Well, it is Christmas Eve. This is supposed to be a season of cheer as we end the calendar year. For me, though, it really isn't.

Ever since the recall to duty after a mere six weeks of furlough, it has been a project during break time keeping headcount numbers. I'm not a manager and there are probably easier ways to get the numbers. I'm just a journey-trained but not journey-graded line staffer. This means I have to do some work with spreadsheets and interpreting data sources.

Our steady attrition is continuing. Even with the "new hires" we brought in they're not lasting as long as hoped. When the rankings came out of the last Federal Employee Viewpoints Survey ("FEVS") about the best places to work in the federal government, it is depressing how my agency scores 230th in the list which puts it in the bottom third or so. With the other access I have to the FEVS reporting, that number is actually skewed heavily as the agency is split into two parts. The folks under the Deputy Commissioner for Operations Support love their jobs and rank the agency highly. Folks like me under the Deputy Commissioner for Services and Enforcement, who are customer-facing in the case of being taxpayer-facing, don't rank the agency that highly on FEVS at all. The agency overall got a 1.8 point bump only due to the high year-on-year increase in the Operations Support score. Morale under Services and Enforcement is not good.

Far too many of us are just going through the motions at work. Understanding by citizens of one of their most basic responsibilities as a citizen is not at an all-time high. The emotional stress of trying to help citizens understand gets a bit high. We had some SCM wackiness earlier this last week that almost started to trigger some enforcement mechanisms. That sort of matter does get the heart racing especially when you have to dig out relevant sections of the United States Code to cite why someone needs to stop with their line of argument else face a civil penalty.

The running gag at work is that the FAA's Air Traffic Controller training program would be easier than what we're dealing with these days on the lines.

Too many people call on the line seeking salvation. Too many people call with cases that frankly sound like metaphorical dumpster fires. Yes, life is messy. In far too many cases the lives of these people calling are so messy that I can only start trying to untangle things after an hour's work with them on the phone. Sometimes things simply cannot be untangled and consequences have to be met. People keep calling asking for me as well as my co-workers to save them.

On this Christmas Eve, please remember that Jesus saves. If you're seeking ultimate answers and/or salvation, those aren't going to come from a government bureaucrat on the other end of a phone line who is baffled by your personal mismanagement of money. They aren't going to come from government or the nation-state at all. That's probably the biggest stress of all in the job: people come to me with their lives falling apart around them and I'm certainly not who they should be seeking. I can't wave a magic wand to fix everything and make your life all better if you seek me out while at work. None of us can. We're not even social workers or therapists who might offer some comfort.

Jesus saves. Not me. He is who you should seek not just at Christmas but throughout the entire year.

And if you want me to do preaching/teaching in a place for preaching/teaching, there's discussion of that in this blog post near the end of it...