First week on the job...

Well quite frankly, I’m not so sure that it could get any better than the first week I had at the Department of Education. My week began on Tuesday, as that Monday was Memorial Day, and I write this to you now as that I have Friday off! (Sadly, the only reason I have Friday off is because my boss is sick–so I hope he is feeling better, but I look forward to this opportunity to explore the city) In my first post, I did not really explain what I was going to be doing within the Department of Education, so I will take a moment to try to give some clarity.

During this first week I job shadowed a gentleman by the name of Robert Buggs, who has the title of Chief Human Capital Officer. Within the Department, he oversees all human capital (human resources) issues. The office itself is entitled–Human Capital and Client Services. Now for some of you this may not seem all that interesting, but for someone like myself that studied negotiation and dispute resolution I don’t mind working with employee/management relations and other human capital situations.

My first day on the job, Robert gave me a file of a Worker’s Compensation complaint that have been made within the department. He asked if that I would look at it, as well as his response, and give him my feedback. I jumped on the opportunity. I felt that this was an amazing opportunity to not only utilize my skills that I had gained in my Masters, but that my boss was giving me an chance on my first day to actually have an opinion and give input! In addition to this assignment I was given the opportunity to follow Robert to some of his daily meetings. At these meetings I was able to meet a lot of influential people and listen to some very interesting topics. On my second day of the job I was even invited to a meeting at the White House Conference Room–now before you get overly excited thinking I’m talking about a conference room within the actual “White House” I must correct you because I fell for that same notion. However, this is a conference room across the street from the White House that is part of a building complex where a lot influential and important meetings are held. It was a very interesting meeting with the HR directors of many different cabinet level departments within the government–so it was still cool! I won’t bore you by talking about the agenda that was discussed but rest assured I found it very enlightening, and the fact that I was the only intern in the room made me feel pretty lucky.

Throughout the remainder of the week I would continue being introduced to many important individuals within the Department of Education including the presidential appointee special assistant to the secretary of education Rayna Aylward. She has been in my corner since day one and on my second day at the job even gave me a tour of Sec. Duncan’s office explaining that she would like to introduce me to him but that he was out of town! Next week I’m scheduled to transfer offices within the Department of Education and begin my work with the Office of Civil Rights (OCR). I have no idea how it can go up from here, but I’m definitely excited! Thanks for stopping by…