Workplace Logo (Patreon)

Like a lot of veterans, I too am employed in the Federal civil service. In particular, I work for US Citizenship & Immigration Services. Before anyone gets excited, what I do is spectacularly dull, because I am a records clerk-- which is every bit as exciting as it sounds. I am part of the "legal" side of Immigration: people who file their visas, get interviews, pay the required fees and take an English proficiency test, and get sworn in as citizens. I am not part of the ICE (Immigrations and Customs Enforcement police) side of things; they work in another part of the building and I don't even have access to their offices.

I don't talk about my day job much primarily because it is, for me, nothing more than a nice stable job with good benefits and no "rat race". Some days I am super busy, and some days it is very quiet and I have time on my hands. As a records clerk, I am not really in the direct eye of management or higher ups, since they are all looking at what the Immigration Officers are doing, not me. I like the peace and quiet and stability, which after Iraq, I have come to value greatly (imagine that). 

I also don't talk about it much because I'm neither interested nor involved in the politics of immigration, and I didn't take the job because of any personal interests. I was actually more interested in the Forest Service but they weren't hiring at the time, but Immigration had an opening. 

Anyhow, a few months ago our District, which includes Washington, Oregon, Idaho, Montana, Alaska, Hawaii, and Guam, put out a call for motivated employees to design a logo for our District's internal use. I responded with the above, and beat 12 other respondents to win! The above logo is now official, and here was my accompanying rationale for it:

* The sea is on the left and the land on the right, just as on a standard “North on top” map the land area of W41 (Washington, Oregon, Idaho and Montana) would be on the right side and the sea (Hawai’i, Alaska, Guam) would be on the left.

* The green of the land and the blue of the sea are the same hues taken from the DHS logo, featuring the wavy blue and green design in the shield of the eagle.

* The sea is broken by whitecrests of waves, just as they would be coming ashore on beaches of distant islands or the western coast.

* The mountains on the right are of a deep purplish tint, as from the song “America the Beautiful” and the “purple mountains majesty”.

* The mountains have snow on top of them, to the “north” of the image, just as Alaska sits to our north.

* The sea bird is the Albatross, a bird known for being able to migrate incredibly long distances across the Pacific, which symbolizes the vastness of the territory as well as the distance immigrants must travel to reach us.

* The land animal is the coyote, an animal native specifically to the American West and symbolic of the frontier lands; it was also held sacred by many Native American tribes as well.

* The sun could either be rising or setting, encompassing either Guam (where America’s day begins) or the beautiful sunsets of the West and tropics.

* The sky fills the entire top half, showing that while we are on different land and sea areas, we are all sharing the same sky (and somewhat hearkens to Montana’s “Big Sky Country” motto).

* The yellow-brown strip separating the land and sea represents the sand of the beaches where our two biggest offices are, Seattle and Portland, which are coastal cities.

--For me, I was glad to get a coyote into the image (heh!) but it also got me thinking. There is a lot of overlap between this and the design of military challenge coins, and now I am thinking that maybe a BOHICA Blues challenge coin might not be such a bad idea. I'm going to tinker with some images and see what I can come up with and maybe there will be some new swag available for Patrons sometime in 2021.