This City

This city never sleeps,

I hear the people walk by when it’s late,

Sirens bleed through my windowsill,

I can’t close my eyes….

…The traffic starts and stops, but I need to move along

My first week working in the Big City: a short memoir by Molly.

We arrived in the Big Apple last Thursday and started working on Monday. Thursday through Sunday consisted mostly of not knowing where to go, how to get there, and exploring all the wrong places. We currently live in Whitestone, Queens, NY so it’s not the glamorous city life that everyone imagines. In Whitestone, Green 5 and 10 other teams reside in an extended stay hotel where we sleep 4 to a bedroom. It’s tight, cramped, hot, and everything uncomfortable you can imagine, but it’s not that bad because I live with three of my closest TL friends (sorry, Kimmy G- you are missed). My team is enjoying their time, but we are definitely finding it difficult to find time to hang out as a whole. I have one room of my four boys and one room with my three girls on opposite ends of the hall from each other, so gathering and bonding has become minimal. We ride to and from work together and they spend time together at the JFO, but it is a different environment than I was expecting. At least it’s not living in a yurt with one outlet like one of our teams is doing.

So the weekend ended and reality settled in as 14 of us drove in a van down narrow city highways onto crowded city streets around busy city blocks and finally parked in a small city parking garage. We walked into the JFO having pretty much no idea what to expect and I assume that most of us walked out of the JFO 4 hours later still not knowing. It was a good introduction to how things run around here, I think. Tuesday wasn’t much better for me or my team. The system in the Public Assistance office wasn’t working properly and my team sat at a few tables doing busy work for their NCCC jobs while I worked on spreadsheets, emails, paperwork, and my Brickbreaker skills. Finally, Wednesday came and the PA department introduced Green 5 to the Transportation unit. My team has now been working directly with FEMA employees to inspect roads, buildings, schools, and any DOT entity that was affected by Super Storm Sandy. They will be going off-site many times a week to inspect the damage and write up reports of how much damage was done and if the applicant is eligible or not. Most of their work will be done inside the JFO, but there are many times where they will be able to drive somewhere throughout the day. As for me, the PA deputy chief has asked that TLs act as a liaison between the FEMA employees and my CMs to ensure that all needs and deadlines are being met. I can also be assigned special tasks at any point, however, that part is not mandatory for me as I have other work that is sometimes more pertinent, which is exactly what happened on Wednesday and Thursday.

Every Thursday the FEMACorps TLs have what is called a “Brown Bag” where we get the day off from our FEMA work to do any paperwork we have for our roles as traditional TLs. We also get the privilege to work with a new department in FEMA called the FCIT (“F-sit”) team which stands for FEMACorps Integration Team. They are the people we will communicate through to any higher-ups in FEMA and they talk to us when they need help with AmeriCorps NCCC issues. It’s all very confusing, I’m sure, but all you need to know is that the TLs have plenty of support, help, and time to do our work. During this week’s Brown Bag, a FEMA Reservist named Sheryl- someone who works for FEMA 10 months out of their year and reports to any and all disasters at a moment’s notice. She told us about how she began her career at FEMA, how she moved up to being a Reservist, and how we can use our experience here to gain a better career after AmeriCorps. Sheryl told us that she lived in Florida in 2004 when the four hurricanes hit the state causing much damage and destruction all over. Even though she lived in Orlando, in the middle of the state, she was greatly affected because the four storms came within three weeks and weakened the infrastructure and environment. Sheryl had lost everything and was having a difficult time recovery, so she looked to the Disaster Unemployment Assistance for help and found that she could actually start as a Local Hire for FEMA. A local hire is exactly what it sounds like- someone who works for FEMA because they live near the affected area. After proving herself as a sound employee and applying for a position as a Reservist, Sheryl was called back by Region IV across the country from Florida; however, as soon as they found out she was already stationed and living in Florida, they accommodated her and kept her in Florida.

Talking with Sheryl, we were all motivated to keep going strong and work our hardest to make solid connections here at the JFO. (This didn’t happen right away though because it’s currently an hour after she spoke to us and I’m blogging instead of working with the PA department- Hey! I had a rough day yesterday, I deserve this down time!) Anyway, she proved to us that this year of service will be worth it because even though many things haven’t gone our way and we have been moved, disappointed, confused, and overall “too flexible” we could end up with a job at FEMA where we could spend the rest of our days stressed out, over worked, and still “too flexible” but nonetheless helping others in need.

The rest of our days here at the JFO are spent working hard on assignments and projects and worksheets and meeting new people in all different departments. It’s a really interesting place to work even though 90% of the building is cubicles and offices. Everyone is always so friendly and they are genuinely excited about FEMACorps being here and helping out. After we leave work (we work from 8-4:30) we go back to the hotel, do PT, cook dinner, and then hang out or do more work before we go to bed. Luckily, we get the weekends off, so we plan on spending our time exploring the city and what it has to offer. We also get to do some hands-on service projects like mucking and gutting homes!

P.S: LOOK AT THIS MAP I MADE OF ALL THE STOPS WE TOOK ON OUR VENTURE ACROSS THE COUNTRY!!!!!!