I am now six months removed from the background investigator life, so thought I would update, if anyone is interested.
After the first two months, I was bored in my new role. It was difficult to go from hard charging, hitting the field every day, go, go, go, to basically standing still. I got a bit panicked and contacted my prior management at DCSA to ask to come back. Despite being told by the same management that I had a year to be reinstated, they now said that since I left for a GS9 position, I would have to return as a GS9. So much for reinstatement. Well, that made the decision rather easy and it also allowed me to let go of the safety blanket of returning to the old gig.
Fast forward to today, life is much better. I am still learning a complicated job and the learning curve is steep and frustrating at times. However, generally, I am much more satisfied in this role. My work-life balance is awesome, I work eight hours a day and then I am done. My phone does not ring after business hours, no meeting sources in the evening, no late night report writing, no catching up to meet ACDs on the weekend. I don’t start Monday morning with a slew of fires to put out and it is glorious. There is less flexibility in my work schedule than with DCSA but I have come to realize that a more rigid schedule keeps me to truly only working 40 hours and having a better work to home life separation while still working from home.
Working for DHS as opposed to DOD, is almost magical (although my long time DHS counterparts don’t believe me, so take it for what it is worth). The IT works, any issues are responded to immediately, Tier 2 actually calls you back the same day. I was issued two over-sized desktop monitors to work on, not a small laptop monitor to hang off my 15 inch laptop like I was with DCSA. I didn’t even have to beg for the big monitors, they just issued them to me. Best part is, fully paperless! No more giant printer taking up space, no stacks of cases or copious amounts of hand written notes, no PII to worry about, no supplies needed, my office doesn’t look like a Staples store. Full transparency, I at first freaked out and asked for a printer but was encouraged by local management to embrace the efficiencies of paperless. Another dream, one time card and no breaking down time. If I work 8 hours in a day, I just type in ‘8’ into the box, you know, like every other normal job out there. I am not bogged down in endless admin work that I have to find time to squeeze into my day. Admin work is expected to be part of the day and I am given whatever time I need to accomplish it, not 0.5 daily, lol. Did I mention no CUI?
My local supervision is fantastic, hands off, check in when needed and always available to reach out to. We are trusted to do the job. When we have to inspect new component groups, we have an introduction we have to give, much like with a Subject, however, I am free to make the introduction however I please, as long as I cover the required items. I am not forced to read a full page of non-sense. Again, trusted to accomplish the mission. We have deadlines and due dates but they are expectations to be met and treated as such, not things to beat over our heads with weekly. Policy changes come in the form of team meetings, with explanation and an opportunity to ask questions, not via email. Our report reviewers look at our reports and recommend changes which they send back to us for fixes. Again, there is an expectation of quality but they do not track the number of mistakes made or if you miss something. Reports are simply reviewed and returned for changes, nothing more, nothing less. It is amazing how different the stress level and tenor of the day to day is compared to DCSA.
In my current role, as I progress, my responsibilities will increase and I may be singing a different tune but for now, I am content. Going from a GS12 to a GS9 still sucks, still have to wear a suit, still have to travel (but is much more enjoyable as there are not hard production metrics to meet) and life still can be boring from time to time, so not all is sunshine and rainbows, hahaha.
At this point, I believe I made the right decision to leave (and stay gone) but time will always tell.
