Maria
Telecommunications Specialist
INTERPRETER: 
I basically work a lot with reports and statistics in providing services for 
IRS employees all around. The differences between a Telecommunication and I.T. 
Specialist is that the Telecommunication receives all the information, and the I.T. 
group kind of sits down and maybe adds some more information that's more in depth. 
And so we deal more with the surface information, and we team together with I.T. 
Services to provide services to other IRS employees. My educational background I 
graduated from Gallaudet University with an A.A. degree, and I got my first job 
here at the IRS, and I continued to take some other training classes and some 
workshops to help me  make some advancements. I've been working here at the IRS 
for 18 years. And the reason that I've stayed here for so long is because I've 
had great opportunities to move up in my field, I've got great relationships 
with my team other coworkers and my boss. Some advice I would give to a new 
employee is to take lots of training, make sure they get involved in maybe a 
mentoring program, to really get immersed in their job and really learn their job 
for opportunities for advancement. There are several benefits here -- there's nice 
health care. We have TSP options, there's life insurance, there's several 
other insurance. We also get the subsidies for public transportation. I definitely 
like working here at the IRS instead of the private industry, because they don't 
provide the same accommodations as the IRS does. Until the ADA law was set 
up -- in, you know, 1973, the government had accessibility for other -- deaf 
and disability people to work, they had accommodations for them. They didn't 
have that set up in the private industry yet.