager at the Department of the Navy's OCHR Transition Management Office. I was even more fortunate to have worked with superb human beings from whom I learned a great deal in a short amount of time.
Together, our team dove into the pressurized depths of change management and somehow navigated the waters of government bureaucracy without drowning. Transferring 72,000 civilian employees out of a cancelled pay-for-performance system is no small task indeed, despite what certain capricious Congressmen thought. Despite its many bulwarks and an ever-increasing workload, not only was this team successful in planning and implementing a profoundly complex change mananagement process, it continues to thrive effective, efficient and mission-driven; also managing to enjoy the work and have a little bit of fun every now and again.
To my colleagues at the DON - thank you for a wonderful experience these past months at Navy Yard which gave me a reinvigorated confidence in the quality of our government and a vivid realization of how the strength of our Republic rests not only on its administration of justice, security and natural assets. The vibrancy of a soceity also pivots on intelligent stewardship of its rare and precious human resources.
America should sleep better knowing that at least one branch of our nation's service has got that end fully covered.
Upcoming posts: 1.) Regenerating New York and 2.) my new job
