KSA

KSA- noun- an acronym that stands for Knowledge, Skills, and Abilities.  This term can describe a candidate for employment, a current employee, or a job position.

KSA's.  I swear they never covered these in my professional development class in college.  Granted, we were more focused on begging for internship spots and applying for grad school, but with the prevalence of this term on job applications and the like, you'd think there would have at least been a paragraph or two for us.

The government seems to like KSAs a lot.  Of all the jobs I applied for right out of college, only the government jobs asked for this.  The first few times, I struggled while writing my statements.  After all, wasn't the point of the cover letter, the resume, and my references supposed to cover this?  And didn't someone tell me that I shouldn't repeat the same information over and over again?  How else can I present this?  Maybe I'll write a paragraph or two of prose to cover that information...

Eventually, I became proficient on writing my KSA statements.  They really just became one more instance where I could spin the same mundane terms into ridiculously technical celebrations of my very minor accomplishments as a college student.  Ultimately, I got my job here at DHEC and totally forgot about KSAs.  That is, I forgot about them until last month.

Living in a hurricane-prone area, you can imagine that there is quite a lot of preparation for a natural disaster that might never happen.  We have several trainings each year, refresher e-learning courses, and a gosh-awful eight-hour educational nightmare courtesy of FEMA.  New to me this year was a KSA questionnaire that more or less asked us what we could help out with after a hurricane.  By far, this was the most interesting KSA I've ever had the pleasure of completing.

First we had to sign off that we understood the following terms that we would use to rate our proficiency in the various fields listed.  For example: "Experts" could successfully complete a task in a given subject area and lead others.  "Skilled" individuals would be able to successfully complete a project with no supervision.  "Novices" would know what they were doing, but would need supervision.  The state would assume anyone who checked "no" would not know anything about the given field.

Some of my co-workers gave great and careful thought to their answers.  They checked "novice" in a number of areas and used the comment box like crazy, explaining things like, "Yes, I can speak basic Spanish and would be able to provide basic instructions to a Hispanic client, but I'm not fluent," or "I probably could direct traffic, but I would want someone else with me."  Then there was me- I decided that if I didn't want to be put in a situation where I would be more of a hindrance than a help, I wasn't clicking anything but "no." 

The KSA was VERY through.  There were questions about specific fields like engineering and biology, questions about training we had received, professional licenses we held, etc..  My favorite part though was the assortment of questions related to completely random topics.  With these questions, we were asked to rate our ability on things like forklift operating, graphic art design, and public speaking.  I felt fairly confident in a few of these areas, so as of last month the state knows that in addition to my normal, boring, everyday job-specific skills, I am proficient with most of the Microsoft Office suite, I can copy write, I am health educator extraordinaire, and I can take care of farm animals.

It's the little things that provide amusement.  While just a minor bit of paperwork, this project provided my clinic with a few hours of excitement.  And this year, if there is a hurricane, I might just be taking care of some cows.  Which actually, wouldn't be bad, because I have this really random dream to show cows at the fair, and taking care of cows would be, like, one step below that.  On a more normal note- enjoy the nice weather, get a tan, and for all of you thinking about working for the government: get familiar with KSAs.

Joggle

Joggle-verb- move or cause to move with repeated small bobs or jerks.

Ten days after I moved here, and only my third day as a DHEC employee, I went to my first staff meeting.  Not really knowing what to expect, I imagined it would be a long, drawn out event, where we discussed many important things relating to the office.  In my mind, everyone would report on various things happening in their respective departments, and the meeting would take a good hour or so.

Not so.  In a format that's been recreated 17 times since I've started working here, we had a brief meeting, followed by a minor report from another co-worker, and then we broke out to have department meetings.  That first department meeting is where I first heard the word "joggle."

All of the WIC people had filed into the break room, and we started with introductions, seeing as how I knew no one.  Before long, we were talking about various personal hobbies, and not long after that, someone brought up the topic of my supervisor's business, which she runs with her husband.  Together, they build and sell joggling boards.  I forget how she initially presented the concept of the business to us, but more than a few of us had a confused look on our face.  After a few moments of purposely throwing around some business-related lingo to confuse us a little more for her amusement, she took a little time to explain what exactly she and her husband create.  It's actually a pretty interesting lesson in history, so joggling boards will be today's topic.  Enjoy your Southern trivia for the day!

First of all, let me describe a joggling board.  Traditionally, they are made out of pine, which is a more pliant type of board.  This is important, as the main function of the board is to move...a lot.  The vertical ends of the boards have rockers on the bottom, allowing the board to move side to side, and are topped with decorative finials.  The main part of the board itself can be somewhere between ten and sixteen feet, and is traditionally painted "Charleston green."

The history of the joggling board in the U.S. starts in Stateburg, South Carolina, at the Acton plantation.  The owner of the plantation was a widowed man who, after the death of his wife, invited his sister to come live with him and take care of the house.  The sister suffered from rheumatism, and wrote to some of her Scottish cousins about the toll the disease was taking on her body.  According to popular lore, upon hearing that the previously active lady's only source of exercise was to ride around the plantation in a modified carriage that could accommodate her chair, her cousins sent her a model of a joggling board, hoping it would allow her to get some exercise that wouldn't exacerbate her condition.

It must have worked, or at least been interesting enough, because joggling boards soon became popular and started popping up all over the "Lowcountry" and remained popular until World War II, when the price of the materials used for the boards became prohibitive.  Historians also like to point out that during the height of their popularity, joggling boards played a part in the courtship of many young Southern couples.  According to historians, the man would sit on one end of the board and the woman on the opposite side, and through "joggling," they would eventually end up sitting together in the middle of the board.

So, by now you're either laughing at the word joggling, or just getting over laughing at the word.  I purposely didn't try to define the term, other than what's at the beginning of the post, because I've found that I can't really do it justice.  So rather than search for words I don't have, I'll leave you with this YouTube link.  This is actually a joggling board my supervisor, Kristi, and her husband made and displayed at a local home show last year:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G43yIxuB8lo

I hope you've enjoyed this tiny peak into another part of Southern life.  Happy Sunday!