Winding Down the Internship

My time is coming to a close here at the EEOC and I am hoping to actually pick up a permanent job from this little gig that I had. I have grown to love the litigation field and work well with the lawyers. From simple cases to extremely large cases with dozens of discriminated invidividuals it has all been a real eye opener. I cannot beleive so many companies still practice unfair discrimination practices. I have seen racism, sexism, pregnancy cases, age cases, and even national origin discrimination. It is pretty pathetic that companies resort to this kind of behavior. I have even seen cases where management was aware of the problems, but looked the other way for the sheer sake of profit. I have witnessed companies get caught, sued, pay millions of dollars only to let the discrimination continue and end up in court again a few years later.

What an eye opener.

Theresa

Money Problems Still Abound

Working this internship with the EEOC has really opened my eyes up to Government spending. Our budget pretty much being released on a monthly  basis. This really makes it difficult to accomplish the job. Most everything we do is relied upon for money. From scheduling court reporters to buying siimple office supplies nothing seems immune to a low budget. We are all learing to be frugal and only use what is needed and use supplies until they are really gone.

With a fast paced litigation environment, money can affect the lives of many people. Attorneys have to be real careful on how they prepare for cases. Most cases require at least 4 depositions and that can get quite costly. Even though the government has to slow down spending, the court deadlines keep coming. Judges don't really care if you do not have the money to do the job.

We will see what the future holds for us........

Theresa

Career Post

Based on a desired change of lifestyle, I chose to speak with many people the past few weeks about my future career. I am looking at either entering a graduate program or entering the military to pursue a career in engineering or the medical field. I spoke at great lengths with the ASU Nursing Program representative about Nursing of Physician Assistant Programs. Based on my age, I would have to receive a direct commission into the military. There are few programs in the military that offer direct commissions. Nursing, engineering and computer sciences are a few. After speaking with the Nursing representative, I immediately began to look into nursing and PA programs. The PA programs would require less education and will let me join the military much quicker. The computer sciences path will require about another 8 months or so of education.

I have spoken with many recruiters from all branches of the military and am still trying to decide what is the best option for me. Arizona State University offers all the education I need for any path I choose so at least that part of planning has been made easy for me. My husband is retired Air Force, so of course that would be the first choice. However, I have told him to be prepared to be the spouse of a Naval Officer as well. I will let you know in a future post exactly what I am going to do. I still have a few appointments to meet with ASU Representatives as well as the Graduate program rep with ASU.

Theresa

Career Service Blog - Grad Fair

I attended the grad fair held at the UCent Bookstore on last Wednesday. I was looking forward to picking up my husbands Graduate hood, cap, and gown and also picking up my graduation wear for Spring. I was also looking forward to speaking with a few potential job employers. However, I soon found that this was only for graduation information and materials. I would have expected to speak to future employers. Would it not make sense to set up a few booths since an employer would have a captive audience of graduating students? I did get to speak with the representatives that sold the announcements, rings, etc. I was really looking forward to speaking with others. I know other job fairs are held throughout the year, but this was one place where most graduates were going to and you had them captive. While I was there, I counted at least 35 other students picking up stuff. Not to mention the dozens of others that were in there just to pick up school supplies. This seemed the perfect location to be a head hunter. I might make this a suggestion to the school for future GRAD fairs. Even inviting two or three may make a difference in a Graduates future.

Halloween Party

This week end I will be hosting my first ever Halloween party for my nieces and nephews. I recently moved into my new house which is sitting on over an acre in rural Buckeye. I have always wanted a large house on more property so I can host parties such as this. My brothers and sisters have always been the ones to have parties and I felt it was time that I did my share. I am looking forward to having the kids dress up in their costumes, bob for apples, carve pumpkins and roast hot dogs and marshmallows on a campfire. I am very excited and cannot wait for it to all come together.

I will keep you posted on how the party came out.

Records Staging Training

This week I sat through 48 hours of Records Management Staging and Archiving Storage Training. The government requires all agencies to keep records for a certain period of time based on subject matter. Some records are only kept a few months, whereas other records are kept up to 56 years. After sitting through this training I have to wonder where in the world are all these records going too? Just in our office alone I see hundreds of thousands of documents created for many court cases. Times that number by the number of offices throughout the country and it is extremely mind boggling. I envision large buildings spread out throughout the country filled from first floor to top floor with boxes. One of the reasons for such an organized staging activity is so that if an organization needs to recall the item from storage it can be done quickly and efficiently. In my prior job with the government, I sent a request to recall a file from staging and it took six months to get it back.

Theresa

Outreach Programs

I have been heavily involved lately in the outreach programs offered at my internship. We make ourselves available to travel to businesses to give training on the prevention of discrimination. This training covers age, race, sex, gender and also national origin training. Most businesses and employees do not understand what is or is not discrimination.I am still amazed at the number of people who think discrimination does not exist in the workplace. There are many companies who turn the other cheek when claims of discrimination are made. Fortunately, we are here to curb those businesses. It can cost a business millions of dollars if they are found guilty of disrcimination.

Theresa