Today marks my 16th week of working at the National Archives in Washington, D.C. woah has the time flown by! In the middle of August, my friend Audrey asked if I was interested in a Research Assistant position where she worked over the summer. Needless to say, I was, and she forwarded my resume to her supervisor. The interview went splendidly and I got the job! My supervisor, Karla, briefly told me about the union research I was going to be doing and the logistics of working for the Center of Economic Population. Most people get confused by the two Archives entrances, the Research side is on Pennsylvania Avenue, where I work. And the side that has the Declaration of Independence and many other important documents, is on Constitution Avenue. Also, on display is a rad civil war exhibit that our team checked out. I guess that makes sense, the Constitution exhibit on Constitution. My friends got a little confused when telling them I work at the Archives, so I started calling it "the non-nicolas cage entrance."
My first day was August 23rd, amidst the humid city weather. Everyday, I have to go through security and show my research card before going upstairs to the main research area. All of the security guards are really friendly and gobble up left over treats we sometimes have. That day, I got issued a research card. Before going upstairs, everything has to be put in a locker right after security-very little is allowed upstairs in the main research area. The elevators have a mind of their own, so I usually take the stairs to the second floor. My card is swiped when I walk in & I head to the back to where our team has reserved two clumps of four desks.
I was first trained on the scanner, where we carefully scan Surgeon Certificates from each soldiers' pension. After making sure each cert is easily legible, the scans are saved and sent to an office in vienna where the surg certs are entered in the computer. This is what a typical stack of pensions that need their certs to be scanned looks like. Its always fascinating to stumble upon a really ancient photograph of the soldier, some when he was alive, some of his funeral. One soldier had a checkbook in his pension, its neat to compare that to what we use nowadays. After a few minutes in the research room, you start to notice how FREEZING the room is. It felt refreshing in the summer, but now its just plain mean. After awhile, I got used the constant chill, but not before getting a minor cold a few times.
A few weeks after I started, we added six new researchers to our CPE staff. I really enjoy everyone I work with. I'm the youngest one by far, the other day we were talking about what we remember from the 90's & I think being born was my biggest event. We laugh, tell stories, eat, and celebrate together. We've celebrated Halloween, Boss' Day, co-workers' Birthdays, and have our Holiday party this Friday. For Halloween, we each dressed as a different decade...
Fahad-1910 newsman
Christine-1970's disco
Donna-1930's
Hannah-1980's
Jared-1860's Civil War Soldier
Rush-1950's
Sarah-1950's housewife
Rachel-1960's
Stefanie-1940's
Troy-1990's
Joe-1980's
Margaret-1920
Karla-rosie the riveter
Ashley-2010
Shaun-1990's
Yes, I was a flower child & pulled it off quite nicely:) My favorite part of the day is when we put whatever we're doing on hold & grab each other for lunch time. When it wasn't so windy outside, we'd eat either at the Navy Memorial(right across from our building) or at the Sculpture garden. Once we made our way outside it was like my skin was being awakened and started to de-frost. Now that its a bit colder, we take advantage of the "we the people" cafeteria downstairs. I've never once bought lunch, but was treated to my favorite sub at pot belly's on my first day and delight in pizza we order on occasion.
In a nutshell, we collect the field data of union soldiers from the civil war that gets used in a huge project. We're just a small piece of it, the University of Chicago uses our data and compiles awesome power points. We imput information about soldiers, e.g. his wife/widows' name, childrens' date of birth and names, death date & cause, and his pension rulings. Of what we do, is similar to an assembly line. First we work on the regimental books that were kept during the war, that are listed by company. The reggie books will indicate where the soldier was from and his previous occupation. My favorite to read is "gentleman at large" or "teamster." Next, those names are put on a list separated by their company. We index those soldiers using foot note, but also sometimes have to use old school micro film. We write out three layer carbon copy pension request slips that include the Invalid/Widow/Minor/Father/Mother's application and certificate numbers. From filling this out, we can tell what type of pension it is and if they received it. Many soldiers had an Invalid pension for themselves, and when they passed away, their wife would apply for a Widow's pension. When we receive the pension, a researcher will input the data unto a program that has multiple screens, or pages, that have fields for different residential addresses, battle names that the soldier fought in, and much more. The researcher will tab off all the surgeon certificates to be scanned. Once scanned, the pension gets returned. This information is sent to specific offices that optimizes our data collected.
I love working downtown. I love all the sights, smells, and sounds of the city and soaking it all up everyday. I love when the seasons change & how beautiful it looks for Christmas. I love how seeing Obama's huge motorcade zoom by our building isn't a novelty anymore. I love that Transformers 3 filmed just blocks away. I love the bulky sneakers with the business suits. I love commuting with my dad and how we do a fist bump as he walks in his building and I hurry along for three more blocks. We get lots of bonding time, while walking the mile from where we park to the metro. The train ride isn't too shabby, 35 minutes I enjoy whatever captivating book I'm reading-all while listening to marvelous music. I love getting to know everyone at my dad's job while hangin' in his office, before we head home. I love how flexible my job is & how we jokingly fire each other.
But, most of all, I love this man.
 |
No comments:
Post a Comment