Writing Recommendations

How do you write a professional recommendation for a former employee who failed to make the grade? A nice young man I used to work with was my direct report. I had no issues with him, but my boss did. His attitude was horrible, he was even moodier than I am (and he doesn't have PMS!) and often dragged the rest of the division into his difficulties. He's the only one I ever had to take to HR. I left the company almost a year ago, he left this summer and wants a rec from me. How do I give him an honest review without hurting his chances?

It's supposed to be my day off, so why am I doing this?

Mapping Asphalt

As a biologist in a National Park, I have many different responsibilities with animals -- shore birds, sea turtles, gopher tortoises, whatever crawls, flies, walks, swims or slithers its way into our forests and beaches. Never did I expect that taking GPS locations of asphalt chunks would be part of my job.

In 2004, Hurricane Ivan flattened our beaches at the Santa Rosa area, Fort Pickens and Perdido Key. Roads were replaced in time for the 4th of July weekend in 2005. Shortly after, they were destroyed again in Tropical Storm Arlene and Hurricanes Dennis and Katrina. It's taking some time to determine the best way to rebuild the roads this time.

The Santa Rosa area road will be started in October of this year -- as a hurricane evacuation route, it is a priority. Only two bridges reach the mainland from this barrier island, one in Navarre and one in Pensacola Beach. At the moment, the two are separated by the washed out road in Santa Rosa. If we lose one of the bridges, people on one side of the island will need boats or ferries to get back to mainland Florida.

This leaves me on the beach, with a GPS backpack, wandering around looking for significant chunks of asphalt from the earlier roads. It's not hard -- there are lots of fields, planks, piles, virtual mountains even, of asphalt strewn throughout the park. The road crews will remove everything larger than a brick, so I must locate each of these pieces on my GPS. It means lots of walking in the still hot sun, lots of standing still waiting for satellite fixes, and hours of boredom as my brain screams to do a little work.




There are some areas that are too sensitive for road crews. When the road washed out, new wetlands were created. These marine nurseries and grass flats serve as a buffet for migrating and wintering shorebirds, create habitat for spawning crabs and fish, filter contaminants and nutrients out of the water, and act as a sponge, absorbing water as tides rise and storms threaten. They are a great resource economically, in the food chain and in natural coastal protection. There are ten to twenty foot slabs of asphalt even here. Do I want to map them and invite machines in to tear up the delicate soil, uproot sea oats, Juncus and Spartina, and scatter the Piping Plovers and other birds feeding on the flats? It seems more appropriate to leave these asphalt mats to the erosive powers of wind, rain and sea, to be reclaimed by the birds and sand, and made part of a new salt march ecology. It's a tough call, but I think it's the right one. Thankfully, the decision really isn't up to me.

After three days of mapping on ATV and on foot, I'm looking forward to a day mapping tidelines and counting the hundreds of gulls, terns, sandpipers, herons and their friends that sit along the shore. If I'm lucky, I may even see a loggerhead hatchling or two...

Coastal Clean-Up

Yesterday was Coastal Clean Up Day. People from around the world joined together to pick up the trash that litters our beaches, both from the flotsam that comes in on the tides, and the beach visitors that leave their trash behind. One is inevitable, while we continue to use our oceans as dumping grounds; the other is inexcusable irresponsibility.

On the one section of beach I worked with in the National Park, here's what we found:

13,290 beer bottles
32,516 been and soda cans
927 Gatorade/sports drink bottles
12 dish detergent bottles
48 bleach bottles
56 beach chairs (some brand new)
12 plastic porch chairs
3 fishing rods
18 random pieces of foam
128 Styrofoam cups
212 plastic cups
27 lighters
12 cigarette packs (don't even ask about the cigarette butts!)
1,245 gallon jugs
57 beach rafts
96 tires
countless plastic bags
326 balloons
miles of rope and fishing line
3 large (over 100 feet) seine nets
12 cast nets
24 grills (yes, people leave them on the beach after a cook-out, and never return)
13 tents (people come for vacation, buy a Walmart tent and LEAVE IT on the beach!)
214 pairs of shoes, and another 334 single shoes
1 bra
3 bathing suits (I don't want to know what happened there...)
boat and airplane parts
27 milk crates
2 buoys
6 boat bumpers

This beach is unbelievable beautiful -- 7 miles of sugary sand without a building on it once you leave the visitors center (restrooms, pavilions, etc). This end of the island is very narrow at points -- you can stand in the center and see the Gulf of Mexico and the Bay behind you. Maritime forests, still dry and burnt from Hurricanes Ivan, Dennis and Katrina, line the north shore, their scarred skeletal arms reaching for the cloud scudded sky. Sea oats sway in the breeze and catch blowing sand, building up the dunes, and the island, with their extensive root system. Great Blue Herons stalk prey while affecting regal poses along the north shore marshes. Osprey hunt from overhead, grabbing wriggling fish in their talons to feed their young. Silver white light glints from sunlight reflected off the rainbow of fish scales. As the sun scoots behind a cloud, the clear waves flash from blue to green, dissolving in a splash of white foam as they hit the beach. Sanderlings and sandpipers dance to the cadence of the waves, wading with feathered bellies dipping into the sea as they run from the approaching water.

A loon floats ashore to dry off after the long commute from the Maine coast, but this one is fiestier than most, jabbing at me as I try to disentangle the clear fishing line wrapped around it's beak and neck. How can he eat like this? After snipping away the last bit, I back up, and the bird paddles the sand as he escapes back to the rocking waves. Humans are too much trouble. A gull trips along, with a six-pack ring jutting out of it's beak. It's time for the scissors again, and a bird self-defense class. Those bills can hurt!

I can understand fishing line wrapped around a bird -- the line is easy to lose and hard to find once it's dropped. Large fish run with hooks and line all the time. What I don't understand are the thousands of beer cans left behind, some complete with their cardboard carrying case. Someone made the effort to carry that weight down miles of beach, but couldn't be bothered to carry the light aluminum back to a recycling center or trash can.

These are the same people that grab me and ask why I'm not spending my day, everyday, cleaning the beach as I navigate through the park in my uniform. As one of a small group of biologists trying to protect the many endangered species in our park, monitor shore lines and turtle nests, and further our understanding of the on-going hurricane recovery here, I really don't have time. I do clean as much as I can, but only when en-route to addressing my priorities that day. I regret to admit that it makes me angry -- I work hard to protect these beaches for everyone, and I'm not a human trash can. I especially like it when someone approaches me with their empty water bottle, not even bothering to say hello, just holding it out for me to take from them and dispose of. How did we get so rude and presumptuous?

Ok, that's my rant for the day. Now I have to find a truck big enough to haul all those beer bottles to a recycling center. I wanted to take just one of them, write a message, and send it out to sea, hoping someone, somewhere would read the message and learn to love and respect the sea around us as much as I do.