Well, that'll teach me to whine about not having good blog fodder.
In order: if you've been following or have heard about the FEMA Bore Corps Twitter account, which has thankfully been taken down as of this writing, well... I apologize on behalf of whoever that was. The disclaimer atop their Twitter page made sure to note that their opinions did not reflect those of FEMA, but neglected to add that they certainly do not represent all of FEMA Corps.
Now: if you were the slow-witted son of a bitch who thought it would be a good idea to set up a throwaway Twitter account and gabble stupid, juvenile garbage at the FEMA administrator and FOX News, what the hell were you thinking? How did antagonizing every single one of your bosses and making the entire Corps look like snarky twits possibly sound like a good idea?
Professionalism may be a concept attached all too tightly to the world of salaried, adult work that we're all heading towards, but it still applies when you're working for the National Civilian Community Corps and with the Department of Homeland Security. It would also matter if you were working at the local ice-cream shoppe. You don't create a scene and embarrass your entire organization (along with yourself) if you're dissatisfied, no matter what the setting. It's mortifying, it's childish, it solves nothing and it's just plain old-fashioned dumb.
This is the part where I would go into how we're supposed to be better than that kind of gibberish, how we were picked to serve as disaster volunteers in the hopes that we could actually do some good, that part of our responsibility as the inaugural FEMA Corps class is gritting our teeth and helping our parent organizations work out the inevitable kinks in the program and so on, but who am I kidding? You knew that already. All the insults I've hurled so far notwithstanding, if you made it this far in the program, surely you had to have understood that what we're doing here is not for just our class, any more than working with survivors is simply an instrument for your own gratification. Tweaking the program so it'll work better in future classes is one of our responsibilities; you knew that. How you could be so myopic as to ignore it in favor of snark is the most disappointing part of the whole stupid affair. If you're that fed up, do the rest of us a favor and quit.
3 comments:
Andy!!!! You are my hero!!! Thank you so much for posting this, I back you up 150% on everything you said and hope that the people who are so unhappy here take that advice and either change their attitude or go home!
I've been following your blog for some time. At the beginning, it was because I was dating someone who is currently in FEMA Corps, who didn't bother telling me himself what was going on. We've since split up, but I've come to enjoy your blog on it's own merits. :) I couldn't tell you if he's the one who put up the Twitter account, but some of the attitude definitely sounds like him. He joined FEMA Corps mainly for his own selfish purposes (i.e., padding his resume so he could get a writing job later and 'examining his life'). I told him to research the program thoroughly before jumping in. I'm not surprised if he's totally miserable right now. I don't doubt that volunteering work can be rough at times, and it probably wasn't anything like he was expecting it to be. But, as far as quitting goes, I'm guessing he probably won't because after all, he wants that resume padding to look good. I've spent some of my adult life serving my country in the Navy, and we've had our share of long, hard hours. My longest shift was a 20 hour one; let's see the anonymous snarker complain about that. Pardon the rambling, but I'm trying to say that stuff like this annoys me. If you have that many issues with something, take it up the chain, and don't put yourself on blast all over the internet. Sadly, though, there are snarky twits in every group, something I'm sure you've realized by now. Love your blog, and keep up the good work. :)
As I'm sure you know, there are good things and bad things within any program - especially a new one. I completely agree that this person absolutely handled it the wrong way (although I never saw the twitter account). I have been reading your blog since the beginning because I would like to join FEMA corps next year. I just want to thank you for being honest in your writing and keeping us all informed! I love reading your blog and learning more about the program that I hope to be a part of next year! Good luck in your continuing service! :)
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