nsplayr

Working now...my man! Maybe a fluke or maybe you fixed something but either way well played.

Has his performance changed from the minute he walked into your office until the minute he walked out? If not, you strat him #1 because that's what his performance deserved. Either you rank honestly or you don't...shouldn't be that hard of a question IMHO. Now, if a CC wants to flex the rankings in order to help out more of his top performers, I've got no problem with that. Depending on dates of OPR closeouts and PCSs or PCAs you can definitely stack the deck a little bit and give multiple top guys excellent strats without technically double-booking. But "gaming the system" to the detriment of those you rate on, i.e. failing to strat a guy highly who deserved it based on your honest assessment of his performance based on personnel actions, that's a huge dick move.

New wrinkle on the mobile website. FYI using an iPhone 5s with iOS 7.04 and the Chrome mobile app version 31.1650.81. Every website, including BO.net until this evening, lets you scroll to the top of the screen when you tap at the top. Great for reading threads with lots of posts. Suddenly not working. The function works for other websites just like always...figure something changed with all the recent site changes. Just a heads up. Cheers

Affirm CAO yesterday. My posts in this thread today aren't doubling up but this post didn't do anything when I hit "post." My one above had no issues. Using Chrome on both, first one with no issues was mobile on iPhone 5s, this one in my laptop. Thanks for the work BTW DFRESH.

Working fine on my iPhone 5s CAO 1025 mountain time. Worked throughout the last few days other than about an hour-long outage on 30 Dec.

Why do you think that?

tac, you're speaking my language man, hell yea. C-27 would be sweet in AFSOC either as a mini gunship, a big U-28, a different flavor of MC or all of the above. Haven't they been talking about this since like 2008?

Is this not already the case where you are? In the 1st and 27th SOW it seems to be.

Haters gon hate. Really...it's not ok to give a dude shit who's talking about getting lipo rather than just working out more and/or learning how to just call it good? I'd gladly give that person shit in person if they were in my squadron. I get that we're a kinder, gentler Air Force and hell, I'm supposed to be the token pansy liberal, but come on, a story like this is absolutely begging for a callsign. Bah humbug, maybe I should just learn to be nicer? Like I said, merry Christmas and hopefully Santa brings the OP some common sense in his stocking this year.

Ok, honest question...are you a chick or something? Jebus, man up and act somewhat like the warriors of days gone by. If you have 17% bf and a great PT score but are still unhappy with yourself either apply a little more elbow grease and discipline or learn how to be happy with yourself. Plastic surgery not related to fixing horrific injuries or birth defects is incredibly dumb. If you want that minor gut gone to impress the ladies or whatever stop eating sugar 6 days a week and invest in a trainer or even a little mild internet research on fitness. Merry Christmas, hopefully Santa brings you some common sense.

Any thoughts on trying to palace chase with only 10 months left before I separate anyways? May have a guard/reserve opportunity in the future however from some of the timelines I've talked to guys about seem pretty long. My guess is that by time big blue processed my application and hypothetically approved I'd be out the door very shortly anyways...

All the stuff on myPers says to reference some kind of matrix, which as was pointed out, is not released yet. Thanks myPers, I'll get right on looking at that non-existent thing to potentially determine the future of my career! How hard could it be: edit to add: who am I kidding, no way 11S or 12S will be eligible...

I stand corrected

The buying power of your retirement dollars absolutely is reduced over time with this deal, no doubt. All I'm arguing is that there is a difference between a cut that takes place immediately and a decrease in projected future increases. The end result may be be the same in the long run i.e. you have less money, but that doesn't mean a policy saying "Bam, now you have less money in next month's check" is the same as what has been passed. Not that either is a good idea...I'm sure we can all think of better ways to raise revenue to offset the partial lifting of sequester cuts even if we may not agree in what that would look like. Feel free to gnash your teeth at the token "liberal fucktard" and etc. but realize more Republicans supported this measure than Democrats and it was not the Democrats demanding an offset to sequester changes.

This bill does absolutely nothing to affect those people. The changes to mil pensions are to decrease projected COLA increases for working age retires i.e. those 62 and younger. At age 62 you go back to getting standard COLA increases each year. Honestly this isn't a "loss" of money in the strictest sense, it's a decrease in projected increases that, for most currently serving are at least several years into the future. Frankly anyone truly banking on and budgeting based on the government's projections of future COLA increases was smoking crack or up a creek already. Yes it's a bad deal for current retirees and those retiring soon but personally I'm not planning my retirement or my life based on projected COLA increases...YMMV. As I pointed out, Fed civilians got screwed WAY more in that anyone with less than 5 years in service effectively takes an immediate 1.4% pay cut on 1 Feb 14. I certainly do plan my monthly budget and taking a pay cut right meow for the exact same retirement benefit is more of a problem to deal with. Standard disclaimer that I don't support either measure, just trying to argue the points accurately.

It's not that the person doesn't know ahead of time if they are a new hire, although it seems like some folks were not grandfathered into what they signed up for and we'll see how it's implemented on the civilian side. Here's how I think most employees would see it: Bill is a GS-13 program manager working for Agency X. His annual salary is $95K. He has worked at Agency X for 5 years and contributes 0.8% of that $95K into FERS every year, or $760 per year. If Bill works for the Feds for the next $25 years, he will have paid in $19,000. For argument's sake no promotions, step increases, etc. for simplicity's sake. Fred is a GS-13 program manager who shares an office with Bill at Agency X. His annual salary is $95K. He was hired on 6 Jan 2014 (hypothetically falling under the new rules if the budget deal passes). He will contribute 4.4% of that $95K into FERS every year, which is $4,180 per year. If Fred stays on with the Feds for 25 years, he will have contributed $104,500 for the exact same FERS annuity that Bill receives. Same assumptions as above. That is real money and OBTW unlike the changes for military retirements, these changes take effect day 1 in each employees paycheck. Bill's before-tax but after-FERS take home is $7,853 per month. Fred's is $7,568. Fred, congrats on your new job and all, I'm sure you're gonna work out great, but you get to do the exact same work as your office mate Bill and you will make $285 less per month every month for the entirety of your career. So as an O-3 who most likely makes IVO what Fred and Bill make, would you want to do the same job you're doing now for $285 less per month? It's not that the sky is falling, but when you want to raise revenues from a small group of people (Feds, military retirees, or even both groups combined), the pain for each individual person is significant. Anyone with half a brain making $95K annually can figure out how to make it work for $285 per month less, just like any mil retiree with half a brain can make it work with less growth in their expected COLA increases. Neither of those changes are good policy or things I support, don't get me wrong. My entire argument in the first place was just to demonstrate to clouseau that the Fed civilians were indeed getting the shaft right along side mil retirees, and I'd argue more so since the cuts are felt immediately and affect every federal civilian regardless of whether they ever end up drawing that FERS annuity at retirement. To the ~83% of military members who will never retire, the cuts being proposed will not affect them whatsoever and even those who plan on retiring, you likely have years to adjust your plans rather than seeing $285 extra dollars taken out of your Feb 1 2014 O-3 paycheck.

You're kidding right? In addition to lengthy pay freezes and furloughs, all of which we've avoided on active duty, federal civilians have already been asked to contribute significantly more to their retirement in recent years and this new budget deal has piled on to that effort. Most current government employees pay 0.8% of their annual salary as the cost of the FERS annuity. Those who were hired after Dec 31, 2012 now contribute 3.1% for the exact same benefit, i.e. congrats new guy, you just took an annual pay cut of 2.3% for the exact same benefit each and every year of your employment. Now, not 1 year later, any employees hired recently (less than 5 years of service) will have to pay an additional 1.3% each and every working year for the exact same retirement. End result: dude hired 5 years ago is contributing 0.8%, dude hired 4.9 years ago is contributing 4.4%. On, say a $95K salary, that's an immediate $3,420 difference per year and those guys are getting the same benefit on the back end. So while military retirees are getting 1% less per year until age 62 (about 24 years at the most if an 18 year old enlistee retired at 20 years of service), recently hired federal civilians are paying 3.6% more every year they work, which on the civilian side is usually at least that long and possibly longer i.e. 30+ working career before reaching the minimum retirement age which is at most age 57. I'm not a fan whatsoever of either the military or federal civilians picking up the slack in the national budget, but the civilians are getting a much worse deal than the military retirees. And the negative effects hit immediately rather than the reductions in benefits being deferred until retirement.

Fixed for accuracy.

This is the MOAA-type attitude that makes me wanna puke.."Never give an inch!!!" Seriously? Equating a 2% contribution for an extremely generous pension to other huge changes is the kind of games most people hate when politicians play. Some things are a big deal and we should fight them, others while not ideal are not worth blowing your load over STS. Something about picking your battles... Changing the age when you can start getting paid from immediately to age 60...big fucking deal. I'm not a fan of that at all unless they radically overhaul the entire military pay/benefits/retirement system. A 2% contribution while you're on AD only paid by officers...not nearly as big. Don't get me wrong, I don't want to take a 2% pay cut more than anyone else, but then again I'm also not advocating for huge cuts in the federal budget. Cancel sequestration without requiring kabuki theater offsets that "raise revenue" without raising taxes or reforming social safety net programs and we can forget about all this nonsense. I for one vote that if AD starts contributing to their retirement you either A) partially vest much earlier than 20 years (i.e. 5 years ish seems right) or B) you get refunded your contributions if you punch before 20. Otherwise, unless you only make officers contribute, it's just basically stealing from mostly junior enlisted (and anyone else who doesn't make it to the full 20) to pay for a retirement benefit that goes to a small fraction of all those who ever served, who are also mostly officers.

College rankings are often in large part based on the quality of their incoming classes, i.e. average SAT scores, rank in their high school classes, etc. It seems like the questions people are asking are about outcomes, i.e. do students excel after going to the Academy and specifically did they succeed because of their experience going there? I'd say the answer to that second questions is hard to say and uniquely so for graduates of military academies since their graduates go on to serve as officers in the military for at least 5 years. So no, they're not likely doing ground-breaking research, founding fortune 500 companies, etc. right out of the academy because they're busy being CGOs. And we've all pretty much agreed that in terms of in-service performance academy grads are not materially better than officers from ROTC or OTS. So really I think you can have it both ways. The academy doesn't have to be a crappy school to say it's not worth having. You can argue that the academy is an excellent academic institution because they are very selective and only admit students with excellent high school academic backgrounds. You can also argue that they are set up well to provide above average instruction based on student to teacher rations. While all that can be true, the best question to ask is, "Is the taxpayer getting the best value for their money by sending a cadet to the USAFA?" I think because academy grads are not going to prestigious grad schools in huge numbers, are not doing ground-breaking research, are not founding innovative companies right off the bat, you have to justify the academies by saying the produce a better military officer, which I think they don't. BL: the academy is an academically excellent school mostly based on the quality of students it attracts, but its cost does not justify its existence since the taxpayer-funded impact of the academy's existence is not a measurably better officer corps.

Agreed...my detachment was very high on the list of institutional disfunction but hey, it only affected 12 people per year so NBD. We did manage to operate without narcs though so we had that going for us!

Ah, reading comprehension fail on my part. Good luck, I'll be asking the same question in 6-9 months so if you hear a real answer definitely post what you get told.

The AFI is literally the first page that comes up when I google "AFI 36-3003." I'd link for ya but am on my phone. Try again if all you need is the AFI.

Good advice being offered here. My additions with some repeats for emphasis: A) Try powered flying and get to the point where you can solo. I'm definitely in the category of liking flying without loving it, however I had a blast flying -172s in a civilian capacity. There are few people who are inclined to try flying that can't be taught how to do it safely enough to take a Cessna up and have a good time. B) If you still don't love being at the controls but enjoy flying enough do wanna do it every day as a profession and you want to be involved in the big picture mission of the Air Force, becoming a CSO is a great way to do it. C) AFSOC is great for getting you "in the fight" so to speak and a great place to be a CSO. However it is pretty hard to escape and you will get ridden hard. There is absolutely no glass ceiling for CSOs in AFSOC; Gen. Fiel, the 3-star AFSOC/CC is an EWO by trade. A possible benefit of going CSO vs pilot is your commitment is noticeably shorter. As someone who's getting out at the end of my initial flying commitment my pilot buddies who are leaning the same way are jealous that I'm punching now and they have 4 years to go. On the other hand, if you even think you might wanna be a pilot, don't pass up the once in a lifetime opportunity to give it a shot from the start. Yea, you can always try to go to UPT later once you're a CSO, but if you can get a pilot slot out of the zoo and you think you might wanna do it, give it a shot. Either way bloom where you're planted and good luck.

Go to the CC or IG. Don't talk about it, do it. Document and substantiate everything.