Ammo against the shoe clerks!

[JS]

Do you personally greet each passenger?

I try to greet some of my passengers, but more importantly, I get them safely to where they are supposed to be, and usually within a few minutes of the time they are expecting to be there. In short, I don't continually fvck up my job by losing paperwork that can potentially cause my "customers" to not pay their bills on time. Nor do I fvck up my job to the point where I have to argue with each passenger about what rules etc. I am supposed to folllow. I know my rules cold and they know I know my rules cold. I also happen to know a lot about their rules, and when one billeting guy tells me one thing, and then the travel voucher guy tells me another, and then a different billeting person tells me a third story - all in disgreement with their own regs, you can see how frustrating it can be for me.

Finance Guy, I appreciate your candor for being a stand-up guy and coming into a flying forum to try and get us to see the other side of the argument. But like mentioned above, I am sure you can see some of our frustration with the entire finance system in the Air Force.

Edited August 16, 2007 by JS

[Guest Boom]

Not in a Customer to Customer Service Rep. environment. That's not the place. I've seen the attitude before and trust me, there's no special treatment, just a black mark on your name. Now on the subject of lost paperwork, we have to get to the root of the problem, but yelling don't help anything. For all we know the voucher was mailed back and was thrown out in the junk mail.

That's why I miss being Personnel. Cause when the Finance guy would ###### with me about something stupid, they're records in MilPDS got ######ed up or "possibly" volunteered for an assignment. Like that never happens.

[Finance_Guy]

But my point is, if you wanna "black mark" someones name and not provide them service..

Next time finance (or whomever) makes you do their job, make them plan their next flight with you in PFPS and tell them that until they get it right, they dont get paid.

Finance guy, thanks for discussing with us. Hopefully you can see our frustration and make a difference in your squadron.

For the record, I'm not in a finance squadron any more. Now retired and working with financial systems and do some policy work--basically stay current with the regs. I've been "yelled" at as some call it, but I never "refused" to help my customer. I'm just saying I've heard stories like that. There was a story I heard about vouchers found in a closet at one base which turned out to be true, but that was many years ago.

My main point was it's not the customer's role (or right) to yell at the airman. That is not professional either--the airman's direct supervisor or chain of command should take care of that. Respect dwindles when a Lt Col is yelling at an airman (or a MSgt in my case one time) with other finance folks watching and other customers in the waiting area. Very unprofessional in my opinion. It's best to ask for a section chief or OIC and keep your cool.

Most finance airmen are still in upgrade training and don't know all the ropes and the ways of the AF. Many of our NCOs and SNCOs are not lifetime finance folks either. Look at their badges and you'll see. Many SFS folks cross train into finance as do Maint. folks.

I was in Finance 23 years, so I've seen it all. Some may remember the days when you turned in your voucher and got paid CASH on the spot.

Anyway, this topic is on getting you information to receive your just entitlements. I'm only going to respond if a legitimate question is asked or I see something said that is totally wrong.

Later

[Finance_Guy]

I guess all of the aircrews need to remember that we are here to support the finance and services people, and not the other way around.

What's Prime Knight all about then? Isn't that a special program that caters to aircrew. Appears that if you contact the command post, they should have your rooms ready by the time you land. Looks like SVS is trying to support the aircrew. Finance has nothing to do with writing the JFTR, AF/A1 (personnel) is the AF OPR for JFTR rules.

Is that the real problem...waiting 2 hours for billeting? I would suspect the real driver is that most don't want to stay in billeting anyway, so no one contacts billeting ahead of time. I've seen it in other posts where folks recommend to wait until arrival to reserve billeting, that way nothing will be available. And, if the bird breaks down for a few days, you are already off-base, thus drawing full meal rate. I personally would rather stay on base for convenience.

Don't forget what I put in my other post though, all you need is your certification no quarters where available and your AO can approve it. So if billeting is not available, you can still stay off base. You still have the loophole.

[Bluto]

I love the discussion that happened a few months back. Next time finance (or whomever) makes you do their job, make them plan their next flight with you in PFPS and tell them that until they get it right, they dont get paid.

On my cross countries and out & backs I've been calling the Finance Office for weather updates. It's pretty funny on how many actually tell you.

What's Prime Knight all about then? Isn't that a special program that caters to aircrew. Appears that if you contact the command post, they should have your rooms ready by the time you land. Looks like SVS is trying to support the aircrew. Finance has nothing to do with writing the JFTR, AF/A1 (personnel) is the AF OPR for JFTR rules.

Is that the real problem...waiting 2 hours for billeting? I would suspect the real driver is that most don't want to stay in billeting anyway, so no one contacts billeting ahead of time. I've seen it in other posts where folks recommend to wait until arrival to reserve billeting, that way nothing will be available. And, if the bird breaks down for a few days, you are already off-base, thus drawing full meal rate. I personally would rather stay on base for convenience.

Don't forget what I put in my other post though, all you need is your certification no quarters where available and your AO can approve it. So if billeting is not available, you can still stay off base. You still have the loophole.

Does ACC bases even have that or is it just AMC? The reason I don't make reservations is because I never know where we'll end up. We plan for cross countries but hell with weather or whatever other reason the plans change the day of usually. That's why we always get variations authorized. Now obviously that's just for training for us and others have a certain reason to go to that base.

[Finance_Guy]

Does ACC bases even have that or is it just AMC?

Appears Whiteman supports it. Googled "prime knight" lodging and came up with this.

Whiteman Inn

[HerkDerka]

Is that the real problem...waiting 2 hours for billeting?

Yep. When you're min-turning all over the world, waiting two hours to get to your room is a pain in the ass.

HD

[pcola]

Yep. When you're min-turning all over the world, waiting two hours to get to your room is a pain in the ass.

HD

HE doesn't know what min-turning means. If HE does, most of the rest of the shoe clerks don't.

It means that you get a minimum specified amount of time on the ground between the time you land and the time you are legal to take-off. That time includes things like post-flight duties, pre-flight duties, and crew rest. It does not take into account the time it takes the people at billeting to get you into your room, or the time it takes for the trans folks to pick you up and take you to billeting.

If you are scheduled to take off the next day after your minimum allowable en-route ground time, and you had to spend an extra two-hours checking into billeting, then you just lost two hours of sleep.

Get it?

[Guest Boom]

Is that the real problem...waiting 2 hours for billeting?

When you fly nine hours from Washington state to England in a 50 year old airplane the last thing you want to do is wait two hours for billeting.

[DigDug]

Is that the real problem...waiting 2 hours for billeting? I would suspect the real driver is that most don't want to stay in billeting anyway, so no one contacts billeting ahead of time. I've seen it in other posts where folks recommend to wait until arrival to reserve billeting, that way nothing will be available. And, if the bird breaks down for a few days, you are already off-base, thus drawing full meal rate. I personally would rather stay on base for convenience.

Most of the time I've stayed off base, it has nothing to do with drawing the full meal rate. 90% (or even more) of the time, the schedule doesn't allow the use of the chow hall (hopefullly the other kinds of shoe-clerks won't pile on me for that phrase) anyways. Also, I think most of the time, our TDY/Flight orders are already not directing government meals anyways - so as far as per-diem goes, it matters not.

The main reason I've preferred to stay downtown is proximity to adequate food/shopping during a "non traditional" flying schedule. If you stay on base and the chow hall is closed, you may find an open bowling alley snack bar or Burger King if you're lucky. Off base, there's usually a 24 hour Denny's or something like that within walking distance - or at least a hotel restaurant with more user-friendly hours. Don't even start with "call base trans to take the crew to dinner" as many (I dare say most) have a "no off base transportation" policy.

That's just my take on the on base/off base thing.

[Guest Globetrotter]

When you fly nine hours from Washington state to England in a 50 year old airplane the last thing you want to do is wait two hours for billeting.

And you showed for the mission approx 4 hours before takeoff, may have had a delay for mx, wx, whatever. That's a full half of a shoeclerk day put in before the mission started! In my case, we might have to wait 2 hours after landing to download/upload cargo and gas (you probably have similiar post-landing stuff to do) Definitely don't want to wait 2 hours for a damn room.

[HerkDerka]

the schedule doesn't allow the use of the chow hall (hopefullly the other kinds of shoe-clerks won't pile on me for that phrase)

There's nothing wrong with calling it a chow hall. The phrase "DFAC" denotes a "dining experience". You don't "dine" on a sloppy joe that was originally pepper steak that was originally a boiled sirloin (grade-D edible).

"Chow hall" is generous enough.

HD

Edited August 18, 2007 by HerkDerka

[ellsworb]

Is that the real problem...waiting 2 hours for billeting?

Ahh, spoken out of the pure ignorance that plagues so many of the other squadrons on an AF Base. I love that my ALERT sequence is Half a normal duty day for the "Financeers". . . Join a crew on a mission and see what that extra 2 hours waiting at billeting really means.

[JS]

What's Prime Knight all about then? Isn't that a special program that caters to aircrew.

Sorry that I have not written in a few days - I have been on one of those multi-stop, min-turn, aggravating, week-long TDY's. And yes, there were problems at every stop. Stop one - Prime Knight doesn't work as advertised. Have to wait several hours for trans and billeting arrangements (after a 6 hour flight/9 hour day) and the hotel still does not have our non-A's. Stop two - we have to pick up our own rental cars and then head to the hotel. The hotel does not have our non-A's, and we can't check in until 3:00PM. This is at 0800 in the morning, after 8 hours of flying and a 12 hour day, so we have to wait around in our uniforms for another 5 hours. Stop three - not that bad. We had a hotel reservation and trans waiting, it just took the hotel an hour or so to check us in, and they didn't have the non-A's yet, plus they charged us too high a rate (not the Air Force's fault this time).

It was at this third stop that Finance Guy must have tracked my IP address and radioed home about my postings on baseops.net. I just happened to check my latest LES while at the above hotel only to discover that I apparently "oversold" 2 days leave a year ago and they are withholding money to pay the nearly $2000 debt. I called home and they explain to me about overselling the 2 days of leave. I told him if I owed $2000 for selling 2 days of leave too many, then I must be making $1000/day in salary. I quickly conceded the $2K for the oversold leave as long as he would pay me $1000/day for every man-day thereafter that I perform. This obviously blew his mind and he told me to simply not submit any pay documents until they figure this out because it will keep deducting pay until the debt is paid off (I am a reservist, as you can probably tell).

Finance Guy's friends strike again when I am told that the above rental car was not on my orders and that I will not get reimbursed for it. Even though the Mission Commander ordered the Aircraft Commander who ordered me to get the rental car, all because it was necessary for the mission. Plus my approving official signed the voucher, but that is not good enough. Now I have to go through a week of ass-pain to get the orders changed and resubmit my voucher, all the while delaying my other source of income, travel pay, for a few more weeks.

Is that the real problem...waiting 2 hours for billeting?

So to sum up - no, the 2 hours in billeting is not the "real" problem. It is the fact that I take a few weeks out of my civilian life to serve my country and I have to go through multiple 24+hour days without sleep and/or messed up billeting arrangements, I wind up owing the government money for working for them for 2 weeks, and I can't get my travel expenses reimbursed because my word, the word of my mission commander, aircraft commander, and approving official is not enough to get my $200 mission-essential rental car reimbursed. So I return home a little poorer then I left, all the while I still have a mortgage and other bills to pay that I was kind of counting on the Air Force money to cover. I guess this is what emergency savings accounts were for, and thankfully I can dip into mine again this time to pay my bills.

That, my friend, is part of the "real" problem. And I want everyone to know that I am not complaining here (I guess I complaining here on the message board, but I am not complaining in person) because I know this is how the "system" works and serving my country is more important than trying to fight everyone's little empire in the Air Force. I simply wanted to explain to you some of the things that are frustrating for myself and many other fliers here in the hopes that you may be able to provide some feedback to others to try and fix the broken parts of the system.

[Champ Kind]

Is that the real problem...waiting 2 hours for billeting?

UFB. Absolutely clueless.

And as far as the real problem.... The real problem is the absolute asshattery one has to experience just to get anything done at finance.... CORRECTLY. I share the same experiences as most of the people posting. It's like a trade off. Either I go to their office during the hours I'm free, and they are closed, or, I carve time out of my day to go during the two hours in the afternoon that they are open, or right when they open up in the morning, and they still screw up what I submit. The ONLY way I have had things go over with no problems in finance is when I looked up the regs myself, or just wrote the total of my entitlements on a scrap piece of paper and brought them in along with a copy of my LES and showed them what was screwed up. Even then, I've been told, "Well, WE don't actually do that... It's just how "the system" works.

But you know what, that doesn't infuriate me nearly as much as your "waiting for 2 hours for billeting" comment. Again, no clue. And you even spent a good hunk of time in the military! I can't even imagine what Amn Snuffy thinks.....

[pawnman]

Had a great experience today...I signed in, and I was 1st in line, according to their computer sign-in system. Still had to wait 20 minutes to see someone. Then I was told since I'm TDY-enroute, the family separation allowance I'm supposed to be getting while TDY will be paid when I report to Dyess...So the money I'm being paid for being separated from my family will be given to me, but not until I'm REUNITED with my family? What's wrong with this logic? And yes, I had applied for it before leaving my last base.

[Champ Kind]

Fear not, pawnman. I'm sure there's some BS reg that they can hide behind, so long as it suits their interests of not providing timely and efficient customer service.

[Finance_Guy]

Had a great experience today...I signed in, and I was 1st in line, according to their computer sign-in system. Still had to wait 20 minutes to see someone. Then I was told since I'm TDY-enroute, the family separation allowance I'm supposed to be getting while TDY will be paid when I report to Dyess...So the money I'm being paid for being separated from my family will be given to me, but not until I'm REUNITED with my family? What's wrong with this logic? And yes, I had applied for it before leaving my last base.

There is no policy that says you have to wait. Timely processing of pay entitlements is a PERS/PAY Council hot topic. You should be able to get the FSA started after completing the FSA form and make the certification you are married and have dependents and they are not with you. Also provide a copy of the orders. If they still say no, ask them to produce a regulation quote that says you can't. They won't find it.

One note though, you will also have to certify there were no changes to your marital/dependent situation once you do arrive your perm. duty station.

[pawnman]

There is no policy that says you have to wait. Timely processing of pay entitlements is a PERS/PAY Council hot topic. You should be able to get the FSA started after completing the FSA form and make the certification you are married and have dependents and they are not with you. Also provide a copy of the orders. If they still say no, ask them to produce a regulation quote that says you can't. They won't find it.

One note though, you will also have to certify there were no changes to your marital/dependent situation once you do arrive your perm. duty station.

I was told it was a limitation of the system. Since I'm in a PCS status, there are things they can't adjust with my pay.

I'd take you advice, but frankly, the $250 a month won't make that much difference to our financial situation vs getting it lump sum when I report to Dyess, and I'm not sure I'm willing to go through the life-draining experience of arguing the point with finance until they agree with you.

[Guest Jango]

And the shoe clerks are here to spy on you....nothing like gathering intel straight from the natives...

[Vertigo]

And the shoe clerks are here to spy on you....nothing like gathering intel straight from the natives...

Pfft... they're not even smart enough to realize the "intel" they're reading is 3 years old.

Edited October 6, 2010 by Vertigo

[Guest Jango]

Pfft... they're not even smart enough to realize the "intel" they're reading is 3 years old.

Intel 3 yrs old is still pretty good, seems the guys in the onesies bitch about the same thing.....repeatedly. It's actually entertaining.

[tac airlifter]

Intel 3 yrs old is still pretty good, seems the guys in the onesies bitch about the same thing.....repeatedly. It's actually entertaining.

Glad you're entertained. Maybe we're bitching because it's repeatedly getting fucked up? I'm currently broke off station and have one duty day upon returning before I deploy again. What are the chances I'll get paid correctly for my TDY? History tells me 0% chance of finance getting it right the first time. So I pay out of pocket for the entire time I'm gone and hope I'll be reimbursed next year when I come home. I've lost a lot of money over the years because I'm simply too busy doing the job to walk into finance and un-fuck what they can't get right. This thread is proof that I'm not alone. Based on the tone of your post I'm guessing your one of the support types? Hope you're proud of standing in the way of dudes doing the mission.

[PirateAF]

Intel 3 yrs old is still pretty good, seems the guys in the onesies bitch about the same thing.....repeatedly. It's actually entertaining.

You want Intel? - in the continuing quest to do more with less, the Air Force cuts manpower from all the wrong places (orderly room, MPF, finance, comm, etc.) We flyers realize that we have less support on base from support agencies, we get it. We can go without being paid, without our computers working, without our orders being correct or without our records being updated prior to promotion boards. We can go without our family separation pay, combat pay, flight pay, you name it. We can spend an extra hour or two after landing waiting for a bus or waiting for billeting arrangements to end an 18hr day.

We are doing more with less...less service from our supporting agencies. And we are doing more...

We get the job done and support the troops on the ground no matter what - proud to serve. What do you do?

[dontshavemyhead]

You want Intel? - in the continuing quest to do more with less, the Air Force cuts manpower from all the wrong places (orderly room, MPF, finance, comm, etc.) We flyers realize that we have less support on base from support agencies, we get it. We can go without being paid, without our computers working, without our orders being correct or without our records being updated prior to promotion boards. We can go without our family separation pay, combat pay, flight pay, you name it. We can spend an extra hour or two after landing waiting for a bus or waiting for billeting arrangements to end an 18hr day.

We are doing more with less...less service from our supporting agencies. And we are doing more...

We get the job done and support the troops on the ground no matter what - proud to serve. What do you do?

Awesome post.