If you missed my previous post, from now on, I will be posting my OPM mandated "5-bullets" to give you, the taxpayer a chance to see what one Federal employee is doing each week. For me, this is an opportunity to take back agency over my work, and to make the best of a weekly annoyance.
Today, I'm posting my 5-bullets that were due on and . I've posted the bullets first, as sent to hr@omp.gov (with minor redactions to ensure privacy), followed by some additional explanation to add clarity and context helpful for those who aren't already familiar with my work.
- Rescheduled several project meetings due to short notice travel
- Construction project site visit to evaluate progress and next steps on rock slope construction
- COR Training on late PR’s
- Hand off geotechnical investigation planning for CA FLAP Project to another employee
- Research rock anchor design methods for application to moment slabs
COR means Contracting Officer Representative and PR is Purchase Request. Federal purchasing has a lot of requirements. Only specially trained people (Contracting Officers or CO's) with a warrant are allowed to obligate the Government to spend money. These people are trained primarily in the legal requirements of procurement. The COR helps the CO by providing expertise about the technical requirements of a purchase. I serve as a COR when the government is purchasing geotechnical drilling or other similar items. Part of the requirements to be a CO or COR is to complete continuing eduction.
- Provided timely, policy compliant, and technically sound technical assistance to field staff on multiple active construction projects.
- Performed independent assurance review of major project design submittal for a large and technically complex project prepared by an A/E consultant firm.
- Coordinated a product demonstration by a manufacturer to team to keep abreast of new technical developments and share best practices with teammates.
- Proactively engaged in dialog with other project team members to resolve design and construction questions.
- Prepared a presentation for an invited lecture at a national meeting of the ASCE to share project experience with the wider engineering community.
Starting from this week, I made sure to reference my performance plan, including my Critical Job Elements (CJE's). The items are the metrics against which my performance is measured, so it makes sense to frame my accomplishments against them. That's why there are a lot of adjectives such as "timely" used.
Overall this was an interesting week. I have a project in construction with some challenging rock slopes. Working with the contactor's geotech, slope specialist, and blaster has been informative, giving me a better opportunity to see what these different specialists are considering in their decisions.
A/E stands for Architect/Engineer and is the general team in the government for an engineering consultant company. In this case, the major project is in Hawai'i, with a multitude of complexities, including geologic, envirnomental, and logistical. The scope and complexity of the project meant that it took me a about a day and a half to review everything. So that really did feel like an accomplishment.
That's it for the backlog. I'll have my March 10 list up a little later this week, and am then planning to post regularly on Mondays. Thanks for following.
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