I'm unemployed.  That's a different story.

In my hope to find some kind of new employment I try to leave no possibilities unexplored. My brother-in-lawgave me the web address of the main U.S. Government job system. Maybe some of you will have better luck with it than I have.  Mostly I only get bites from the Foresty Service and to a lesser extent Fish and Game Dept.  The DC Writing people don't seem to be interested in me.

USAJobs.gov

The whole thing is messy and disorganized (go figure). Many of the listings have been filled out incorrectly (The job is not open to the public, and should not be listed as such, if a person needs to be at least a Sargent in the U.S. Army to apply). The application rules for many jobs are arcane and require many pieces of paper to be filled out, signed, and filed for 3 years in a basement before they are valid (some of the forms can't be filled out without as many as 6 other forms).

Other than massive cases of user error on the government side, there are some really interesting things to look at here. Many interesting jobs are listed listed there for the National Archives, park rangers, all sorts of specialty stuff that many people would be interested in. There are big chunks of government writing jobs, but a lot of them are senior, so getting rated as a Government service Equivilent may be tricking depending on your background.

Wandering  through the education section (my former field), I found a listing that was astounding just in its existence. No Judy, I'm not talking about the National Archives post for an in-house firearms trainer (under their maintenance and support services division). Maybe they have big rats?

I'm writing about the Educational Specialist position ate the Richard Nixion Library!

http://jobsearch.usajobs.gov/getjob.asp?JobID=78463056&AVSDM=2009-01-08+00%3A03%3A01&Logo=0&q=nixon&FedEmp=N&sort=rv&vw=d&brd=3876&ss=0&FedPub=Y&SUBMIT1.x=0&SUBMIT1.y=0&SUBMIT1=Search+for+Jobs

The primary duties... (copied directly from the listing)

-------------------

As the Library Education Specialist you will -

• Manage a variety of education programs (elementary, secondary, college and public) by developing plans, policies and procedures that guide, govern and promote these activities, including researching and developing curriculum and teacher study guides on a variety of historical, political and public policy issues.

• Prepare proposals to obtain external support, cooperation, and sponsorship from various private and government organizations.

• Serve as a resource to teachers concerning questions of instructional methods on historical materials and programs.  Plan and conduct teacher workshops. Give presentations to classes and other groups visiting the Library.  Deliver historical presentations to classes in schools, colleges, and other institutions.

• Expand the library's resources to meet the increasing needs of non-English speaking school groups visiting the Library, the visually impaired, hearing impaired, and to encourage the use of the Library on the web.

• Design and build the Library's online teaching modules and manage the use of the Library's new presidential classroom.

It seems that 'ol Tricky Dick is very misunderstood (mostly by non-English speakers to boot!) and vastly uncovered in modern classrooms. Who knew? Someone MUST help us all understand him better! (Apparently explaining 'ol Tricky Dick would require $75k-$97.5k a year. That's a lot of 'splaining you gotta do Lucy.)

My sister thinks I should apply for it, if only for the shock value of the cocktail party “so what do you do?” question. The fact that I don't go to cocktail parties doesn't phase her in the least.  COuld I even face m CA friends if I took a job like that?

The whole idea of this job scares me a little. Who works ate the Richard Nixon Library? Am I scared of perfectly normal people just doing their day jobs? It has to be someone's dream job. Do I want to have a desk near this person? Would I have to meet G. Gordon Liddy?

Spin-off questions... Who is going to work at the “W” Library? Will it have a children's section? Will it have a non-children's section? Will it even have books?

I don't think I'll apply for the job, but I think I really just had to share with the OS crowd, maybe someone even more down on his/her luck may want to apply.  Remember to check the interview room for bugs, and that the answers to the personailty test may be graded on a different scale than you might expect.