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Oh no, here comes another 1102...


1102newbie

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Welcome 1102newbie! It has been a decade since I was in your shoes, but the things that I remember are to learn the FAR and your agency specific regulations as much as possible, learn the technical processes in your organization so you become the expert and subject matter expert, and most of all, do the right things even when people try to get you to cut corners. Learn why those right things are right, and why the other ways are wrong, and then help customers and associates understand that information.

You will never know everything there is to this career field, the masters of contracting such as Vern Edwards, Ralph Nash and others have forgotten more than I know, and they are still learning too. Contracting continually changes, so our learning must change as well.

Find a mentor, someone who knows the ropes and has been around a while. That may not always be the nicest person, or someone everyone likes, but in my case, that was exactly who I needed to get a good start in contracting. I disagreed with his politics, but his knowledge of contracting was excellent and I benefited from that relationship greatly.

Good luck and welcome to one of the best careers a person can have in the government! It may not be the easiest, and will certainly frustrate you at times, but it will probably be one of the most secure jobs a person can have for some time to come.

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Guest Vern Edwards
I thought I would just say hello. I was recently hired as a 1102 in the Keystone program. While researching about the contracting profession, I found this site.

Any words of advice for someone new like myself? What to do, or what not to do?

1. Learn everything you can about the organization that hired you, which, I believe, is DCMA. Study its organization chart. Identify the functional components of the organization. Find out how many employees it has, how they are distributed among the various functional components, and where they are located. Learn everything you can about its mission. Learn the names of the persons who occupy key positions.

2. One of your biggest challenges in the coming year will be to learn the language of acquisition, in which ordinary words and terms, like “day,” can have special meanings. Go here: https://akss.dau.mil/jsp/glossary.pdf, and download a copy of the Defense Acquisition University Glossary of Defense Acquisition Acronyms and Terms, 12 ed. (2005), and scan it.

3. Go to www.acquisition.gov, then find the link to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and download a pdf copy. Print FAR Part 2, "Definitions of Words and Terms." Use a highlighter to highlight each of the words and terms (but not the definitions themselves) and then scan it. You won’t understand many of the words and terms you'll see, but you’ll begin to get a sense of the language of contracting. Keep the DAU Glossary and FAR Part 2 handy and refer to them often.

4. Read FAR 1.102, "Statement of the Guiding Principles of the Federal Acquisition System," including all the subsections, 1.102-1 through 1.102-4. Then read FAR Subpart 1.6, "Career Development, Contracting Authority, and Responsibilities."

5. Go to www.gao.gov and download Principles of Federal Appropriations Law, Vol. 1, and read Chapter 1, pages 1-2 through 1-37; Ch. 2, pages 2-3 through 2-71; and Ch. 3.

6. Go here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/plaws/about.html, and read "Public and Private Laws: About."

7. Go here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/statutes/about.html, and read "Statutes at Large: About."

8. Go here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/about.html, and read "United States Code: About."

9. Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act, and read the Wikipedia article about the Administrative Procedures Act.

10. Go here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/about.html, and read "Federal Register: About."

11. Go here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/about.html, and read "Code of Federal Regulations: About."

Those internet readings, 6 through 11, are very short, but you should read the linked material, which is longer.

If you do all of those things and then come back here, I’ll give you more.

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  • 4 weeks later...
1. Learn everything you can about the organization that hired you, which, I believe, is DCMA. Study its organization chart. Identify the functional components of the organization. Find out how many employees it has, how they are distributed among the various functional components, and where they are located. Learn everything you can about its mission. Learn the names of the persons who occupy key positions.

2. One of your biggest challenges in the coming year will be to learn the language of acquisition, in which ordinary words and terms, like ?day,? can have special meanings. Go here: https://akss.dau.mil/jsp/glossary.pdf, and download a copy of the Defense Acquisition University Glossary of Defense Acquisition Acronyms and Terms, 12 ed. (2005), and scan it.

3. Go to www.acquisition.gov, then find the link to the Federal Acquisition Regulation (FAR) and download a pdf copy. Print FAR Part 2, "Definitions of Words and Terms." Use a highlighter to highlight each of the words and terms (but not the definitions themselves) and then scan it. You won?t understand many of the words and terms you'll see, but you?ll begin to get a sense of the language of contracting. Keep the DAU Glossary and FAR Part 2 handy and refer to them often.

4. Read FAR 1.102, "Statement of the Guiding Principles of the Federal Acquisition System," including all the subsections, 1.102-1 through 1.102-4. Then read FAR Subpart 1.6, "Career Development, Contracting Authority, and Responsibilities."

5. Go to www.gao.gov and download Principles of Federal Appropriations Law, Vol. 1, and read Chapter 1, pages 1-2 through 1-37; Ch. 2, pages 2-3 through 2-71; and Ch. 3.

6. Go here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/plaws/about.html, and read "Public and Private Laws: About."

7. Go here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/statutes/about.html, and read "Statutes at Large: About."

8. Go here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/uscode/about.html, and read "United States Code: About."

9. Go here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Administrative_Procedure_Act, and read the Wikipedia article about the Administrative Procedures Act.

10. Go here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/fr/about.html, and read "Federal Register: About."

11. Go here: http://www.gpoaccess.gov/cfr/about.html, and read "Code of Federal Regulations: About."

Those internet readings, 6 through 11, are very short, but you should read the linked material, which is longer.

If you do all of those things and then come back here, I?ll give you more.

Vern,

I, too, am new to the contracting workforce. I read the documents described above and am ready for more.

Prezmil2020

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All the above advice is good stuff. To tag along with one of the early points...

My $0.02 worth, after 36 years in procurement, subcontracts, prime contracts, and business management, is about the FAR (including agency supplements):

When you are working on something, look it up.

Every time.

This will help keep you on the straight and narrow, and as a minimum let you ask intelligent questions and help give the impression of knowing what you are talking about.

It is important to have a solid grounding in the fundamentals and topical guidance to give you a sense of the proper direction, so you don't, as my father used to say, get on your horse and take off in all directions.

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  • 4 weeks later...
I thought I would just say hello. I was recently hired as a 1102 in the Keystone program. While researching about the contracting profession, I found this site.

Any words of advice for someone new like myself? What to do, or what not to do? B)

Welcome to the fold. Below are words of wisdom provided by Vern Edwards on this forum in 2005. I have it printed out and read it at least weekly as reminder and as inspiration.

First, remember that contracting is truly important work and that it is crucial to the security and well-being of our country (of our families and neighbors) that it be done well.

Second, all apprentices must weather that time when they are under the control of others, people who may or may not be dedicated to excellence. Use this time to study and learn. Work for mastery. Dedicate yourself to this goal: I will let no one know more about my work than I do. You cannot achieve that goal, which is why you should try.

Third, keep in mind the inherent shortcoming of on-the-job training, which is training by rumor and innuendo.. This means that in order to become excellent you must read and reason. You must organize your own curriculum and pursue it relentlessly for the rest of your working life.

Fourth, don't be discouraged by the fact that many of the people around you are not first rate professionals and never will be. Excellence is rare in all walks of life, because it is difficult. Here is some inspiration that I have found useful:

? No man ever reached to excellence in any one art or profession without having passed through the slow and painful process of study and preparation. Horace

? It is a wretched taste to be gratified with mediocrity when the excellent lies before us. Disraeli

? To aim at excellence, our reputation, and friends, and all must be ventured; to aim at the average we run no risk and provide little service. Oliver Goldsmith

? Excellence is an art won by training and habituation. We do not act rightly because we have virtue or excellence, but we rather have those because we have acted rightly. We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence, then, is not an act but a habit. Aristotle

? Excellence in any department can be attained only by the labor of a lifetime; it is not to be purchased at a lesser price. Samuel Johnson

? Each honest calling, each walk of life, has its own elite, its own aristocracy based on excellence of performance. . . . James Bryant Conant

It is not the critic who counts, not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man (and those who join him) in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood, who strives valiantly... who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, who spends himself in a worthy cause, who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who have never known neither victory nor defeat ? Theodore Roosevelt

Whatever you do, don't take a paycheck to do something that you know you can't do well. And don't believe that you are competent because you work hard or because you try hard. That's kiddie-sports feel-good-about-yourself bull. Devotion to hard work is good, so is trying hard, but it is not enough. A bad job is a bad job, no matter how hard you worked at it. Get tough about that.

You can be an excellent professional through devotion to study on your own time or you can be a middling Saturday mall crawler who thinks Cinnabon makes good cinnamon rolls, that you can buy a decent bagel west of the Hudson river, or that you can find a croissant anywhere in America. Make up your mind, commit to being the best, and then move out smartly.

The above was written by Vern Edwards 2005 and posted to the WIFCON forum.

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