From: rego-l@pandora.sf.ca.us
Date: Tue, 6 Sep 1994 18:35:51 -0400
Originator: rego-l@pandora.sf.ca.us
Errors-To: sbuckley@path.net
Reply-To: <rego-l@pandora.sf.ca.us>
Sender: rego-l@pandora.sf.ca.us
Version: 5.5 -- Copyright (c) 1991/92, Anastasios Kotsikonas
To: Multiple recipients of list <rego-l@pandora.sf.ca.us>
Subject:  [Public Affairs Office:  The Article, at last]


Rejected message sent to rego-l@pandora.sf.ca.us by HEIDELBERG-EMH17.ARMY.MIL!MMDFII
follows.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
enclosed is a copy of the article we are working on to generate more
support for 'employ' and hopefully more job info....
--bob

----- Forwarded message # 1:

Received: from email.heidelberg-emh17.army.mil ([144.170.207.1]) by odcsper.heidelberg-emh17.army.mil with SMTP id <2386>; Thu, 16 Jun 1994 03:35:35 -0000
Received: from ftknox-amedd.army.mil ([147.238.8.2]) by email.heidelberg-emh17.army.mil with SMTP id <8197>; Thu, 16 Jun 1994 03:26:51 -0000
Date:   Thu, 16 Jun 1994 01:14:12 -0000
From:   Public Affairs Office <knoxpao@ftknox-amedd.army.mil>
To:     bstring@odcsper.heidelberg-emh17.army.mil
cc:     jdelancy@tecnet1.jcte.jcs.mil, knoxpao@ftknox-amedd.army.mil
Subject:  The Article, at last
Message-Id: <94Jun16.032651mes.8197@email.heidelberg-emh17.army.mil>

by Jim Washburn, free lance writer (1600 Cypress Dr., Radcliff, KY 40160)

     "When the going gets tough, the tough get going."
     That old military motivational saw applies to Bob Stringfield in these 
tough times of the government's downsizing and base closing. Jobs disappear and
seemingly are more difficult to find than usual.
     Stringfield, or 'bstring' as he's known on the Internet, has found a way 
of getting existing job vacancy announcements to anybody who wants to know and 
who has access to the Internet. And, a number of "clients" have found jobs 
through the service he started in Germany in early summer of 1992 when the 
Mainz Army Depot began to close its doors. Many of the civilian employees there
began to look for jobs. They were having difficulty finding a new job and even 
more difficulty finding where the openings were.
     Bstring and another depot employee began gathering what job vacancy 
announcements they could and posting them on the depot's LAN for the other 
employees to use in seeking another job. Since everybody there worked for the 
government at the depot, they wanted to continue with their established 
careers. Unless you've tried it, finding a specific government job, during 
drawdown times, which you qualify for is rather difficult.
     One reason for this is that job vacancy announcements appear not to be 
widely posted by the Civilian Personnel Offices. Such announcements often are 
not seen beyond the walls of the CPO. This has been one of the difficulties of 
the government's drawdown, finding the jobs that are open. By nature, or by law
perhaps, government jobs have a closing or cutoff date and many times they 
close before very many job seekers know aboaut the opening. Many times this 
seems to be by design so that a local, favored, employee can get that 
much-desired promotion, or be protected when drawdown hits. The reasoning given
is to protect valuable employees. However, many federal workers would say that 
the CPO's are careless, uncaring and downright callous about filling the jobs 
that come vacant.
     They certainly seem uncaring when they don't announce the job vacancy to a
wide audience of job seekers. Missing highly qualified job-seekers is the 
result of their restrictive marketing techniques. The government agency loses 
in this mess, because it misses having a chance at hiring the best-qualified 
applicant. Bstring and friends sought to short-circuit the process by opening 
those doors to many federal employees, especially those at Mainz Army Depot in 
Germany.
     Recognizing the impact of the Internet in his work as a computer analyst, 
bstring got the idea of giving these job announcements via the Internet to all 
who were being affected by the government's downsizing.
     The government's job-marketing agency, the Office of Personnel Management 
or OPM, is tasked with getting job announcements to as many seekers as 
possible. Regional OPM offices, from Washington, DC to San Francisco and a 
number of places between, have listings of job vacancies within the 
government's many departments and agencies. OPM is supposed to assist all 
seekers with applying for the jobs they are qualified for. But, in practice, 
OPM acts a lot like the local CPOs. New paperless programs being tried by OPM 
may open up the system.
     Opening the system and helping get the word out is where bstring came in. 
He began, with help from a few Internet friends around the world, gathering OPM
regional job listings, local CPO listings and other available listings, putting
them together on the MilNet and the Internet and mailing the lot to subscribers
around the world.
     Thousands of job seekers eagerly await the listings each week. Listings 
arrive via the Internet to computer and terminal screens and are quickly 
devoured. Each person who receives listings looks for that job which will keep 
body and soul together another two or three years, or, hopefully, long enough 
to complete a career. They search for the job that will tide them over to 
survive, while the government eliminates more installations and jobs.
     Bstring called what he was doing, EMPLOY, for lack of a better name. In 
order to get the word out to as many as possible, he "advertised" EMPLOY on 
BITNET in August 1992. "By the next morning," bstring said, "there were 100 
subscribers from all points of the globe. It was growing at the rate of 25 new 
subscribers per day which was far beyond expectations for we had thought that 
the entire list would never exceed 50 addresses on the Internet."
     Shortly after bstring got his service going, one recipient in the United 
States asked him how it was that a couple of guys in Germany could gather so 
many job vacancy announcements when people in the United States couldn't. That 
recipient didn't take into account the power of the Internet like bstring did. 
It is that power of sending messages to almost anywhere in the world within a 
very short time that keeps EMPLOY going. In the beginning, friends fed 
information to bstring about jobs in Korea, Japan, Germany and a great deal of 
the U.S., and he sent the information out to the subscribers. Bstring strips 
the headers off in order to protect his suppliers from the inquiring messages 
of those seeking the same thing. That could dry up the supply. Thus the 
information is made available to many, but the sources are protected so that 
they can continue to do what they do best. This isn't cold and self-serving, 
but good sense. Without his sources, his friends, bstring would not be able to 
offer so much to so many.
     "The growth of the list [EMPLOY] became a combined effort of folks working
together using electronic communications to get the job done," bstring said. 
"There were so many that volunteered their services during those fledging 
days....Archive sites for job info were built and info was constantly input to 
the list and of course there was a great deal of on-line and off-line 
interface. It was common for a user in Hong Kong to ask a question [on EMPLOY] 
and have the answer come back from Iceland."
     Bstring and his friends, which now are many, have sought the assistance 
and blessings of OPM, the Department of Labor and the Department of Defense for
EMPLOY, so that this service can become permanent and easier to do. So far, 
"official" blessings have not come for EMPLOY.
     Bstring doesn't get paid for doing this for so many. He provides his 
service for free working on it during his spare time. He does use his 
government-furnished Internet connection to get the information going around 
the world. That little item has caused bstring some grief at times. He has to 
have an understanding boss in order to accomplish the service he provides. Some
bosses have not understood bstring's purpose and have hindered his service to 
others. Through sheer determination, remember "when the going gets tough, the 
tough get going," bstring keeps his service going. It all seems like an uphill 
battle to bstring and his friends, but they keep on keeping on.
     "There is a great deal of data available," bstring said, "and judging from
the mail received, we have barely come upon the tip of the proverbial iceberg."
     Efforts to expand EMPLOY and bstring's service have not met with quick 
success. In fact, expansion and success have come slowly. But, bstring and 
friends search for the job announcements that are out there and rejoice when 
another source is found that they didn't have access to before.
     Testimonials have dribbled in for bstring and EMPLOY. Some job seekers are
grateful for the help they receive from bstring's service, and some will find a
job and say nothing. Still bstring plods on, looking for yet another source 
that will cooperate and send him a few job announcements to add to what has 
become a long listing that goes out to subscribers in a number of messages.
     Job announcements are not the only thing bstring makes available. Changes 
to OPM regulations, new CPO staffing guidelines, veterans' rights and benefits,
and other information affecting government jobs are made available. Most of 
these last items are available by anonymous ftp [file transfer protocol] from a
couple or so sites that are gracious enough to store the documents on their 
computers.
     These sites are where the changes to EMPLOY began. As the depot in Mainz 
finally closed doors in 1993, bstring needed help in keeping EMPLOY going. It 
seemed that nobody wanted to continue to offer the service. Bstring was not 
sure he would have continued employment with access to the Internet.
     "When the Mainz service was phased out, Jeff Roth of DISA [Defense 
Information Service Agency] volunteered to pick up the list," bstring said, 
"but could only support the DoD [Department of Defense] environment."
     Along came a friend known as jdelancy. Jdelancy began sending the OPM 
listings to users and to archive sites. One of the early sources of job 
listings, jdelancy began to not only feed EMPLOY and FEDJOBS but individuals 
and other sites as well. He and bstring combine to furnish virtually all the 
information provided by jdelancy's mailings, EMPLOY and FEDJOBS. I should 
explain FEDJOBS. It is actually a "listserv" at Dartmouth College in Vermont. 
Dartmouth not only archives the job vacancy lists at its Kiewit Computation 
Center, but also archives a large number of files that are of interest to those
working for the government. Friends, Dave Avery at Dartmouth and Dave Valley, 
who works for OPM, combined to get FEDJOBS going, using the college's 
computers. These two David's also "worked on getting OPM approval for FEDJOBS 
as well as getting more government agencies to post any job-related material to
one of the lists," bstring said.
     thus the service expanded, with EMPLOY at DISA for DoD subscribers only 
and FEDJOBS open to anybody. EMPLOY and FEDJOBS are today going full speed 
ahead.
     One might even say that the government's downsizing caused, not only the 
start of bstring's efforts, but the expansion of it as well.
     Taking advantage of this expanse of information is relatively easy for 
those persons with access to the Internet.
     Requests to be added to or removed from EMPLOY should be sent to 
employ-request@oti.disa.mil. Instructions about the list will be sent and your 
subscription started. How to obtain files, especially those large ones not sent
in normal distribution, will be included in the information you receive back 
from EMPLOY.
     As far as FEDJOBS goes, there are a couple ways to go about obtaining its 
information. Perhaps the best way to begin is to request a list of available 
files along with instructions on how to subscribe and unsubscribe. This is done
by sending a message whose body contains the command INDEX FEDJOBS to the 
list's Internet address, listserv@dartcms1.dartmouth.edu. Or, send a message to
the same address with the body saying AFD ADD FEDJOBS PACKAGE F=MAIL which will
start the normal distribution of information. These huge files, which change 
weekly, can also be obtained by anonymous ftp by connecting to 
DARTCMS1.DARTMOUTH.EDU <129.170.16.19> using anonymous logon. You change 
directory to FEDJOBS  and there they are. One recent count revealed the archive
to have 100 files. Since they change weekly, what is available at any one time 
may vary. These files are provided as a public service by Dartmouth College for
job applicants and the listserv owner cannot assume responsibility for their 
accuracy, timeliness nor completeness.
     In addition to the services described here, there are newsgroups that 
provide employment information, including USENET's misc.jobs.*, Bionet's 
bionet.jobs, ne.jobs, ont.jobs in Canada, triangle.jobs in North Carolina and 
two or so San Francisco Bay Area groups: ba.jobs.offered and ba.jobs.misc. In 
addition to this, individual archieve, gopher, World Wide Web, etc., sites have
listings of both local and national jobs.
     In times like these, the tough will get going, one way or another.
###


----- End of forwarded messages