attorney

clinical psychologist

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United States Department of Justice

• Conduct Network Monitoring and Incident Response operations supporting a Cabinet-Level Federal Agency     24x7x365.
•Ability to problem solves, ask questions, and discover why things are happening.
• Correlate data from intrusion detection and prevention systems with data from other sources such as firewall, web server, and DNS logs.
• Develop and produce reports on all activities and incidents to help maintain day to day status, develop and report on trends, and provide focus and situational awareness on all issues.
•Reporting outputs will be reviewed and approved to ensure quality and metrics are maintained.
• Produce daily/weekly/monthly/quarterly reporting as required by management.
• Coordinate with appropriate organizations regarding possible security incidents. Conduct intra-office research to evaluate events as necessary, maintain the current list of coordination points of contact.
• Produce reports identifying significant or suspicious security events to appropriate parties. Include latest security threat information and tie back to specific intrusion sets of nation state actors when possible.
• Maintain knowledge of the current security threat level by monitoring related Internet postings, Intelligence reports, and other related documents as necessary.
• Identify misuse, malware, or unauthorized activity on monitored networks. Report the activity appropriately as determined by the customer.
• Maintain proficiency and skills through relevant training, conventions, conferences, and on-the-job training.
• Monitor and analyze network traffic, IDS alerts, network and system logs, and available open source information to detect and report threats to customer networks.
• Perform CERT/SOC operations to include IDS event monitoring and analysis, security incident handling, incident reporting, and threat analysis
•Participate in tuning and filtering event information

This job could/should be good if it weren't for the longstanding politics and terrible management at local levels that is too engrained to ever changed. It is a known issue and is talked about a lot but never acted upon. Staffing has always been short and expectations are more aligned to cover your supervisors' or coworkers' mistakes rather than to do the job well or with integrity. The written orders and policies staff are told to abide by are not stood behind by management or other officers who should be doing the same. The years I was there, there was never a time when people weren't having to be mandated to stay to work a double or arguing amongst themselves and with supervisors due to both legitimate concerns and internally created drama. Some officers worked 56-80 hours many weeks. 

In orientation, they tell you that you will miss lots of family time, kids' birthdays, graduations, ballgames, concerts, and vacations, but that it will be worth it to retire with law enforcement pay. It is worth noting that you are not allowed time off, except for the Sun-Sat weeks you have to bid on a year in advance. You can't request a weekend off or to leave a day early, no matter how far in advance you give notice. This is due to the nature of staffing in a prison and they will cite inability to guarantee staffing for your position on that date. You'd do better to enjoy your life and family now instead of joining all the miserable divorcees who never see their children because they are waiting until they are in the 50s to retire and have a life outside of the Bureau. 

The Diversion Investigator mission is wide-ranging and ever changing.  A typical day may consist of answering DEA registrant telephone questions, local citizen complaints and sometimes rants, while writing investigative reports, preparing for unscheduled investigations and other responsibilities, to include training. Your day may be planned, and suddenly, you have an investigative "crisis" requiring immediate attention.  Your plans may be altered for weeks, but you must still meet required deadlines.   

Flexibility has always been one of my strong points; however, listening to the citizen's we serve when they telephone and talk about their or a family member's opioid crisis, among numerous other concerns, reminds me i've learned a lot and still have so much more t learn. 

Management, like the seasons change. For the most of my career, I've enjoyed spring and fall.

DEA has a mix of specialties, personalities and life and work experiences. Like any work place, the culture takes on the personality of its leadership and support staff.

 Saying good bye to friends that retire.

 The ability to conduct regulatory investigations  that ensure DEA controlled substance and/or chemical handlers are in compliance with federal, state and local guidelines has afforded me the opportunity to foster sound professional relationships built on mutual respect; even when the registrant sometimes fails to be in compliance.  That, is good.

Nepotism and discrimination run this agency. I was excited at first to be part of The Department of Justice, but after a short time (about two years- was employed there for almost five years), I ended up disappointed and jaded. Upper management is obsessed more with numbers and the bottom line than the actual people in the agency and the population that's being served. The nature of the work is supposed to be an effort to HELP families of our State. In actuality, many of the rules, laws, and policies do more harm than good. When you start questioning this, they get retaliatory and then refuse to promote or advance you despite being more qualified than any other candidate. The agency runs more like a business for profit than a tool and resource to help people. 
Nobody likes their job there...NOBODY. Workplace culture was very negative. The ONLY reason why anybody works there is for health insurance and retirement benefits. That's it. However, the experience of working there was very educational and enabled me to meet some wonderful people. We became united in our misery. Everyone was frustrated for one reason or another about the negative environment and poor management, but at least we had each other to lift up and encourage to get through the days, weeks, months, and years of public service.

A typical day at the bureau was not typical according to my standards.... running vin numbers on license plates for agents in the field, over the radio, taking live calls from paid informants, typing checks made payable to these "confidential" informants, was all very non-typical for me.... perhaps exciting, not dull, and I learned the combination to the vault where the drugs and money and guns were kept in a huge vault for future raids? That is what I was told.....
The co-workers, they were threatened by my eagerness to learn and be cross-trained  and to work in more than one capacity at a time. However the most enjoyable part of the job was probably resigning after being promoted to a much higher level of professional calling.The hardest part of the job I have saved until last, on purpose, it was seeing what the tax payers agree to spend their tax dollars on......withoiut being properly informed as to how they were truly being spent and not being able to do anything at all about it except save myself by accepting an awesome promotion and leave it far behind me and try not looking back.

It was a busy office.  I had to multi-task constantly, which is what I like to do because it's challenging and makes the day go by faster.  I acted as the receptionist as well as all other administrative duties to include ordering supplies and services for all three of the offices in the District, Kansas City, Springfield and Jefferson City.  I did the warrants, prisoner movements, detainers, process, and jail bills for Springfield and Jefferson City.  I maintained all files for the Springfield and Jefferson City offices.  I did Jefferson City remotely from the Springfield office, going to the office on occasions when needed.  I also was the trainer for the JUST database.  I learned all of the different databases on my own, without going to class.  This position was very independent for the District Office and I had little supervision from the office manager that was in Kansas City.  I enjoyed the office because I could work on my own or with the deputies when needed and there was very little down time.

Great environments, people and work balance.  The typical day was always interesting from being engaged in challenging projects to interacting with coworkers. I learned specific things from each workplace that proved valuable in my own career. Management provided the tools I needed to perform my job, which proved invaluable in performing my day to day tasks.  The workplace culture was very relaxed, there were some interesting personalities that I still remember that made me laugh at times.  The hardest part of the job was having to depart after forming many friendships. The most enjoyable part of the job was interacting with various users, on different projects, Understanding and delivering the completed applications and watching them use the applications I created, which often eased their workload or daily task.

I worked for the department of justice at USP Canaan as a paramedic in the health services unit. This was hands-down the worst job I’ve ever had. There are multiple people in leadership roles they have no business and being in them. If you are a hard worker, you will be sadly disappointed in your coworkers who are not. If you have pride in your work you don’t belong here. You have to worry about your coworkers who are constantly putting “cases” on each other more than the high security inmates. The direct leadership of the health administrator in the health services department is extremely lacking. The health administrator during my time could never point you in the direction you needed for certain resources. I am confident when I say this, that the health administrator did not know how to do anything in the health services department. The health administrator was the laughing-stock of the institution for their lack of knowledge. This could be a fun job maybe at another institution but definitely not at USP Canaan. There has been a bad reputation in the health services department since the prison opened.

The day would start with 254 applicants in the morning, they would first go to the 1st window to show their appointment letters, from their  a U.S. Immigration officer would interview them asked them a few question. If the applicant had or has been arrested or been in Cuban prison they would go to and sit in other area of the office where they will be called by a U.S. Immigration officer to be interview more personally, a few times the officer would like to have a interpreter in the room. When applicant is finish speaking to the first officer they will will sit until their name is call to have their finger print taken. Their records will come to me and I will look and see if they have application for a Re entery permit, if they do I would ask them if they like to pay the $15.00 or would they want to wait. We in general would have between 254 people in the morning and 2 other visits in mid morning in the afternoon is the last visit. After 3:00 pm we would start cleaning up and start mailing out appointment letters

Because this is for the Federal Government, you are literally just a number that can be replaced without anyone ever noticing. If you keep your head down and just do your job, you’re not doing enough and they’ll get rid of you. And if you’re perfect at your job and vocal and make the attempt to make change, they’ll get rid of you even quicker. So, you can’t just show up everyday but you can’t be THAT good at your job in the effort to advance upward. In essence it’s only a matter of time before they either fire you and/or treat you so bad that you have to quit in order to maintain your sanity and whatever resemblance of a family they may have left you with while training you. There is NO work Life Balance. NONE! And there is no recognition for doing a good job and surviving everyday. It’s Favoritism and Extortion at its finest inside the Federal Government and on the highest levels. 
Enter at your own risk!!!!! And if you do, Godspeed!

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Attorney 3 salaries reported	$135,167 per year
Clinical psychologist 3 salaries reported	$119,964 per year
Secretary 4 salaries reported	$73,848 per year
Teacher 4 salaries reported	$72,252 per year
Program specialist 1 salary reported	$15.00 per hour

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