20061001 Outside the Fence

20061001 Outside the Fence

The federal civil service does not want to grow. For that reason many vacancies for permanent federal jobs are open only to existing permanent jobholders, workers already inside the fence. Outside the fence work many temporary, casual, intermittent, term, and seasonal federal employees.

Most National Park Service interpreters, rangers who interpret park significance for visitors, serve as seasonal employees. This makes perfect sense, as most of the work is seasonal in nature. Students and recent college graduates make up the bulk of the rangers leading walks and talks. Many of these young people have no intention of pursuing rangering as a career.

Some 20-something seasonals, as well as many of the older seasonal workers, would like to jump the fence, to be on the inside enjoying health and retirement benefits, job security, and opportunity for advancement. I have been on the outside for nine years now. Am I a poor leaper?

I’m not sure. I haven’t really made the attempt, at least not in a whole-hearted way. Life outside the fence has one benefit that cannot be had on the inside, a benefit that allows me to make change at a rate and in a direction I choose. Freedom.