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November 2, 2005
FEMA is clueless
This morning Gina got a frantic call from FEMA, telling her they were faxing her paperwork and she needs to start right away and can she be in Orlando by Monday to start training. All very excited and rushed and needing immediate response.
And Gina said, "Well, wait a minute. I haven't even seen a job description or an offer or anything yet."
They were surprised by that, so they gave her the number of the person to call about the offer.
Jayzus, what clueless dorks.
Now, I had seen job ads from a year or so ago for FEMA Mitigation Architects to work out of DC offices for 85-110 K annual salary with full government employee benefits.
But that's not what they're doing for Katrina. No, for Katrina, the salary is half that, with no benefits. For architects with 10-20 years experience. You get called up for a month, you stay the complete month, you don't get to leave the job region to visit home, you work seven days a week with no overtime, and at the end of the month they might either require you to stay another month or terminate your employment and possibly call you back two or three months later with little notice.
And I'm thinking, the only architects who would want to work under those conditions are ones who are unemployable in their home job market, who have no job prospects and no business of their own to run. In other words, the last people you'd want to have to work with under those kinds of conditions. The last people you'd want to be in charge of rebuilding a major metropolitan area.
Needless to say, Gina turned them down. It would be way too hard on the kids for not enough in return, and all to work for an organization as badly run as FEMA.
Somewhere out there, there might be a way for small businesses to get rebuilding contracts, but apparently you need to be sucking Halliburton's dick to be privy to the bid information.
People are getting beaucoup rich off this rebuilding, but it's not the small businesses and it's not the people who want to get in there and do the right thing for the city. It's the usual suspects, the cronies and the carpetbaggers.
So we sit in Austin, and we wonder what to do. Can't move back...no place to live and no schools, even if we could find jobs in our chosen fields. But they desperately want people to move back. It's a bitch of a chicken-and-egg problem.
Posted by ray at November 2, 2005 8:58 PM | Permalink
Categories: [family | katrina | new orleans | work ]
Comments
Figures.
Have you seen "Brownie's" emails on The Smoking Gun?
Posted by: whirlbrain at November 3, 2005 7:19 PM
I got that call too... To short notice. I hope FEMA gets it act together. I would really like to try and make a difference. I am in it for the experience and not the money....
Posted by: NYC Architect at January 5, 2006 11:22 AM
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