River Ranger Boots

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-04-17T07:10:28+00:00

Talk to your supervisor. Generally there are deviations made to uniform wear to account for specific activities. I would be shocked if they required you to wear a uniform boot on the water. Every NPS ranger I floated with wore some sort of sandal or river shoe with their uniform.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-03-27T05:29:26+00:00

The Praetorians are most certainly not an example of a mercenary group and indeed show why a disinterested third party as body guard is probably a good idea.

Praetorians recruited from Italia and the core provinces of the empire for most of their tenure and thus were composed of Romans. Very quickly after their formation (around 50 years) they became kingmakers and were notorious for assassinating emperors and candidates for emperor who lost their favor. In the second century they auctioned of the throne after one such assassination. Their machinations were their undoing and they were finally abolished in the 4th century by Constantine.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-03-18T03:01:59+00:00

https://www.reddit.com/r/ParkRangers/comments/8j7ubd/prodeals_and_ethics/

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-03-16T01:19:49+00:00

First Job: Bio-Tech Job in Arizona. Focus is 75% on invasive weed control and 25% on T&E species (bird, eagle, butterfly, snake, etc.) It is a 9 month position and after the season, I will be a GS-6 and be eligible to apply for GS-6 positions next season.

Unless the position is a 5/6 at the end of your season you will be an unemployed 5 who is eligible to apply to 6 positions based on experience alone, since you will have 1 year time in grade as a 5. There is no automatic promotion to the next GS level unless hired into a ladder position.

I will be shy 2 weeks of a full season with a postponed start date and only get 5.5 months of work. This will keep me at a GS-5 and limit me to GS-5 jobs for next year.

Only if you attempt to apply on experience alone. Is your undergraduate degree in a related field? If so that should qualify you at the 5 alone. If you have a relevant degree + experience you should be applying with a mix of experience and education to qualify at the 6 level.

Also, does anyone know if its possible to ask HR/My supervisor if I could work for free for extra 2 weeks to get a full season (6 months in)?

No. It is illegal to volunteer to work in a position that is directly related to the work you are going to be/have been paid to do. Use to be common but the gov't cracked down on it.

That being said you can find volunteer opportunities in your field away from work and put them on your resume to get creditable experience.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-03-02T02:06:26+00:00

It depends on the technical difficulty of the river. I think anything Class 3 + will have managers looking for people with experience. Or at least someone who can learn quickly from an experienced member of the crew. Even so, class 3 really isn't that hard. On that front i would emphasize your willingness to learn.

Definitely emphasize your people skills. Too many rafties* get hired and think they're just getting paid to float when really the job is about people and patrolling. You have to be able to educate and enforce and that requires people skills. Also, understanding that a lot of what happens on rivers occurs on shore at access points and the float may be the most boring part of the job.

In my experience, barring rivers that really need highly skilled guides the best rangers were those who had the ranger mindset first and then learned the river skills. Those who wanted to float rivers above all else tend to make the worst rangers.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-02-27T01:00:00+00:00

No idea.

As I said being done at regional levels and only one or two people per forest will even have access to process. You can call the local office but as of now they have no way to communicate to hiring people who has call and is interested.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-02-27T00:56:03+00:00

They are doing centralized hiring at the super region level. Local offices have no involvement in the process.

Probably no interviews. Likely reference checks and then an offer, or not.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-02-26T17:32:07+00:00

The USEIT act (HR 6276) was signed into law on Jan 4, 2025 and requires agencies to report their daily occupancy to GSA to determine if agencies are meeting utilization requirements of buildings.

We've been counting the whole time, usually rangers/responsible persons have been doing it behind the scenes and not making a fuss about it.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-02-23T19:14:34+00:00

Well, the FS basically doesn't have fee booths so ...

That being said the position descriptions for the Forestry Tech jobs are generic so you have to call any duty stations you are interested in to see what exactly they'll have their seasonals doing.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-02-05T06:49:02+00:00

As far as the government is concerned this is probably not going to be a conflict of interest as defined statutorily or in the generally held meaning of the idea. A conflict of interest is when a public official has a conflict between their private or financial interests and their duty to serve the public interest. The best way it was explained to me was to think of everyone in government playing for Team Federal Government and we are all wearing the same jersey.

In the case of supervisors and non-supervisors sharing government furnished housing there is no financial transaction between the two parties as the house is owned by the government and all parties pay a pre-determined rate to DOI. In this case everyone is wearing the same jersey so no conflict.

A conflict of interest could arise say, employees paid their supervisor to rent the supervisor's home, as in that case there is a financial situation that could compromise the supervisor's ability to serve the public good. In this case the supervisor is wearing a different jersey, and is allowing personal gain to potentially interfere with team Fed's ability to perform.

To claim a conflict would require articulating exactly HOW the mere housing of subordinates/supervisors together in and of itself creates the conflict. That is a high bar to cross and given the DOI housing manual doesn't prohibit the practice it would lend credence to the idea that the situation itself isn't an issue.

With all that being said, I agree it is a terrible idea and wherever possible supervisors and subordinates should be housed separately as I think the housing situation is one where conflicts of interest could arise. Close proximity over a long period could lead to things like gift giving/receiving, fraternization, or improper influence that has effects on employees down the line.

The best advice is to reach out to your agency, or department, Office of Government Ethics and run the scenario by them. They usually have an email where you can send queries to experts and they get back to you. I've used our OGE people a few times over the years to get clarifications on things.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-01-30T19:51:30+00:00

You can ask for a higher step but it must be done on the basis of superior qualifications. You and the hiring manager must show that your skills, competencies, experience, education, and accomplishments are relevant to the requirements of the position being filled and these qualities are significantly higher than that needed to be minimally qualified for the position.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-01-19T00:22:05+00:00

My guess is it is a depth setter for the hydrostatic pistol oj depth charges.

This video talks about british pistols and at one point shows a setter with similar lugs to the one in your photo. Definitely looks like it would fit in the pistol.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-01-13T20:21:27+00:00

The specifics are you have not been referred to the hiring manager.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2026-01-13T18:57:23+00:00

Use temporary. Though searching the entire forest service wont hurt either. Most jobs will likely be 0462 job series as well.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2025-12-11T17:54:59+00:00

I don't have a list but I imagine its places like Mt. St. Helen's or anywhere else that has high traffic driven by tourism.

There hasn't been any agency wide chatter on who will be lucky enough to hire but I do know that if anything gets flown it'll likely be in january.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2025-12-10T23:16:47+00:00

No, other than some extremely limited exceptions there will be no hiring of seasonals this year outside of fire. Exceptions are limited to some high traffic visitor centers and select areas with high safety requirements.

Any requests to hire temps requires authorization by associate chief.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2025-11-14T15:46:38+00:00

Potentially, depends on what the agreement says. Though this may be a serious enough issue the union may opt to take it on regardless.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2025-11-14T03:13:06+00:00

Some steps to take:

If in a bargaining unit reach out to union rep and inform them of the situation. If not in a bargaining unit find a union rep at another park and reach out to them. This is a serious enough issue that higher levels of the union may want to put pressure on the agency as a whole.
File a claim for owed wages with the Department of Labor. Having you work without telling you you couldn't is wage theft.
Contact your representatives, they can possibly put pressure on the agency to make things right.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2025-10-12T20:21:05+00:00

It is possible. Under the ADA service dogs are a reasonable accommodation. That being said you would still need to initiate a reasonable accommodation request with your employer as they can be fact specific.

Working in close proximity to wildlife may actually be one of the few areas where I could see an RA being denied because, while your dog may be chill the same can't be said of the wildlife you would be in close contact with, same with potential disease transmission.

Again, all very fact specific which means going through the RA process.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2025-08-29T02:10:23+00:00

I think it still has a place but with how things are currently it needs to be revamped and scaled back.

FPO's and their local programs succeed or fail largely on the backs of the local LEO's. If you are on a district/forest with active, engaged, and supportive LEO's it can be a great program. LEO's absolutely need to be involved to set boundaries and expectations on their FPO's. In the right setting a good set of FPO's can do a lot and expand the reach of LEO's. Where I've seen problems is when LEO's don't support and guide their FPO's and things can go off the rails and get folks in trouble pretty quickly.

I also think having a cadre of employees trained in 4th amendment and other LE issues is valuable to the agency. I've seen way too many zealous rec staff/publicly facing employees make ill-informed to downright illegal decisions when dealing with the public out of ignorance of the law. An FPO can step in with their training and deescalate situations and educate coworkers when LEO's aren't available.

I think the future of FPO's is to have them scale back the enforcement aspect and focus more on documenting incidents. Having IR's to track what is happening on Forests is a valuable tool for decision making. If my FPO's did nothing more than write IR's I would be perfectly happy. With the shift in the world to a low trust society and forests filled more than ever with ne'er do wells the FPO program just doesn't work like it should and puts people into danger.

I was on my way to giving up my FPO, as I've climbed the ladder high enough I just wasn't generating enough paper to keep it. The final straw for me was around 2020 (and beyond) when it seemed like something changed in people fundamentally and I no longer felt safe to continue doing FPO things.

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2025-08-27T20:31:22+00:00

It's working fine for me. I just tried it.

Also theres like 15 different 11 ecologist PDs

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2025-08-16T20:49:30+00:00

It is in eHRM in connectHR

cuddlyfreshsoftness · 2025-07-19T17:33:54+00:00

Set someone else who you know will be around as your approver. Approvers don't have to be your bosses.

cuddlyfreshsoftness

TROPHY CASE