February 2016 Federal Employment Law Training Newsletter

Gravity waves. I’m not sure exactly what they are, but if Neil deGrasse Tyson is excited about them, then I’m excited about them, as well. And who predicted them nearly a hundred years ago? That’s right: Albert Einstein. And what was Einstein’s job before he became a famous physicist? That’s right again: civil servant. And who else do we think about fondly when we think of civil servants, just doing their jobs, without praise or necessarily receiving a sustained superior performance award? That’s right one more time: federal employees like Jack Ryan, Jason Bourne, and Maya in “Zero Dark Thirty.” I’d have to assume that Civil Servant James Bond’s travel claims look a bit different from yours, but still … he’s just some GS-Whatever, doing what his PD says, including “other duties as assigned.” And that’s why here at FELTG, we love you guys. Every work day of your civil service lives, you get up in the morning, put on your pants one leg at a time, and go out and do whatever The People need you to do to make our society work. Most of what you do doesn’t end up all praiseworthy on the front page of the Washington Post, but it makes a difference to us citizens on the front pages of our hearts. And if we here at FELTG help you just one little bit in doing your jobs better, then we are humbled and honored to have been of assistance. Gravity waves … who would have thought it? Oh, yeah – a civil servant thought it. So what are you going to think up this day in your civil service life? We citizens can hardly wait to find out.