Recruiting
This was a letter I was considering sending to an RPI publication, but I think it's been too sanitized and all that was left was a pitch for fresh help.
For recent graduates seeking work experience with international affairs, contract management, and civil infrastructure, the top three locations considered would probably be Washington DC, Boston, and Baltimore. Here’s one that can also be considered: Iraq. Comparing cost-of-living with the other three locations is a bit complicated and actually a bit absurd, considering the starting salaries that are well into six tax-free figures and no direct living expenses. The complication comes in measuring the intangible costs of being abroad for six months to a year at a time. Additionally, no one has quite yet put their finger on the concept of a cost-of-potentially-getting-blown-up index.
Say what you want about whether or not we should be in Iraq, but we are there. For some recent graduates, the $87 billion aid package will probably present some of the best job prospects available. You can’t dump billions into a country’s infrastructure without having some engineers and managers to at least try to direct the flow. At the very least, it’s going to employ hundreds of check-writers just to get all the money spent.
The catch is that the six figure year long deal isn’t available if you already work for the government, which is part of how I ended up in Iraq for a mere 50% bonus over my normal pay. Contractors overseas for greater than 330 days are tax-free; government civilians with 179 day tours aren’t. The other part was my desire to see it all with my own eyes, to put aside the CAD and designs and get some “field engineering” experience. And then, there was my desire to see if I could do it.
Jobs of every shape and size are available, and I ended up as a contractor liaison rather accidentally. My normal field is mechanical/aeronautical engineering, graduating RPI in ’01 and puttering along on my masters since. Resource assistance and head counting contractors is about as far out of my normal work as you can get. I arrived in Kuwait to have a book dropped on my lap and was told I had roughly 2 weeks to learn everything there was to know about the army, its logistic system, contracting regulations, and the contractors. Some things RPI prepares you for quite well, such as having to learn vast amounts of completely unfamiliar information in a short amount of time.
With no ROTC or military experience, I also had the task of learning how to live with the army. Closest I had ever come to this was cub scout camp. Sure, memorizing ranks helps, but most of the lesson came from friendly (as well as not-so-friendly) NCOs. I could handle the fieldcraft, and for the most part I’ve been disease and injury free, with no blisters, sores, or gastro-intestinal distress known here as “The Shiite Revolt”. If you’ve never been camping or have a significant aversion to dust or dirt, cross this job off your list. Every time you wash your hands, the water runs brown, and while you were in the bathroom another film of dust accumulated on your keyboard.
This is not to say work isn’t rewarding, and it is, at least when it’s not being frustrating. Ill-defined is often the nature of work here, but just every so often something will come together in a way that makes you think you’ve accomplished something. Progress is something only visible through the confusion, but it’s there to be seen. So if the money seems right, you’ve assessed your inclination towards risk, you feel no qualms about filth, and you’d like to take part in one of the world’s biggest challenges in nationbuilding, consider Iraq.