From reading the posts, sounds like lots of the contract staff is currently TDY. Over on the Fed side, we are ramping up TDY as well. I’m currently on one now.
Normally I enjoy it but this current one is no fun. In the middle of nowhere. Only cheap hotels and fast food joints to eat at. Not even a movie theater.
I’m in the hotel, prepped all I can prep and typed all I can type, so entertain me with your TDY tales.
January I went TDY to Northern California, had a layover in San Diego on the way to San Francisco but my flight from SD to SF was cancelled for some reason and I ended up getting to stay in San Diego for a free night which is good because I used to be stationed near there years ago and still had a couple of military friends I hadn’t seen in years. The next day I flew to San Francisco and somehow my luggage was misplaced so that was fun waiting until the next day for the airline to deliver it to me at my hotel.
Pretty much every time I’ve gone TDY my original flight is delayed for some reason and it always makes me miss my connecting flight. I’ve also had issues with arriving to my hotel just to find out no one from my company sent a payment authorization to the hotel, after the first couple of times this happened I learned to call the hotel ahead and make sure payment arrangements were made so I don’t end up paying anything out of pocket.
I was TDY in Colorado a couple of months ago and every Monday the hotel manager would be banging on my door to try and kick me out because the company credit card didn’t go through, so that was an enjoyable experience. Apparently multiple company cards were compromised one way or another. It’s not a true TDY unless something goes wrong.
Overall most of my trips have been pretty good aside from the hiccups. I usually pick a state where I have friends or family and it works out well being able to see them in my free time.
How did you like working San Francisco? Were you in the city proper or somewhere else?
I transferred out of there last year. Is a challenging area to work.
I actually stayed in Santa Rosa but I had some work in SF. It was definitely a hard area to work because it was hard to zone. A lot of my sources were pretty far apart from each other and my productivity out there was pretty much at a bare minimum because I sat in traffic most of the time.
Fed - what region are you in these days? I am still in the Northwest.
Working out of Phoenix, AZ now. It’s hot! Yikes.
My favorite TDY was Germany. Spent three months in Heidelberg, was a crazy time. It’s unfortunate contractors can’t to international, it’s an awesome opportunity.
A second favorite was Biloxi, MS. Was a few years after Katrina, finding people was still crazy. All the school and employers would ask me the person was there pre-Katrina because pre-Katrina, all records were wiped away. Including electronic. Was nuts. Still had a great time though.
Going to TDY overseas sounds great, hopefully one day I can get on the federal side of things and have that option. One of my co-workers went TDY to Puerto Rico a few months after hurricane Maria hit and she had a pretty rough time doing anything.
Phoenix as an Investigator opening on usajobs right now!
Yep, already applied to it! I’ve applied to every opening over the last year and I pretty much check every single day. I’ve received a referral notice for every vacancy I’ve applied to but nothing has ever come of it. Do you have any resume tips that could help me actually land an interview?
If you’re getting referred, then your resume is good. Not much advice after that. Maybe someone else can chime in. In some areas, hundreds get referred. It’s up to local supervisors to sort, so hard to tell what they are looking for.
I grew up in the Mojave Desert and have been TDY to Tucson - I like the cooler region.
California City? Did lots of TDY to Palmdale when I worked in L.A. Always enjoyed it.
One of my best TDY trips had me right next to the Denver Federal Center and it was about a 5 minute drive my hotel and all my cases were T2 cases for the most part and all at the fed center.
Also had a great TDY in Grand Rapids, MI last year. It was kind of funny going to the police departments in some of the real small towns, I went to one and the police department building was about the size of my hotel room. The police chief was also the records clerk. I went to another small town police department at one point and their office was only staffed from 8am - 11am 
I am on the contractor side and TDY’s are plentiful at the moment as over half of my team is on travel. Currently briefing cases for TDY #4 for the year. First TDY was to San Jose. Loved it. Every other car on the road was a Tesla. I got to do interviews at Facebook, Google, and Apple. At Facebook I was literally the only person on the entire campus wearing a suit. Second TDY was Cincinnati. It was nice but uneventful. Third TDY was to St. Thomas, U.S. Virgin Islands. Had the time of my life. Believe me when I say that it took every fiber of my being to sit in my hotel room (which was on the beach by the way) and type cases. Just imagine walking onto the University of the Virgin Islands campus to get an EDUC record or the federal building to do an ESI and you can feel the ocean breeze and you see the ocean. I will say that it did take a while to get used to driving on the left side of the road. Next TDY will be Los Angeles. Looking forward to the sunny weather but not looking forward to the traffic and craziness that is LAX.
I wouldn’t mind a trip to St. Thomas at all. Good luck in LA though. I try to avoid going to Cali unless no other options are available
My favorite part is when those small town guys try to do a law check by memory. “Nope, never heard of this guy…must be clean!”. OK, but could you humor me and at least pretend to run it through a database?
I had one small town (sheriff worked day shift, the police chief worked nights) where the conversation went like this:
“John Smith? Which one, Jr or Sr?”
I replied, “Jr”
“Jr ain’t got nothing. But stay away from Sr, he hates cops and especially hates feds.”
Sheriff never looked at a record. I had to drive 3 hours one way because he would not respond by phone or fax. The county he served likely had less than 1500 people in it.
In my area, this is normal.