A September Life Update
I will admit, it has been a while since I have updated my blog. However, it’s for good reason- I moved to Durham, began a part-time babysitting job, and also have been undergoing the paperwork process for the Veterans Affairs (VA) Medical Center. Since my full time role will be based in Durham and I am assigned to be full in-office for the first 90 days, I decided early on that it was important for me to move close to work. I am not a fan of driving, and in an ideal world, would like less than a 15 minute commute to work. Therefoe, I reached out to my former classmate at UNC that I stayed in touch with about living together. While she and I both studied biostatistics at UNC, I chose a more applied path at NCSU while she chose a more rigorous, math-heavy path at Duke. She’s currently a second-year master’s candidate at Duke’s M.S. in Biostatistics program. The timing was impeccable for a one year lease in Durham.
Our move went fairly smoothly, and I will spare you all of the details. However, I wanted to highlight the convenience of being able to get to most of my day-to-day places with ease. In our new apartment, I am able to get to Harris Teeter, Food Lion, the gas station, Five Below, and the auto shop within 3 minutes of driving. I am also a 8 minute drive from downtown Durham and hence my office in the N.C. Mutual Life building. I am really enjoying being close to all the places I need to be. I also enjoy being close to the families I babysit for!
I wanted to take the rest of this blog space to highlight the trials and tribulations I have been through for the VA Medical Center. Since receiving a verbal offer in May this year, I have had to jump through many hoops to complete paperwork. Although the team I am joining is a group local to Durham, I had to undergo the processing on a federal level. This meant after receiving my verbal offer, I had to wait for HR to reach out to me. My assigned HR specialist was “missing” for over two months during the summer, and paperwork did not start moving along until August. I received my intiial job offer paperwork in August, with multiple clearances to pass after signing.
The first task to complete was my forms and other tasks. This included my I-9, as well as other general onboarding paperwork in the USA Staffing onboarding account. Luckily, I was able to breeze through this stack of items fairly quickly in just a few hours.
The second task was to complete my background investigation and fingerprints through an electronic questionnaire (e-QIP). Since I have worked for the federal government before, I was thankfully auto-cleared through the e-QIP, saving me from multiple hours of paperwork. Thank goodness! For the fingerprints, someone from the PIV card office was assigned to me about scheduling federal fingerprints and creating a badge appointment. Once I was contacted, I was able to get into the office within a week or so. I really appreciated the location of my apartment since I could walk to the Veterans Affairs Medical Center and did not have to worry about parking! The fingerprinting, badging, and other forms only took about 30 minutes.
The last task I completed was working with Employee Occupation Health (EOH). The local EOH clinic contacted me to obtain a copy of my immunization record and draw blood. I was surprised that they did not need to take my vitals or do a physical health examination. The immunization records cleared immediately; however, drawing blood took some time. I had over seven vials of blood taken! This was to test for each of my immunizations, including MMR, hepatitis, and COVID-19.
Now that my initial job offer paperwork is completed and all my clearances are checked off, I am waiting on my final job offer (FJO). Supposedly, my start date is either October 3rd or October 17th, due to the rotating two-week government pay periods. I have not yet received my FJO, but have reached out to both my manager and the assigned HR Specialist in the meantime. I received notice that the assigned FJO individual is again “missing”, so my next action item will be to track them down with hopes of starting on the 3rd. Stay tuned to hear about my start date and next adventures!