experience was as some people described, I was the steadying force for a chaotic situation. Think back:
the government’s shut down, people are panicking, people are worried sick about what’s going to
happen to theWhere does their career take them? The immediacy m. What are they going to do next?
of those basic, fundamental issues is overwhelming. How do you get them to calm down and think some
things through? We brought in some placement people to help them out, work up a resume, get them
to talk positively about where they’ve been and where they might be able to go to. Brought in a
financial planner to talk to the people. He was interesting and almost got me killed because the first
thing he said was, “I’m ggot their attention – we had about 250 people in this lad you’re being fired.” He
session What he was trying to say was, “you’ve got to come – they’re all standing there and on edge.
to grips with your future now.” Do you have enough resources to live in retirement? If the
answer is “no”, you’ll need to focus on a new career. It was very helpful to get people re-focused on what
was important. We brought different services because there was a sense that people were being
discarded. Nobody cared. Congthem. People in the department weren’t interested ress de-funded
in them. They left it up to me to help people. And so I think they felt that at least somebody cared,
somebody was trying to do something, and they were looking for help. Back to the point I made
about the system not designed to help people, there was a limit as to what I could do. We had
outplacement services, but if there aren’t any jobs, you have to rely on somebody else. I try to work
side deals with colleagues that I knew in other bureaus to try to pick up people by ones and twos –
but that’s not systematic. We had 2,000 people in
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basic needs
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attention
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matters
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“I was the steadying force for a chaotic situation”
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“I think cared, somebody was trying to do they felt that at least somebody
something, and they were looking for help”
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EIPRESSURE
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CONNECT
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EMPATHY
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