What's wrong with the Air Force?

[matmacwc]

Wing CBT training, do it, organize it, get an OPR bullet.

[SocialD]

Wing CBT training, do it, organize it, get an OPR bullet.

2! I can't remember the last time I logged into ADLS.

[abmwaldo]

Cake compared to the (new?) Risk Management Fundamentals. Took over an hour, and that was while max performing the left mouse button.

Depending on how long you've been in you may have already completed the 20 minute version at the Kirtland ORM University. It's a one time requirement and I completed mine in 2006. Print out the certificate and you're good to go; I'll post instructions tomorrow.

[di1630]

Today I laughed when I saw a unit safety rep posting a flyer on the safety board.....special interest item......Thrill rides not allowed. I was perplexed so I had to the fine print as to what a thrill ride was.

Apparently some dude morted himself by riding a motorbike at 100+ mph after smoking pot.

Thankfully the USAF has solved the problem with this ban that laws and common sense could not and there go my weekend plans. I only wish this ban had been in place to save that young military member before he smoked his joint and got on his bike because if he saw this....I know he would have obeyed.

[brabus]

Depending on how long you've been in you may have already completed the 20 minute version at the Kirtland ORM University. It's a one time requirement and I completed mine in 2006.

Doesn't count...at least in PACAF. Either that or we were lied to and I wasted a solid 45 min of my day.

[abmwaldo]

Doesn't count...at least in PACAF. Either that or we were lied to and I wasted a solid 45 min of my day.

Worked for ACC CUI inspection...

[brabus]

High likelihood it was a, "we need the slide to show green stat!" without any critical thought involved. So here we are, wasting more time doing something that wasn't really required in the first place. Perfect.

[LockheedFix]

So, has anybody seen the new annual requirement to accomplish a Civil Liberties CBT? I have an AF-funded masters degree that I was highly encouraged by my leadership to get and now I have to take a 3rd grade civics class every year.

[Homestar]

So, has anybody seen the new annual requirement to accomplish a Civil Liberties CBT? I have an AF-funded masters degree that I was highly encouraged by my leadership to get and now I have to take a 3rd grade civics class every year.

Haven't seen that one yet. I am scheduled for an 8 hour resiliency class though.

[Warrior]

Am I the only one who wants to commit suicide as a result of resiliency training? I mean, nothing says 'don't kill yourself' like a day dedicated to it that really just results in getting to stay late® than normal in order to get/stay caught up since I can't spend that day doing my normal job.

[Skitzo]

The topic is laughable at best. Overheard at a training session. "What are some ways to improve resilience?"

Answer: "stop deploying me on a 1:1 dwell for years on end with no end in sight."

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[SurelySerious]

Why Microsoft Dumped "Stack-Ranking"

The sometimes loathed employee-review system has been a fixture of Microsoft for years. Lately, critics said the system — under which managers were forced to rank employees along a “bell curve” — has made Microsoft a more cutthroat and political place to work. The critics said the biggest bonuses were doled out to workers who learned to game the system in their favor when employee review time rolled out.

[Hacker]

The USAF, on the other hand, has a ratings system in which everyone, in every rating period, single-handedly won the GWOT.

[Lawman]

The USAF, on the other hand, has a ratings system in which everyone, in every rating period, single-handedly won the GWOT.

Everyone is a winner, some people are just bigger winners then their peers....

[Hueypilot]

Ran into a guy I knew from a previous assignment at an airline job fair. I told him I got out and I'm in AFRC enjoying life. He stayed in, made O-5 and got sent back to the base we had both been at 7-8 years ago. He's got about 12-18 months left till retirement, wasn't on the command list, so he's just waiting for his 20. Others we knew are also back at that base, but on the Fast Track.

He told me he did a 6 month deployment to the Deid...one of those "why am I here" jobs with no point...but he was an available body, so he got tagged. He got home, and six months later (just a week or so before the job fair) he's informed that they are deploying him to that SAME JOB again, for another 6 months.

He pleads with the O-6 to find someone else...he just did that deployment, and he's about to separate and is afraid deploying so close to his retirement will hurt his ability to find post-AF work. O-6 says sorry, but the other O-5s are fast burners and he can't spare them...to do so might inconvenience their rapid upward mobility. Never mind that some of them haven't deployed at all in 6-7 years.

I feel bad for him, but that's one reason why I got out. After doing a 365 in Iraq, I asked to go to the AETC squadron to have some time with family. Less than 18 months later, I was deploying on a 182-day tasking, even though there were several others who could deploy, and had not deployed in several years...but again, they were Golden Boys that the leadership didn't want to inconvenience with a deployment, so let's send the career flyer to the desert again even though he just got back from a 365.

When I protested that, I was told that since I volunteered for the 365, I "did it to myself". That was straight from the O-6. My counterpart hadn't deployed in 4 years but they refused to send him because he was an alternate for the Phoenix Mobility program.

So while I was deployed, I applied for Palace Chase and GTFO of the RegAF. Been happy ever since. Oh, and despite being the chief of flight safety with an excellent record (did great on the UCI, built several programs from the ground up, etc), the O-6 downgraded my separation medal from a MSM to a AFCM. My boss fought it until she PCS'd (I had already separated) but as soon as she was gone, they downgraded it and finalized it. I'm the only O-4 who PCS'd/separated from my wing without a MSM. I know pretty much for a fact it was downgraded out of spite because I punched from the AF. I wasn't "blue" enough, apparently.

Treating people this way is another reason why the AF will be pressed to retain people once the job market gets going again.

[hindsight2020]

Ran into a guy I knew from a previous assignment at an airline job fair. I told him I got out and I'm in AFRC enjoying life. He stayed in, made O-5 and got sent back to the base we had both been at 7-8 years ago. He's got about 12-18 months left till retirement, wasn't on the command list, so he's just waiting for his 20. Others we knew are also back at that base, but on the Fast Track.

He told me he did a 6 month deployment to the Deid...one of those "why am I here" jobs with no point...but he was an available body, so he got tagged. He got home, and six months later (just a week or so before the job fair) he's informed that they are deploying him to that SAME JOB again, for another 6 months.

He pleads with the O-6 to find someone else...he just did that deployment, and he's about to separate and is afraid deploying so close to his retirement will hurt his ability to find post-AF work. O-6 says sorry, but the other O-5s are fast burners and he can't spare them...to do so might inconvenience their rapid upward mobility. Never mind that some of them haven't deployed at all in 6-7 years.

I feel bad for him, but that's one reason why I got out. After doing a 365 in Iraq, I asked to go to the AETC squadron to have some time with family. Less than 18 months later, I was deploying on a 182-day tasking, even though there were several others who could deploy, and had not deployed in several years...but again, they were Golden Boys that the leadership didn't want to inconvenience with a deployment, so let's send the career flyer to the desert again even though he just got back from a 365.

When I protested that, I was told that since I volunteered for the 365, I "did it to myself". That was straight from the O-6. My counterpart hadn't deployed in 4 years but they refused to send him because he was an alternate for the Phoenix Mobility program.

So while I was deployed, I applied for Palace Chase and GTFO of the RegAF. Been happy ever since. Oh, and despite being the chief of flight safety with an excellent record (did great on the UCI, built several programs from the ground up, etc), the O-6 downgraded my separation medal from a MSM to a AFCM. My boss fought it until she PCS'd (I had already separated) but as soon as she was gone, they downgraded it and finalized it. I'm the only O-4 who PCS'd/separated from my wing without a MSM. I know pretty much for a fact it was downgraded out of spite because I punched from the AF. I wasn't "blue" enough, apparently.

Treating people this way is another reason why the AF will be pressed to retain people once the job market gets going again.

What a bunch of cocksuckers eh? This is the shit why I'm so glad I never went Active Duty. I've seen it done to my AD peers, and I know I wouldn't have lasted 6-9 years in RegAF. All those bullshit non-AFSC REMF-laden deployments would have cured me from serving. And just like in your experience, I've seen it happen on the AETC side, which was supposed to be the spool-down make-bang-bang with the wife/girlfriend time for these folks. Now it's the god damn 'transpo pool' for miscellaneous 179s to nowhere. Fuck that.

I tell those guys all the time, for the opportunity cost of losing 15 years (on average) of an annuity payout, you can skip over to the reserves and/or civil service and recoup the time served benefit at 60, and gain an incredible improvement in quality of life while focusing on the motivation that made you join in the first place: FLY. Anytime I'm feeling scoffed by AD-Lite shenanigans in the AFRC I mosey over to this thread and fast-cage back to wings level.

[ThreeHoler]

https://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20131120/NEWS05/311200022/USAF-nuke-troubles-run-deep-key-officers-burned-out-

This study needs to be expanded to the total AD force.

[Gravedigger]

In his doctoral dissertation published in 2010 after he finished a tour with the 91st Missile Wing at Minot, Christopher J. Ewing said 71 of the 99 launch officers he surveyed there had not chosen that assignment.

And 28 people are completely full of shit.

[JS]

So while I was deployed, I applied for Palace Chase and GTFO of the RegAF. Been happy ever since. .

Well at least you finally saw the light and crossed over from the dark side. Question - is it a big deal to get an AFCM instead of the MSM while on active duty? It seems like most Reserve guys in my squadron not only don't know what these medals are and what their pecking order is, but they also don't give a shit. While doing A&D, I would try to give away AFCMs and MSMs like candy, and half of the time the members were oblivious to what they even were. Unless they were coming up for their majors or LtCol board, then they needed a "current" medal in the past year or so - those are the only two times a medal matters. We just seem to have much more important things to worry about in the Guard and Reserve, like how many double pay days we could log and how much we were going to berate out active duty counterparts for stupid shit like "leave coordination" paperwork as we all were walking out the door for an undetermined amount of "leave."

MAF vs CAF evaluator mindset, IMHO:

It seems that in AMC (and former AMC dudes), the pinnacle is to be a higher up in Stan/Eval. In the CAF, the pinnacle is to be a Patch. I think that's why there's such a difference. In AMC, you have to flex nuts in order to show you can be a badass evaluator that will hook people without any qualms. CAF bros treat checkrides as an annoyance and something that we have to do between training for the actual mission. Hence, very few Q-3's that will slow down the training with the requisite requals and all that cheese.

Just catching up with some old posts on this thread, but these lines very accurately describe my AMC community from what I have seen. For the most part, we relentlessly make fun of "WIC-ens" as freaks or overachievers who get little or no respect, while Evaluators seem to be more god-like and the pinnacle for a career.

An old wise evaluator once told me that the power to Q3 as an evaluator is like an axe that you should bury in the back yard in some odd place where you have to write down the directions for how to find the axe again. This way if you ever need it, you not only have to find and read the directions, but you have to work hard to dig it up and use it. He's the best EP I have ever known in my decade plus in the AF. Then there are the other countless douche EPs out there who walk up and down the hallway with their axe swinging from their arms, and walk into every daily flight by tapping on the briefing room door with their axe, like a jailhouse guard rattles his billy club on the metal bars of each cell block. I have even heard countless doucher EPs jokingly (sort of) say about how they would Q3 guys if they didn't allow them to fly a leg or didn't stay in such and such's favorite hotel on a TDY. IMO, one shouldn't even joke about using the axe like that.

But that is definitely the mindset of the EP and Q3 in my neck of the woods.

[brabus]

But that is definitely the mindset of the EP and Q3 in my neck of the woods.

180 out from the CAF. Are good dudes just never given the chance to be EPs? It's mind blowing that apparently 90% of MAF EPs are some of the biggest cocksuckers walking around with wings.

[Majestik Møøse]

The vast majority of West Coast KC-10 evaluators are good dudes. But, much like the Sith, there always seem to be a couple of douchers in the mix.

[JS]

180 out from the CAF. Are good dudes just never given the chance to be EPs? It's mind blowing that apparently 90% of MAF EPs are some of the biggest cocksuckers walking around with wings.

Nah, I wouldn't say that 90% of douches - there are plenty of good dude, big picture EPs. But I would say, maybe one out of every four is looking at things in the wrong way. As a potential next in line EP, I had a conversation a while back with our chief of stan-eval, who is a good friend. I told him that there was pretty much no way I was going to Q3 someone, or even downgrade them unless it was to begin the long process to get someone thrown out. Stupid mistakes can be debriefed without marring up the FEFs, and a checkride is meant to be a binary 1 or 0 that shows whether or not you can safely fly or not. There's a reason why checkrides are not graded on a 1-100 scale, but it seems like guys in my community like to nitpick stupid shit for downgrades and seem to go out of their way to find reasons to Q3 people. And that's different from the commander directed Q3s we were talking about. I think that was covered in another thread called "stan-eval shenanigans" here.

Needless to say, arguing with the chief of stan eval is like, well, arguing with your evaluator. So, for the time being, my name went to the bottom of the list of potential EPs, which is underneath the garbage can in the stan-eval office. Ha.

[hindsight2020]

https://www.airforcetimes.com/article/20131120/NEWS05/311200022/USAF-nuke-troubles-run-deep-key-officers-burned-out-

This study needs to be expanded to the total AD force.

Vocational frustration as a result of a mission of admitted "perennial political posturing" burning people out? QOL detractors related to an intolerable location not only having marked historic retention problems but also a documented tendency to literally make you punch your wife more often than your peers in Florida? Um....Is senior AF leadership fucking new? The only thing that raises an eyebrow for me is that they needed to pay RAND to find this out. Whynot Minot...

You could poll the entire Buff community in the Spring of 2008 and find similar tone and sources of causation for the god damn Trail of tears the community was [and is]. True story: academic instructor stands up on day one of academics and the first thing he asks the room was : "raise your hand if you put this assignment as your first choice out of UPT...". I almost started a golf clap, I couldn't believe someone went there on the first fucking day of school. UFB....(and yes, no one raised their hand.)

They [leadership] want to keep dismissing the moronically obvious rational incentives that drive human behavior? Well, they'll keep getting what they pay for. Shit I ought to apply to RAND, that looks like an easy way to make six figures spouting what the base gate A1C could have told you for free....

[Rusty Pipes]

180 out from the CAF. Are good dudes just never given the chance to be EPs? It's mind blowing that apparently 90% of MAF EPs are some of the biggest cocksuckers walking around with wings.

I'd say the ratio on this is probably the opposite... at least in my community. The problem is that the 10% are typically over the top douches and the only guys who get stuck with them are either getting non-notice checks or aren't smart enough to learn how to "EP shop" when they know they have a checkride due. Hell, I have 6 Form 8s in a row in my FEF with the same EP's name on it! He was a gray beard passed over O-4 who was the best pilot I've ever flown with... he'd wear you out on a checkride, but I can honestly say every single one of them was actually fun and I learned something new every time I flew with the guy even on those check rides. I based my entire attitude as an EP on my experiences with him.

We had a bad run in the community also where all the commanders were automatically making every WIC grad an EP... and unfortunately at the time it seemed that they were exclusively accepting only complete pricks to WIC! When I managed to take over a Sq Stan Eval shop I was successful at convincing 2 commanders that patch wearers should not be EPs. Reason being that these guys were supposed to be our technical and tactical experts in the jet and I was getting lots of feedback over the years from our young guys that they would never approach the WIC guys with questions because they were worried about showing the WIC EP how "little they knew" about the jet in comparison... and they were right because these prick patch wearing EPs spent a good portion of their time filling out Q-3 paperwork on co-pilots and young ACs. Luckily there seemed to be a shift in who started going to WIC in our community and we got a couple really good guys as patches who wholeheartedly agreed that they would rather be just IPs who were approachable which was definitely noticeable in the tactical knowledge of our younger guys because of it. We went from guys going tactical DNIF when they saw they were flying with a patch on a local in my old Sq to guys fighting to get on the schedule to fly with them in the new one.

[SocialD]

When I managed to take over a Sq Stan Eval shop I was successful at convincing 2 commanders that patch wearers should not be EPs.

Did you not do MSN checks? I can't think of anyone better to do MSN checks, but our patches don't downgrade for BS shit. Then again, inst/mission checks are really just another flight for most.