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After our briefing at work, yesterday morning, some of my workmates seem much more serious about finding a new job. Two points in particular about the briefing stand out in my mind.
The lesser of the two (in my mind), although it was announced to us the last thing in briefing; Dubya has decided to change the cost-of-living increase for our pay. The cost of living rises every year, so most paychecks do the same (otherwise your actual pay is being decreased, in a relative sense). Our pay increase was already announced to us as 4%, which I believe is the generally accepted average cost-of-living increase, and we were supposed to see the amount on the check we got yesterday. Except Dubya suddenly changed his mind a few days ago. He's decided only the military will get the 4% and the rest of the federal workers will get only 2%. Apparently the Senate is pulling for us being considered as part of the military, but it will take until the end of the month before it's sorted out.
And the more psychologically distressing news; Apparently a woman was caught somewhere with explosives in 'female bodily cavities,' so we're supposed to be on the lookout for this. I just find that so horrible that I really don't want to think about it, and I think that's the reaction of most of the women I work with.
Somewhat less distinctly horrible than that, but quite disturbing to me in the context of erosion of freedoms - our Director encouraged us to be tougher and check out people at random if we have any sense of wrongness about them. He mumbles a bit, and I was halfway down the room, but it sounded to me like he said "Go ahead and profile people."
I get very frustrated about the whole issue of profiling. One of my co-workers, who defines himself as a Liberal, thinks profiling is fine and he does it all the time. Once I watched him search a guy who was going into the military, at the beginning of the war. The guy had a distinctly Arabic look, and my coworker was very very thorough. But what bothered me was that he was projecting a feeling of anger, and as far as I could tell, this guy had not given him a hard time. I tend to think that how someone perceives their treatment - as harassment or simply being careful - has a lot to do with the attitude of the person who's screening them. (Probably a lot of people think I'm harassing them, because I don't have the friendliest face when I'm tired.)
Just the other day I was wanding a girl and I asked her to take off her suit jacket and she had only a sort of camisole shirt on underneath. Of course all the guys were riveted to this sight, that particular 'Liberal' included (he's been referred to elsewhere as Big Furry Hat Guy or something like that, but I think his name will be Liberal from now on) and after she left he made comment to me. I had of course been taken rather by surprise, but she hadn't seemed in the least bit bothered by taking off her jacket so I assumed it was okay, and was too bemused to spit out the words "would you like a private screening?" But then I made the mistake of saying to him, "Sometimes I think people do things like this on purpose to try to throw us off." And he said "If she'd been dark-skinned I would have worried about that." I decided I had to try to strike a blow against profiling, so I said "If we only harass people with dark skin they'll just use light-skinned people." He pursed his lips at me and shook his head, and walked off. Which is what he does when he's trying to resist launching into a tirade.
I think my New Year's Resolution must have been to make more long posts in my journal.
The lesser of the two (in my mind), although it was announced to us the last thing in briefing; Dubya has decided to change the cost-of-living increase for our pay. The cost of living rises every year, so most paychecks do the same (otherwise your actual pay is being decreased, in a relative sense). Our pay increase was already announced to us as 4%, which I believe is the generally accepted average cost-of-living increase, and we were supposed to see the amount on the check we got yesterday. Except Dubya suddenly changed his mind a few days ago. He's decided only the military will get the 4% and the rest of the federal workers will get only 2%. Apparently the Senate is pulling for us being considered as part of the military, but it will take until the end of the month before it's sorted out.
And the more psychologically distressing news; Apparently a woman was caught somewhere with explosives in 'female bodily cavities,' so we're supposed to be on the lookout for this. I just find that so horrible that I really don't want to think about it, and I think that's the reaction of most of the women I work with.
Somewhat less distinctly horrible than that, but quite disturbing to me in the context of erosion of freedoms - our Director encouraged us to be tougher and check out people at random if we have any sense of wrongness about them. He mumbles a bit, and I was halfway down the room, but it sounded to me like he said "Go ahead and profile people."
I get very frustrated about the whole issue of profiling. One of my co-workers, who defines himself as a Liberal, thinks profiling is fine and he does it all the time. Once I watched him search a guy who was going into the military, at the beginning of the war. The guy had a distinctly Arabic look, and my coworker was very very thorough. But what bothered me was that he was projecting a feeling of anger, and as far as I could tell, this guy had not given him a hard time. I tend to think that how someone perceives their treatment - as harassment or simply being careful - has a lot to do with the attitude of the person who's screening them. (Probably a lot of people think I'm harassing them, because I don't have the friendliest face when I'm tired.)
Just the other day I was wanding a girl and I asked her to take off her suit jacket and she had only a sort of camisole shirt on underneath. Of course all the guys were riveted to this sight, that particular 'Liberal' included (he's been referred to elsewhere as Big Furry Hat Guy or something like that, but I think his name will be Liberal from now on) and after she left he made comment to me. I had of course been taken rather by surprise, but she hadn't seemed in the least bit bothered by taking off her jacket so I assumed it was okay, and was too bemused to spit out the words "would you like a private screening?" But then I made the mistake of saying to him, "Sometimes I think people do things like this on purpose to try to throw us off." And he said "If she'd been dark-skinned I would have worried about that." I decided I had to try to strike a blow against profiling, so I said "If we only harass people with dark skin they'll just use light-skinned people." He pursed his lips at me and shook his head, and walked off. Which is what he does when he's trying to resist launching into a tirade.
I think my New Year's Resolution must have been to make more long posts in my journal.