You know you work in government when...

So today the manager of the office, the building not all the people, announced that our lease on the building is up in March 2010 and DWS has decided to lease only half of the building from now on. All eligibility specialist, that's me, are going to be moved to the Provo Regional Center (PRC) , located on Center street in Provo, in either March or April. I'm ok with the change as I already live in Provo and it isn't the Provo North office. I remembered this joke list that was given to me when I worked in the Logan DWS office, which was June of 2001. And I had to laugh at how many of them were true for me. I put my answers in White

You know you work in government when..

• You sat at the same desk for four years and worked for three different departments. Well it's been six years at the same desk and two divisions. First one didn't really have a name the second one is Eligibility Services Devision which was just created this past year.
  
• You worked for the same department for four years and sat at more than 10 different desks. Eight and a half years and four different desks.
• You've been in the same job for four years and have had 10 different supervisors. Again six years at the same job, 1. Noral, 2. Mike D., 3. Dave, 4. back to Mike D., 5. Matt, and current 6. Emily. My record is three supervisors in the same day. I went into work with Dave is my supervisor, got an email at 11 am and Mike was my supervisor then at about 4 in th afternoon Matt called and introduced himself as my supervisor.
• You order your business cards in "half orders" instead of whole boxes. (note a whole box is 1,000) I've had three different business cards and all of them were half orders of just 500. I also need a new set as we changed our numbers and so forth so no current business card at all.
• When someone asks about what you do for a living, you can't explain it in one sentence. This is the shortest way I've come up with explaining what an eligibility specialist is/does. I determine eligibility for food stamps, financial, medical and child care assistance. Even after I say that people look at me with blank stares and say, "what does that mean?"
• You get really excited about a 2% raise. Last time I got a 2% raise was 2005 and they don't call it a raise they call it a cost of living increase. We haven't had a cost of living increase since 2007. So yep, if I got a 2% raise I'd be totally excited about it.
• You use acronyms in your sentences. Not such an unusual thing in this day and age, what with text messaging and all. Yes we do use acronyms in our sentences. They have only increased over the years. I used to work for DWS. Now I work for DWS in the ESD, under the ESO on the CBT.
  
• Your biggest loss from a system crash is you lose your best jokes. Well I do have some funny emails on there but I'd be more bummed about losing my music.
• You sit in a cubicle smaller than your bedroom closet. My cubical is smaller than my bedroom closet right now. I have a fear that it will be even smaller come April or May.
• It's dark when you drive to and from work. In the winter this is very true. The only way I see the sun right now is if I go out to my car on a break or lunch. It starts to get a little light when I arrive at the office at 6:30 am. Currently I leave at two different times on the days I leave "early" the sun is setting and on the days I leave "late" the sun has been down for over an hour. In the summer it is only dark in the morning. Daylight savings time really does give you more hours of daylight in the day.
• Fun is when issues are assigned to someone else. Anytime I can pass of a nasty case oh you bet I do. For the record I fix more than my fair share of nasty and stupid.
• The words "challenge" and "opportunity" makes you shiver in fear. It's so true.
• You see a good-looking person and know it is a visitor. Yep they are either there for a job interview, consultants gathering information, or top brass of the department.
• Free food left over from meetings is your main staple. To bad most of it is chocolate. Maybe that's why I weigh so much. ;) Most of it isn't from meetings though it is from treat bowls in Julie's cubical. I had to change the route I take to the bathroom to avoid the temptation of her treat bowl.
  
• Weekends are those days your significant other makes you stay home. Not a problem for me. But I have worked overtime the past few weekends. The last time they even offered over time was about 4 years ago so that doesn't happen offer.
• Art involves a white board. Yep the white board is by my cubical and the makers are at my desk. I put up a quote for the day every day. It used to have drawings but I can't draw and Jennifer moved to the Provo office so there hasn't been much art recently.
• You're already late on the assignment you just got. Happened on Thursday of last week. All applications have to be worked with in 30 days. I got the case on the 30th day and all of the stuff for it had been for about 3 weeks. Then on Tuesday I worked a case that had been lost in limbo for a month so I issued it back to October.
• Dilbert cartoons hang outside every cube and are read by your co-workers only. Actually my co-workers don't understand the humor of Dilbert. I know Dad, it is shocking but they just don't get it. One of the consultants that stopped by about two weeks ago laughed out loud at it. I do have three Dilbert cartoons on my cubical, some Peanuts, Garfield and Maxine.
• Your boss' favorite lines are "when you get a few minutes" or "when you're freed up." Actually it's, "when you are caught up." Which is funny because my version of "caught up" is a little different than hers. I work on other peoples stuff pretty much every other day.
• You read this entire list and understood it.