Ask TOMBOT

you guys killed him with all your butthurt mod complaints

nice work. now you're stuck with the itr crew as your mods.

just stopping in to say bi

totally called this btw

Wait, is TOMBOT really not around?

he posts as a-bomb on 77

I'm not on 77.

You should hear what a-bomb's been saying about you.

AFAIK tom is not posting on ilx at this point, not sure if he'll come back or not.

http://www.watchmencomicmovie.com/images/dr-manhattan-on-mars.jpg

Thread of missing TOMBOT

FICH DICH, CONFICKER

http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/RubensResurrection.jpg

http://www.tovx.com/graphics2/bible%20verses/luke214.gif

you guys are going to learn, I think, that I'm the nicest mod you fucking have

-- El Tomboto, Wednesday, 28 May 2008

this turned out to be true!

\m/

how is the government?!

boo!!!!

http://farm3.static.flickr.com/2073/2348035396_639720bf37.jpg

my mother said to get things done
you'd better not mess with el tomboto

sry abt single handedly driving u off the internet dude

have u been in space y/n?

Welcome back, Tom.

tom i never realized i could miss u so much

~*glompz*~

this is an encouraging development

the thought plickens

http://i41.tinypic.com/20p7vx0.jpg

http://www.stainlesssteeldroppings.com/images/back.jpg

was that his post for the whole spring?

caek:

busy

hey tom!!!!

bring back grady

http://www.bookgasm.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/08/hardman-2.jpg

yay!

heard 'jailbreak' at the bar last night; thought of u

TOMBOT - a 'white hat' is coming to my class next week. what should I ask him to look smart?

bnw, ask him what he thinks about this:

In 1954, test pilot John Stapp walked away from a near-instant stop from 1017 kilometres per hour while strapped into a rocket sled. Yet that same year 33,890 of his fellow Americans died on the road, often in accidents at 40 km/h or slower.

"The level of safety (in cars) which we accept for ourselves, our wives, and our children is... on a par with shipping fragile, valuable objects loose inside a container," warned Hugh DeHaven, a crash investigator at Cornell University's aeronautical laboratory in New York.

dude - hi

Greetings!

Fought a guy on SFII last night named LORD TOMBAT

What do you think of NASA as an organization? I didn't really follow the details of this until recently, but it seems to be be pretty dysfunctional, even for federal government.

NASA was, and parts of it remain, very hot shit. The problem is a lot of NASA hasn't changed, but the industries around it have, and management is still coming to grips. This same little narrative can be applied to about a hundred other little agencies that never had anything nearly as exciting to take credit for like putting a motherfucking man on the moon, or repeating that feat enough times to help perform a series of otherwise impossible experiments.

I'm going to use this thread to start a how-to guide of how to become a USA federal civil servant.

We'll start with navigating this best-effort hoo-hah:
http://www.usajobs.gov/

plz explain the ksa deal

you might want to wait a few months. They just announced a big change in federal hiring policies, right? Including an end to the dreaded KSAs? Lemme find a link.

first link I found:

Today, Director John Berry of the U.S. Office of Personnel Management and U.S. Chief Performance Officer Jeffrey Zients announced a major overhaul of the Federal hiring process, detailing crucial reforms ordered by President Obama...This announcement came shortly after President Obama issued a memorandum to Federal agencies directing them to overhaul their hiring procedures within 180 days.

In his Memorandum, President Obama directed Federal agencies to:

• Dramatically reduce the time between when a job is announced and is filled.

Eliminate essays as an initial application requirement. Essays may still be used later in the process. Under the previous system, if an individual applied for five separate Federal jobs, he or she often needed to complete five separate sets of lengthy essays.

• Use shorter, plain-language job announcements.
• Accept resumes from applicants, instead of requiring them to submit complex applications through outdated systems.
• Allow hiring managers to choose from among a group of best qualified candidates, rather than limiting their choice to just three names, through expanded use of "category ratings."
• Notify applicants in a timely manner (and at four points in the process) through http://www.usajobs.gov/ -- eliminating the "black hole" that applicants often feel they enter when they get no response to their application.
• Submit a hiring and recruitment plan for top talent to OPM by the end of this year.
• Have all Cabinet-level and Senior Administration Officials visiting universities or colleges on official business incorporate time to discuss career opportunities in the Federal service with students.

Additionally, the President directed OPM to:

• Design a government-wide plan for recruiting and hiring qualified, diverse talent.
• Review the Federal Career Intern Program and, within 90 days, offer a recommendation to the President on its future and on providing effective pathways into the Federal service for college students and graduates.
• Work with agencies to ensure that best practices are being developed and used throughout Government.

A few points to start with:

1. OPM (http://www.opm.gov/) is the primary processor of almost all applications for federal service. After an advertised position closes, they have ~10 business days (two weeks) to process all the applicants and let them know how things turned out.

They score on an objective scale based on your own "PSQ" (position specific qualification) answers, keywords from your resume/CV, veteran's preference information, and probably some other mumbo-jumbo I don't understand.

I believe these changes are supposed to be implemented by agencies by Nov 1, 2010.

You'll get an e-mail telling you how OPM processed your resume. You will get some kinda junk about how you either made the selectee short list or how you DIDN'T. By design, about 90% of applicants DIDN'T. Don't worry, we got more. Shotgun method, kiddos.

Will you please stop fucking my shit up with your old news, I applied for a GS-15 slot two weeks ago.