one year down...
On June 29th, just a couple of weeks ago, I realized that I have been with FNAI for a year. Time has gone by quickly during this past year. I feel like I have gotten some good experience and I hope that in the future I will get to work on more challenging GIS projects and add to my skill-set.
I was looking back through this blog, and I realize that I haven’t said nearly as much as I did when I was working for the USFWS or anyone else. Perhaps that is because I’m kept busier at this job? When I was at the FWS, nearly every day was fairly slow, and I generally had the time to write about my day and projects that I was working on. Now, I barely have a post a month. Is it because half of my time is spent working on data requests, and there just isn’t much to say about that? I don’t know. Less blogging - what does that indicate? I have worked on interesting projects, and I’m not really sure why I haven’t written so much about them. Perhaps I should start. The point of this blog is to keep track of said projects - I really should be writing here more often.
Since I have now worked at FNAI for a year, I believe I have some well-rounded experience with the different levels of government. I realize that there are things that are severely lacking in my GIS skill-set, though, and that will hinder me from getting a job in the future. Every place I have worked for thus far, with the exception of Gordon County, has been stuck using shapefiles. They aren’t using geodatabases, they have no need for an enterprise SDE setup and they don’t have much going in the way of geo-web presence. They all seem to be stuck. I admit, for the work that they do, geodatabases, especially something like multi-user, are just not necessary to perform the kind of analysis and work that these agencies do. For instance, a recent job opening back in Georgia where a friend works mentioned job skills like - experience using ArcGIS Server, SQL Server, SDE, geodatabase design, etc. My current skill-set doesn’t include experience with any of these, with the exception of some minor geodatabase design and some SDE experience. *Sigh* Of course, I am definitely willing to learn how to use these things, I just have never been given the opportunity. This means that I really need to work on my skill-set as much as I can though, and try to beef up my resume as much as possible - but I don’t have access to ArcGIS Server or these other things to play with, so it will be that much more difficult to gain experience. I did purchase the ArcObjects book from ESRI, though I have yet to actually go through it and get some GIS programming experience. That is something that I definitely need to start working on this summer.
Since I have now been here for a year, I might have enough experience to go ahead and apply for the GIS professional certification. The requirement is 4 years of experience - 1 year with FNAI, 1+ years with the FWS, and all of my part time hours at Gordon County might give me the 4 years. I need to sit down and add it all up. It is supposed to be a big boost to your resume to have this certification and to be able to add GISP after your signature, so I think it will be worth the $250 application fee to get it (why does this kind of thing have to cost money?!), but you can kiss applying good-bye until you have 4 full-time years of experience.
Another thing I would like to do to increase my experience is to take a class at FSU and really start working towards my Masters - but, as I mentioned previously, I have procrastinated too long to actually apply to the Masters program. I could still try to take a class as a special student. I guess I should look into when the semester starts, determine what, if any, classes are available for me to take, and see if I can at least get my immunization documents to the school so that I could just take one class. I know that working and going to classes would be difficult, but I miss school - badly. I just want to sit in a classroom and listen to a lecture. For some reason, that would be very calming to me right now.
I do enjoy my current job and I don’t particularly want to leave it for any reason, but I don’t see much promotion potential or the promise of a salary increase, especially since my salary is paid by the State, and they are in a gigantic budget crisis right now. I’m sure it will get worse before it gets better, since the ridiculous oil spill has already struck a blow to Florida’s main revenue supply - tourism. Which is kind of silly, since the only Florida beaches that have been affected are the Gulf coast beaches. The Tampa Bay area, the Atlantic coast and the Keys aren’t being affected - yet. As it is now, I don’t think my job is in any jeopardy of going away - I actually bring in outside funding from private sources, so as long as people need data reports, I will have a job.
Anyway, I know that staff have been promoted in the past - for instance, Jon has mentioned before that he used to have my job. But then, he has worked there for over 10 years, so it really seems like it would take a good deal of time to be promoted there, and even then, I don’t think my salary would rise very much. I would really like to do this job, I would just like to know that it is going to go somewhere eventually, and it would be really nice if I had a larger salary that is a bit more in line with my experience. So, I have been looking at other job openings, just to see what is out there and what sort of job requirements there are, mostly through USAJobs. Most seem to want more experience than I have, or graduate education. The openings that I would likely qualify for are usually Temp jobs, not to exceed one year, so it hardly seems worth it to go for those positions. So it looks like there are still quite a few steps I should take before I can really be confident that I could get a job with the federal government, which is my overarching goal. At any rate, I don’t think I will actually apply for anything unless the salary offer is substantially more than what I am making now. If it is under $40k, I’m not going to bother, because I can basically just stay where I am.
So, it looks like I will continue with FNAI until I can add more to my skill-set or get some graduate education. Both will take time, of course, and I am glad to be at FNAI, because I believe that working here will afford me the opportunities to both go to graduate school and add more to my skill-set. I am already being handed greater responsibilities, though they aren’t much to speak of right now. I am now in charge of managing staff timesheets for each fiscal year. I have performed a data request statistical analysis to see how much we might be able to raise our billable rate to cover data request costs since our data request funding has been cut. I have felt good these past couple of weeks because I have been able to help Amy finish up her Cooperative Land Cover project. I am going to attempt to learn more about Crystal Reports this summer and see if I can produce some new reports for land management type data requests, since they are significantly different from our standard data requests. I will work on refreshing my programming skills, and trying to get more biology/ecology knowledge. I feel like there is more out there for me to work on, and I think that my bosses see that I have the potential to do more complex projects. I think the next year will fly by just as fast.