I first set foot on-site at Johnson Space Center in August 1997. I did five cooperative education tours as an undergraduate and another as a grad co-op over the summer of 2001 between graduating from Georgia Tech and starting at Stanford. The way the government calculates “time worked” is a bit complicated, but when all was said and done, my “effective” start date as a civil servant became August 1998. After finishing at Stanford, I moved to Houston permanently and started full-time at JSC in July 2002. So that’s 11 years since I first pledged my allegiance to the government (yep, you have to do that), 6.5 years since I started working full-time, and many semesters as a student thrown in.
If you can even remotely follow all that, you are now ready to hear my point: this afternoon I walked over to building 1, sat down with a group of others for a short ceremony, and was given my 10-year government service award. It’s not much — just a tiny pin, a handshake, and a photo with the head of Mission Operations — but still. Whoa. 10 years.
Left is the 5-year pin, right is 10-year. 5 more years and I’ll get a gold one! Heh.
I’ve been thinking a lot lately about my future. I’m no longer early career, but not quite mid-career. It’s time to start thinking more long-term and give myself more direction than I’ve had in the past. What do I really want to do? Do I want to stay in flight control (which will be going through quite a lull soon, as the shuttle stops flying)? Do I want to try to move elsewhere within mission operations, or within JSC, or within NASA elsewhere? Then there are the harder questions: do I want to stay at NASA at all? Do I want to even stay in the aerospace field?
So I’ve got a lot of thinking to do. But I’m happy to report that today, just before I got my 10-year award, I found what should obviously be my next job for the short-term: Wienermobile Driver.
Wienermobile spotted in Galveston almost 4 years ago after the Mardi Gras 5K
Yes, Oscar Meyer is taking applications to be a hotdogger, aka to travel the country in a giant vehicle shaped like a wiener.
AWESOME.
HAHAHAHA the wienermobile cracks me up, but it would be so cool to drive it so come visit when you get that job. My job gives really lame service awards – glass paperweights. Even if you’ve been there for like 30 years. Your pins are cool!
LOL, I love the Weinermobile! Some days I want to just sack groceries at Randall’s or have some other think-less job.
“It’s great to be with a wiener” – Luis Tiant
Sorry, probably none of your readers will get that reference (you needed to live in the northeast in the late 70’s) but I had to throw it in.
Hate to break it to you, Sarah, but I think we are too old to drive the Weinermobile! A good friend of mine drove it for a year after college — said it was one of the best experiences of his life — but I seem to remember him mentioning an age limit. Oh, well.
Congrats on 10 years of Federal Service!