The first few days at the Department of Commerce were not too hectic. The first thing I did was to begin the process of getting a badge so I could enter into the building without an escort. All entrances are guarded and every visitor must pass through a metal detector and every bag is checked through an x-ray scanner. If you are a commerce employee, you are allowed to pass through freely. The process to get my badge took about two weeks, so everyday I had to sign in with the guards and one of the analysts had to escort me to the office. The building itself is huge, at the time of it's construction, it was the largest administrative building ever built. If you google "Herbert C. Hoover building" you'll see what I mean.
Soon after we had most of the paperwork completed for the badge, I was taken around the offices and introduced to some of the people in other departments. Most of the people who work in the office seem to be in a mid-to late career folks. During the first week my task was to help out the finance / administrative department for the Office of Security. When I walked in to their office they had pretty much a room full of brand new computer equipment. The reason for it was because it was the end of the fiscal year so OSY ordered a large order of brand new equipment to spend all the money in their budget. So my task was to help the purchaser in the finance office sort all that out while more equipment was coming in every day. I just made a spreadsheet and we sent them to the appropriate offices. It was fairly simple but time consuming. For a moment, I felt like I was at FexEx.
I guess the more important story behind this was all the equipment and money spent necessary? Apparently, a partial reason was because OSY has just created a new security department and they are just about to hire about 5 new personnel/agents for that office, so they need this equipment when they arrive. Most of the desktops and laptops had dual monitors and all the security specs. Obviously the total of all this equipment was quite pricey. Since the new department is getting the equipment isn't really staffed yet, I still haven't had a chance to find out what it's all about and understand what their mission is. I hope to find out and I'll post in another blog entry. The rest of the equipment may have been used to upgrade some of the other departments technology needs.
This blog will cover my internship experience with the U.S. Department of Commerce.
It certainly sounds like a government office to me. I also work for the government and at the end of the year it is a mad dash to spend as much money out of your budget as possible. If you do not spend your entire budget, then what is left over is deducted from your next years budget. They assume that if you don't spend it this year, you won't need that much next year. Ah, the inner workings of the Government. Not much sense in it, but we live with it.
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