Confessions Rants and Exploits of a Civil Servant

By Ramona Swann

Ramona Swann's 30-year career spanned assignments at the Departments of Defense, Transportation, Agriculture and Energy in a navigation up the civil service career ladder that plays out like a dark comedy. Ramona's world was one of excessive waste, tangled rules, indecipherable regulations and, of course, ever present politics. Confessions offers a view inside government.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Elderberry Press
• Release date: Nov 3, 2010
• ISBN: 9781458119681

Book preview

Introduction

I enlisted in the Air Force in 1978 with my first assignment as a warehouseman at the Air Force Academy. My highest rank and accomplishment was as a director at the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS) at USDA. I worked for the Department of Defense, Department of Transportation, United States Department of Agriculture and the Department of Energy.

My jobs weren’t glamorous or powerful, but there were times I felt like I was making a positive contribution and influencing a better government. I’ve had jobs that I’ve excelled in and jobs where a monkey could have done a better job. I scraped from the bottom of the heap up to what I thought was the top, only to find myself at the bottom of another heap. My starting annual salary was $5,859 and when I retired it was $132,503.

This book is an account of my personal experiences in the federal government and military. It is not intended to reflect those of other employees in different agencies or geographical locations. I have done my best at recalling and verifying information; however, some details and facts may not be 100 percent correct. I am an average person who often sees things differently from another for any number of reasons. I have substituted names where I didn’t want to include a person’s real name for a variety of reasons.

I have tried to refrain from writing in bureaucratese (language characteristic of the government) and fully support the movement toward plain language in government writing. We’re all busy people. We don’t want to waste time translating difficult, wordy documents.

Finally, after thirty-one years, five months and four days I am able to tell my story. What it’s really like to spend an entire career employed by the United States federal government.

9/11

It started as a normal workday morning in Washington, DC, where I lived about a half a mile from the Pentagon. I went through my daily routine of resetting the snooze button, taking a shower, drinking coffee, and listening to the news while putting on my makeup. My final task prior to leaving for work was to take a walk around the block with my cocker-poo mutt, Chewy. I was a director at the Food Safety and Inspection Service and planned on working at my office in downtown DC prior to a dental appointment. I was then going to meet my friend for coffee before driving to Beltsville, Maryland, where the bulk of the division I managed at USDA was located. It was a beautiful day; the morning air was crisp and clear; the sky was blue without a cloud in sight.

I met my friend Paulette at the Department of Transportation cafeteria, located between the Capitol and the Pentagon. TV monitors in the cafeteria were broadcasting live from New York where an airplane had flown into one of the Twin Towers. Then, at 9:03 another plane hit the second tower. For a moment everyone in the cafeteria sat in stunned silence. Paulette said we needed to get out of the city, that we would be attacked next. I thought she was overreacting and still hadn’t grasped what had happened as I followed her out an exit onto the street. We parted as I headed toward the USDA building a few blocks down the street. I did not know that at that time the Pentagon was also hit by a plane.

As I stepped off the elevator into the hallways of the USDA building which is just across the river from the Pentagon, the day became surreal, like being on the set of a movie from the Twilight Zone. Employees were gathering in the halls shouting that the Pentagon, Capitol, and White House had been attacked. Sirens started going off and smoke from the Pentagon was visible from the windows. In a moment of panic and fear I started to turn and go home but instead continued on toward my office. I was told the FSIS administrator had instructed my division to stand by in DC and in Maryland. I quickly overturned that decision sensing that it wouldn’t be long before there would be complete chaos in the city. After I had directed all employees to go home I went to the administrator’s office for further direction. Nobody knew what to do or where to go, so I returned to my office. I was frustrated that we did not have a plan for evacuation or continuity of operations.

My assistant, Shauna, was shutting down computers and locking doors. She told me that my family on the West Coast had been trying to contact me. Shauna was worried about her mother who worked in another building close by, so I offered to drive her there. If I had waited a moment longer, I wouldn’t have been able to get my vehicle out of the garage as all exits were being shut down. Shauna suggested I go home with her because my house was just a few blocks from the Pentagon. My husband was working at one of the military bases in DC, and I was worried about him and Chewy, so I decided to try and make it home. The streets were in gridlock and employees were exiting the buildings in masses while trying unsuccessfully to use their cell phones. I couldn’t reach the building where Shauna’s mother worked, so she got out to try and make her way through the crowds on foot.

Maneuvering through the back streets of DC, I made it onto the 14th Street Bridge. Time suddenly slowed to an eerie crawl, I was the only vehicle on the bridge, and the sky above the Pentagon was filled with dark clouds of smoke and huge plumes of fire that I was driving toward. The radio reported an unidentified plane headed down the Potomac as I crossed over the bridge. I felt disconnected to reality as I entered the streets of Pentagon City. The Pentagon was being evacuated and thousands of people were wandering aimlessly, trying to find information and transportation. They were trapped with no way home. When I arrived home, I utilized my BlackBerry palm pilot to make contact with my sister and then work. Landline and cellular phones remained jammed.

My husband, Duane, arrived home a couple of hours later. He had left the base he was working at after it closed and had been stuck in traffic. We spoke briefly before he went to his sanctuary in the basement. We later learned that three employees with his company, Booze Allen Hamilton, were killed at the Pentagon. I heard the television reporting that chaos and panic were quickly spreading throughout the United States and the world.

Throughout the rest of the day there were reports of impending attacks. It was terrifying. I spent the evening watching the news, drinking, and connecting with friends and family, as well as setting up an alternate work site for the Food Safety and Inspection Service (FSIS). I finally went to bed alone and crying. When I awoke in the morning my first thought was the hope that the events of the day before had not happened. The helicopters, jets, and sirens that had continued through the night as I slept made me aware that it had.

Driving to work that day I struggled to pull myself together. I knew that employees would be upset and looking for guidance on how to deal with the current events. I understood my demeanor could not be light, but I also had to display strength and confidence. I worked all day trying to console and reassure employees and then went home and once again drank and cried myself to sleep. Duane left the following day for an assignment out of the country. He had to drive to Baltimore because the DC airports remained closed.

President Bush finally made a televised statement which did nothing to comfort us in the DC area; he seemed as frightened as a small child as he stumbled on his words, crying and looking confused and helpless.

I entertained the thought of hopping in my truck with Chewy and driving home to the West Coast. I imagine most residents in the DC and the New York area thought of fleeing. It was then I realized how much we take for granted the services government employees provide. They inspect the food we eat and the places we work; they protect us from the illicit flow of drugs, care for our nation’s veterans, keep our water safe; the national defense systems prepared for danger and much more.

Down the street from where we lived was a hill overlooking the Pentagon and a makeshift memorial had been quickly constructed. I walked there in the days and evenings following the attack where people gathered, lit candles, posted pictures of lost loved ones, and watched as the Pentagon continued to burn. One evening there were so many candles burning that the fire department had been called to put out a possible fire on the hillside.

The Pentagon as constructed was immensely strong and the area the airliner hit even stronger because it had recently been renovated. There were still some aspects of the original construction where the roof consisted of a layer of masonry, topped by wood, topped by slate. When the wood ignited, it allowed the fire to travel between the layers of slate and concrete, resulting in a blaze that was hard to extinguish.

My friends that lived nearby came over, and we devised a plan for the next attack we were sure was coming. We agreed to meet in my basement which was well stocked with alcohol and a freezer full of food. As helicopters, smoke, and sirens continued to surround us, it felt like the end of the world. At work we continued to prepare for and to expect more terrorist attacks. We dealt with continuing bomb threats, temporary evacuations onto the streets, and armored tanks and military personnel everywhere.

Like many people during the aftermath of 9/11, I reflected on my life and reevaluated my professional and personal goals. I realized that I had long since met them (the last two were when my daughter Monica graduated from college and when I was selected as a director for FSIS). I had not replaced them with goals that were challenging and meaningful. I also realized that a meaningful life is not about achievement for achievement’s sake or a contest to acquire material possessions. We all leave the world with nothing. Our desire should be that the world is better because we were in it, not because of a collection of Waterford crystal, a prestigious zip code, or a fancy title attached to our name. I had recently been finding myself tired of the rat race to get ahead, and I missed my family in the Pacific Northwest. I started applying for jobs in the state of Washington. I realized that I had to count on living every single day in a way that if it were over today, I’d be satisfied.

I continue to struggle with 9/11 and was sad, angry, and frustrated for a long time after the attacks. I would have nightmares and wake screaming in fear of airplanes crashing into my bedroom. Occasionally when I hear a plane fly low, my entire body impulsively shivers and I suppress the urge to scream.

As the years have passed a wide range of movies and books have come out recounting the events of 9/11. Most of them were about the day on which the planes hit the New York Twin Towers. I watched the movies and read the books and often the hit at the Pentagon was a small foot note. Acknowledgment of the tragedy at the Pentagon and to the residents, employees, and citizens in the DC metropolitan area seemed to be missing. I wondered if people viewed DC as the government and the government as partially responsible. More likely is the possibility I was being overly sensitive.

In what most Americans thought was a response to 9/11, Congress passed the Iraq Resolution which President Bush signed into law in 2002. This resolution authorized the invasion and use of military force against Iraq. The principal argument used was the possession of weapons of mass destruction and active links to Al Qaeda. Even though this information was found to be incorrect, this overreaction, so satisfying at the time to the wounded American spirit, turned into the war which I believe will go down in history as one of America’s biggest failures.

Then in October came the anthrax attacks where letters laced with the deadly virus began appearing in the U.S. mail. Five Americans were killed (two of those at a Washington, DC–area postal facility) and numerous victims were sickened. The letters contained similar handwritten notes, You cannot stop us. We have the anthrax. You die now. Are you afraid? Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great.

Many employees refused to handle any mail until irradiation started. The irradiation process sterilizes mail by passing it through a high-energy beam to knock out germs and viruses inside letter trays and packages. I started receiving mail that was dry, dusty, discolored, and brittle from being irradiated. Said to be a collector’s item, irradiated mail started showing up on eBay.

It wasn’t until late 2008 that the anthrax crimes were considered solved. To the shock of most everyone it was civil servant Bruce Ivins, an army microbiologist who was working on a vaccine for anthrax poisoning. Ivins had complained about the limits of testing anthrax drugs on animals and he may have sent the anthrax letters in order to test a vaccine he had been developing. Soon after investigators informed Ivins of his impending prosecution police were called to his home when his wife found him unresponsive. He was taken to the hospital where he died two days later. Cause of death was listed as suicide from self-ingested drugs. At a news conference soon after his death, officials formally announced that the government had concluded that Ivins was likely to have been solely responsible for the anthrax mailings and deaths.

Pre-Government Life

Growing up in the small town of Puyallup in Washington State, my childhood friends and I planned on marrying and having children just like our mothers. Possible career options to consider (in case our husbands died) were school teachers or nurses. We were not aware that joining the military or applying for civil service were options.

I have had a passion for art and painting since I can remember. I painted pictures on boats, windows, milk cans: anything that had a blank space. Among many art projects, I designed a mural which our high school art class painted on a wall on the side of a building in downtown Puyallup. Secretly, I dreamed of becoming a commercial artist, living in a large city and preparing brilliant presentations for exciting companies like Campbell’s Soup (those were the Andy Warhol days).

Not having the talent for a scholarship and having no idea about the logistics of attending an art college I set my dreams on becoming a stewardess. Being a stewardess was a popular new job for women in the early 70s and sounded exciting. It allowed women an opportunity to get out of towns they lived in and away from men who saw them as maids, cooks, and sperm receptacles. I imagined myself living in a sleek, modern apartment with beautiful clothes, entertaining handsome men from all over the world. In reality I was engaged to my high school sweetheart who was considered a good catch with a steady job in the meat department at the local Safeway grocery store.

After high school graduation in 1972, I moved into a cheap, one bedroom apartment behind a hillbilly bar with two friends. Rent was $99 a month with paper-thin walls, old, dirty furniture and one bed we took turns sleeping in. The first night, we saw black people going into an apartment beneath ours and heard strange music and loud noises. You have to understand our exposure to blacks had been limited to National Geographic magazines and the one foreign exchange student from Ethiopia that came to our school my senior year. Frightened, we slept the first night in my car with the keys in the ignition. It was a sheltered life we had lived in Puyallup.

My roommates and I enrolled in a community college near Seattle where they offered a two-year associates degree in aviation designed to assist young women in obtaining jobs as stewardesses. I graduated from the program in 1974 and sent out dozens of applications to airlines hoping to get a job and have a reason to postpone my impending marriage. I only received one interview that I failed at miserably. I was starting to panic as the wedding date was getting close (I had the dress, invitations, even the mints).

I was working the graveyard shift as a waitress at Sambo’s Restaurant near Sea-Tac Airport when I met Duane, a cab driver who had just returned from Europe. I had never known anyone that had traveled outside the Pacific Northwest and found him worldly and sexy. He didn’t seem to mind that I was engaged. I smoked my first marijuana joint, drank espresso coffee and went all the way with Duane. The sex was especially exciting because at the old age of twenty, I was worried I was never going to lose my virginity.

I knew I would