I’m a Working Girl Again

Sorry I didn’t post a photo yesterday – I’m trying to get back into the groove of this working-thing again.

I don’t know if I posted exactly what it is that I’m doing at my job – my official title is “Test Specialist” and my job is basically to support the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration) testing of various flight service systems, mostly dealing with Alaska (strangely enough, I actually have a bit of experience in dealing with Alaska flight service issues – you didn’t know that about me, did you?). I am working for EIT, a government contractor.

Let me warn you – I may start to throw a bunch of acronyms around here. Please don’t ask me what some of these acronyms stand for. Even though I started working with the FAA almost 20 years ago (YIKES! I’m old!) and while I know what the acronyms ARE, I don’t know exactly what some of them officially STAND FOR – and there’s even debate amongst FAA old-timers themselves as to what the true meaning of some of them is.

For those who know me from my FAA days, I am working on testing PTRs in the Alaskan version of OASIS (a system near and dear to my heart since I helped to write the original software) as well as helping out with the new AFSM (Alaskan Flight Service Modernization) program – that acronym I know. 🙂

The funny thing is, even though I’ve been away from the industry for over 6 years now, it’s almost as if I never left. I saw many familiar faces in the halls, heard some familiar voices on the OASIS teleconference the other day (hello to Chris, Aaron and Bob if you’re reading this!) and after briefly reading over some documentation, it’s all starting to come back to me.

However, I’m still not settled in since my cubicle is still full of stray equipment. I also do not have a badge – this may not sound like a big deal, but without a badge, I have to go through security every morning (like going through airport security – and my shoes always set off the metal detector, so I end up having to take them off every day. Note to self – always wear socks without holes) to get a visitor’s badge. This also means that I can’t walk around the building by myself – someone always has to escort me….which is a real pain when I have to – say – go to the bathroom. But this is just par for the course – badges can take anywhere from a week to several months to come in. I’d better stock up on new socks.

I’ll be working three days a week – just 24 hours total. Just enough to get me back out there (and earn some money) but still stay connected to the kids and home. And I’m off today, so I’m trying to catch up on all my errands while I can. Which includes heading out to buy a pair of replacement boots for my brown pair which broke yesterday morning just before I headed out the door…fashion crisis!

PS – I just found an online acronym dictionary…and even it has various meanings for some of the FAA acronyms…