Career Tips: Avoid helicoptering coach

If you work for the federal government and want to get ahead, you can. And it’s not rocket science. Except maybe at NASA. Things to do:

• Show up on time (or even a little early). Never get a reputation for being late. It will haunt you forever.
• Do your job.
• Be pleasant.
• Learn to share credit. It will pay off.
• Take any training you are offered.

Follow the above and, then depending on the breaks, the budget and your bosses, you may go far.

There are also things not to do. Among them:

• Ask for time off. Take your mini-helicopter to an off-the-radar airport in Gettysburg.
• Fly same helicopter, while wearing a U.S. Postal Service uniform jacket, to Washington, D.C. It’s a high security area that has been attacked by bombers and suicide aircraft before. Plus the Postmaster General is just down the street.
• If you feel you must do a Gettysburg to D.C. special airmail run, do not add insult to injury by painting the official USPS logo on your mini-chopper. It reflects badly on your bosses and makes it too easy for David Letterman’s writers.
• Don’t make fellow feds — National Park Rangers at the Washington Monument, snipers on the White House roof, air traffic controllers, Homeland Security workers and members of the U.S. Capitol Police — look bad.
• Bear in mind that earlier this year another fed (somewhat under the influence) was playing with a friend’s drone. Cut to the chase: He flew said drone onto the White House lawn. Then went to bed hoping nobody would notice. They did.

Ooops! Stuff happens, right?

So that’s been done.

• If you are delivering (airmail yet) to each member of the House and Senate, be sure to affix proper postage. Forever stamps are safest. Otherwise you could be in real trouble and the letters could be delayed.
• If you do fly under the radar, literally, in a high security zone, wearing your uniform, do yourself and those of us who live and work here a favor. Stay in Florida, OK? We’ll let you know when you can come back for your trial. Which, come to think of it, could guarantee you decades with the Bureau of Prisons.

When you were being interviewed for your federal job odds are nobody cautioned you against flying a drone, or your own aircraft, onto the U.S. Capitol grounds. Or the White House. Maybe those cautions will be added to future HR briefings for new, and mid-career employees.

As a checklist item, ask yourself if what you are thinking about doing would land you on the Nightly News, as well as the U.S. Capitol building. And if so, would it reflect well, or badly, on your government, your agency, your boss.

Bottom Line If You Want To Get Ahead In Government, remember this:

When In Doubt, Don’t!

Nearly Useless Factoid by Michael O’Connell

After experimenting with intermittent mail delivery flights between 1911 and 1918, the U.S. Postal Service launched its first air mail route on May 15, 1918, between Washington, Philadelphia and New York.

(Source: Wikipedia)

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