Hey welcome home (from a total stranger) I found your LJ via friends of friends, and whisked through the past couple months in utter glee. I *dream* of doing medical relief work for the Red Cross, but didnt even know they also needed geeks. How cool is that. I would love to hear more about your adventures. Feel free to drop me a line: Mermaids_dreams@yahoo.com. Hope you don't mind if I continue to peruse or add you as a friend.
Congratulations on doing some really righteous work and making it back home happy and in one piece!
Sure, go right ahead and add me if you want... I'm flattered, thanks!
Yeah, Red Cross needs geeks and we need 'em bad. DCO, Disaster Computer Operations, is the rarest specialization within the Disaster Services Human Resources system. Any disaster that requires the use of National Headquarters' system to call up volunteers is gonna have a lot of paperwork and a lot of people, and that almost always means the computers, so they need people to keep 'em running. Only most people who have the freedom to volunteer for a three week tour of duty - the standard length of time for one person to be on a disaster job within the States - aren't computer people or are retired and work in other areas, so disaster geeks are in very high demand. If you get called out, they put you in a hotel for three weeks and reimburse you for your food and such, up to around $28 or so each day. The geeks spend three or four days setting up the computers and the rest of the time doing tech support, so it's pretty cool if you don't mind that kind of schedule.
There's also lots of other stuff on these national jobs. I mean, Disaster Health Services is for medical volunteering, and there's Disaster Mental Health but we only take volunteers with state-registered certifications in that area, and there's Family Service which deals directly with people, and Mass Care which is mostly feeding and clean-up kits and running shelters, and Logistics, and Transportation, and PUblic Affairs... lots of stuff for lots of talents.
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Congratulations on doing some really righteous work and making it back home happy and in one piece!
Oh heck.
Yeah, Red Cross needs geeks and we need 'em bad. DCO, Disaster Computer Operations, is the rarest specialization within the Disaster Services Human Resources system. Any disaster that requires the use of National Headquarters' system to call up volunteers is gonna have a lot of paperwork and a lot of people, and that almost always means the computers, so they need people to keep 'em running. Only most people who have the freedom to volunteer for a three week tour of duty - the standard length of time for one person to be on a disaster job within the States - aren't computer people or are retired and work in other areas, so disaster geeks are in very high demand. If you get called out, they put you in a hotel for three weeks and reimburse you for your food and such, up to around $28 or so each day. The geeks spend three or four days setting up the computers and the rest of the time doing tech support, so it's pretty cool if you don't mind that kind of schedule.
There's also lots of other stuff on these national jobs. I mean, Disaster Health Services is for medical volunteering, and there's Disaster Mental Health but we only take volunteers with state-registered certifications in that area, and there's Family Service which deals directly with people, and Mass Care which is mostly feeding and clean-up kits and running shelters, and Logistics, and Transportation, and PUblic Affairs... lots of stuff for lots of talents.