The Mother of all CGOCs

[backseatdriver]

my counterpart was an aerospace physiology dude. Good guy, hard worker....his words to me went something like this: "I knew you all had crazy hours but sitting on that flight deck all day and night was just nuts...I'm wore out...how the hell do you do that day in and day out?".

Anyone else find it ironic that it was an Aerospace Phys guy that said this?

[frog]

I'm not referring to how hard anyone works or suggesting aircrew as a whole work harder, etc. I'm talking about things that are different from our world and most of the office-worker crowd. For example, when I was deployed to A-Stan last, I was working flight safety. We had two FSOs (Flight Safety Officers) that are typically rated, but due to a recent rule change, my counterpart was an aerospace physiology dude. Good guy, hard worker...but when it was his turn to do the night shift he could barely function after 10pm...and when he had the opportunity to go on a Herk mission and observe, he got put on a mission that left around noon and they finally got back at O-dark something in the morning...his words to me went something like this: "I knew you all had crazy hours but sitting on that flight deck all day and night was just nuts...I'm wore out...how the hell do you do that day in and day out?"

Warning: long post

Having that experience helped him better understand why aircrew get frustrated with "closed for training" mentalities and "why don't you just come by during normal duty hours" responses when you are stuck flying nights for a few weeks on end. So it's not really how hard anyone works that I'm pointing too, it's just the cultural differences...that many office dwellers don't get why aircrew have such crazy schedules, etc.

I agree with you that many people don't understand how hard flyers work. However, in a similar way that you educated your physiologist, do you ever ask somebody in support offices about their problems? From a CE perspective, I would LOVE to eliminate training days, staff a night shift, or get all of your work orders done, but I don't have the resources to make that happen. Here is why:

- Training Days: The Air Force has elected to implement a dumbass deployment process in which my CE troops will probably never deploy to support the homestation unit that they are assigned to. The homestation wing commander has no buy in on what his combat support capabilities are. Of course, if this gets fixed, it means your homestation base doesn't get maintained when the entire wing deploys. Additionally, more than half of CE taskings are outside the wire...and no, these guys aren't EOD...just your average plumber. What that means is I have to have all of my airmen proficient enough in combat skills to show up at an Army Power Projection Platform and succeed. This requires an entire syllabus of training in order to meet the combat and engineering training tasks...this is before any taskings are issued. So you spend somewhere between a full day per week, or maybe one day every other week to train these guys up, and then you find out they are deploying to the Deid. Fantastic, we just lost thousands of man hours that could have gone to supporting a homestation unit. All because the Air Force can't figure out how to manage deployments. But, I have to train each engineer like he is going to get shot at, or I have failed.

- Normal Duty Hours: I simply don't have the manning to implement a night shift. With somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 of each shop deployed at any given time, I can't effectively cover 24 hours a day with enough trained, experienced guys. So, we run a standby team for airfield and infrastructure emergencies. That is in addition to normal duty hours, so if you worked an emergency on standby all night, you are going to work all day in the shop, too. For this reason, I'm not going to run a guy out at night to fix a leaky faucet or an electrical plug that doesn't work. But, you can be assured that an airfield lighting problem or water main break is going to be worked all night until it is fixed.

- Work Orders: The bottom line is, a big facility complex like a base requires that you spend 97% of the forecasted maintenance every year, only deferring 3% per year. The Air Force is funding sub-50% right now. Additionally, the more you defer maintenance, the more money is required the next year. The fact is, Big Blue has rightfully decided to invest in other places, such as very expensive airframes. It's time to pay the price, it's as simple as that. CE is also one of the largest unfenced pots of money around, so it gets taxed at HAF, MAJCOM, and the wing. Much of your squadron O&M money that gets used to buy flatscreens at end of year was pulled from money that was originally budgeted to CE O&M work. This is INCREDIBLY frustrating when the flying squadrons are up your ass about work not getting done. Now, one area that we need to improve is communicating with you guys. If work isn't going to get done, you need to know that and the underlying reason. This business of work orders going into the black hole to never be heard of again needs to stop.

I worked directly with three fighter squadrons in my last assignment...great bunch of dudes, most of who treated me very well. However, there were a few that really knew how to burn bridges with a number of organizations on-base. Are there some really terrible support organizations out there? Absolutely. However, at the end of the day, I feel like I've done my job if I put 100% of my resources against the top priorities in the wing, which is a pretty tough thing to figure out.. That may have only covered about 25% of the overall requests, but there isn't anything else that I can do.

Sorry, this wasn't supposed to turn into a CE specific post, but that is what I know best. Maybe finance has a similar story, maybe not. I'm going to drop the rant here, because we are getting way off topic from the thread topic of CGOC buffoonery. Have a good one!

Edited October 10, 2012 by frog

[Guest]

Word.

[HU&W]

Kaccs, just in case you're still reading this forum, that's how it's done.

[noodles]

This one is especially rich

[backseatdriver]

This one is especially rich

WTH is happening on Page 6?

[10percenttruth]

This one is especially rich

"Also, [Aviano's] CGOC coordinated with wing public affairs and protocol offices secure a DV visit. Retired Brig Gen Steve Ritchie, only USAF ace in the Vietnam War, and his wife shared war stories for a group of CGOs during a social hour at the club"

I'm sure Chuck DeBellevue or Jeff Feinstein would be pleased to hear about that. This is especially surprising from an organization that i imagine has significant trouble telling the difference between a pilot & a WSO

Edited December 18, 2012 by 10percenttruth

[Danny Noonin]

This is especially surprising from an organization that i imagine has significant trouble telling the difference between a pilot & a WSO

Have no fear. The mudhen bubbas are all members (pg 9) and can instruct to the differences.

[Azimuth]

"Also, [Aviano's] CGOC coordinated with wing public affairs and protocol offices secure a DV visit. Retired Brig Gen Steve Ritchie, only USAF ace in the Vietnam War, and his wife shared war stories for a group of CGOs during a social hour at the club"

I'm sure Chuck DeBellevue or Jeff Feinstein would be pleased to hear about that. This is especially surprising from an organization that i imagine has significant trouble telling the difference between a pilot & a WSO

The funny part, "Coop", the Vice Chair, is a pilot.

[billy pilgrim]

I didn't know the strike eagle guys were so involved with the CGOC!

[pawnman]

I'm a girl, no d**k measuring, and tell my deployed finance officers that bull. We're 6 months to a year minimum. They'll send you a personal email from their locations. Try Air Force times as a statistical resource has a super great article on the subject (we ARE #1 deployed). But you're right gray beard, this forum is definitely used to continue a crazy hate on hate against your support officers and enlisted. With that said, I'll take my briefcase and leave (wink). Small Air Force, I'm sure I'll see you around before I retire, you definitely know my name. Cheers!

If there are so many of you deployed, why are the finance hours so restricted in the deployed locations? And what is it you are doing, since the answer to 90% of my problems is, "You'll have to call your homestation finance office for that"?

[Wolf424]

Sweet! No one said there was a collage on page 13!

[sky_king]

WTH is happening on Page 6?

hug of war?

[17D_guy]

I don't understand why this has to be so stupid. Can't they just get together locally, eat and drink and talk about some volunteer activity. Once a month host a senior leader on something? WTF is all this other nonsense?

Why is their a regional/national chair person?

[HeyWatchThis]

Why is their a regional/national chair person?

O.

P.

R.

Another gem from the article:

"we are creating a position that will serve as a director of all communications. This office will be the overseer of the considerable com-munication network plan we hope to debut in the next couple of months. Some positions we plan to put under this umbrella are Editor of the Quarterly Newsletter, YouTube Channel Director, and Facebook and Twitter Publisher.

Sorry brah! Can't help ya right now, I gotta upload the newest CGOC Youtube video and then tweet about it!

Edited December 18, 2012 by HeyWatchThis

[Fuzz]

WTH is happening on Page 6?

"The last half hour of the officer call involves bringing back Air Force Heritage. Senior Leader-ship taught all of the CGOs a few bar games that were played “back in the day.” Such games include a form of tug-o-war with a broom stick, feats-of-strength games, and of course Crud tournaments."

Sorry brah! Can't help ya right now, I gotta upload the newest CGOC Youtube video and then tweet about it!

WTF could they possible put on youtube that would be worth watching?

[10percenttruth]

"The last half hour of the officer call involves bringing back Air Force Heritage. Senior Leader-ship taught all of the CGOs a few bar games that were played “back in the day.” Such games include a form of tug-o-war with a broom stick, feats-of-strength games, and of course Crud tournaments."

I'm no grey beard, but the last time I heard about any "back in the day" activities involving a broomstick, I was in Limnadia...

[noodles]

I don't understand why this has to be so stupid. Can't they just get together locally, eat and drink and talk about some volunteer activity. Once a month host a senior leader on something? WTF is all this other nonsense?

Why is their a regional/national chair person?

Self importance. Its a drug.

[dream big]

Self importance. Its a drug.

Sad thing is, these CGOC types will get promoted and be the ones making the decisions we will be talking about on baseops.

[BQZip01]

I agree with you that many people don't understand how hard flyers work. However, in a similar way that you educated your physiologist, do you ever ask somebody in support offices about their problems? From a CE perspective, I would LOVE to eliminate training days, staff a night shift, or get all of your work orders done, but I don't have the resources to make that happen. Here is why:

- Training Days: The Air Force has elected to implement a dumbass deployment process in which my CE troops will probably never deploy to support the homestation unit that they are assigned to. The homestation wing commander has no buy in on what his combat support capabilities are. Of course, if this gets fixed, it means your homestation base doesn't get maintained when the entire wing deploys. Additionally, more than half of CE taskings are outside the wire...and no, these guys aren't EOD...just your average plumber. What that means is I have to have all of my airmen proficient enough in combat skills to show up at an Army Power Projection Platform and succeed. This requires an entire syllabus of training in order to meet the combat and engineering training tasks...this is before any taskings are issued. So you spend somewhere between a full day per week, or maybe one day every other week to train these guys up, and then you find out they are deploying to the Deid. Fantastic, we just lost thousands of man hours that could have gone to supporting a homestation unit. All because the Air Force can't figure out how to manage deployments. But, I have to train each engineer like he is going to get shot at, or I have failed.

- Normal Duty Hours: I simply don't have the manning to implement a night shift. With somewhere between 1/3 and 2/3 of each shop deployed at any given time, I can't effectively cover 24 hours a day with enough trained, experienced guys. So, we run a standby team for airfield and infrastructure emergencies. That is in addition to normal duty hours, so if you worked an emergency on standby all night, you are going to work all day in the shop, too. For this reason, I'm not going to run a guy out at night to fix a leaky faucet or an electrical plug that doesn't work. But, you can be assured that an airfield lighting problem or water main break is going to be worked all night until it is fixed.

- Work Orders: The bottom line is, a big facility complex like a base requires that you spend 97% of the forecasted maintenance every year, only deferring 3% per year. The Air Force is funding sub-50% right now. Additionally, the more you defer maintenance, the more money is required the next year. The fact is, Big Blue has rightfully decided to invest in other places, such as very expensive airframes. It's time to pay the price, it's as simple as that. CE is also one of the largest unfenced pots of money around, so it gets taxed at HAF, MAJCOM, and the wing. Much of your squadron O&M money that gets used to buy flatscreens at end of year was pulled from money that was originally budgeted to CE O&M work. This is INCREDIBLY frustrating when the flying squadrons are up your ass about work not getting done. Now, one area that we need to improve is communicating with you guys. If work isn't going to get done, you need to know that and the underlying reason. This business of work orders going into the black hole to never be heard of again needs to stop.

I worked directly with three fighter squadrons in my last assignment...great bunch of dudes, most of who treated me very well. However, there were a few that really knew how to burn bridges with a number of organizations on-base. Are there some really terrible support organizations out there? Absolutely. However, at the end of the day, I feel like I've done my job if I put 100% of my resources against the top priorities in the wing, which is a pretty tough thing to figure out.. That may have only covered about 25% of the overall requests, but there isn't anything else that I can do.

Sorry, this wasn't supposed to turn into a CE specific post, but that is what I know best. Maybe finance has a similar story, maybe not. I'm going to drop the rant here, because we are getting way off topic from the thread topic of CGOC buffoonery. Have a good one!

Didn't see this one until now, so THREAD REVIVAL!!!

The CE mission in the AF is completely lost. The reason we are spending so many man hours is that the Army's Corps of Civil Engineers is overworked/grossly understaffed for their mission set, but the Army doesn't fix the problem because they can always rely on the good ol' AF to fill their shortfalls. I'm all for the one-team, one-fight mentality (wait...does that mean we're fighting amongst ourselves?), but that's when we're all trying to work together. In this case, the Army Staff has decided that they won't do their job because the AF will do it for them. As such, we've lost more AF CE troops than aircrew in these wars (at last count, I heard it was a ~3:1 ratio).

My brother was a CE officer and got out because he was tired of non-vol 364s (can't even get a little ribbon...) to the kitty litter with less than 6 months at home to support the Army. Virtually every CE CGO is in this mess. Imagine if every aircrew was deployed to fulfill a "aircrew liaison" position in the Army every other year because their aviation folks are too busy. Do you think the AF aircrew would stand for it?

Frog is spot on in his assessment that CE's priorities are screwed.

[TAMInated]

A "pilot" here just ran unopposed for CGOC president.

[Tank]

A "pilot" here just ran unopposed for CGOC president.

Where is "here"?

[HuggyU2]

A "pilot" here just ran unopposed for CGOC president.

Is that a bad thing?

[Fuzz]

A "pilot" here just ran unopposed for CGOC president.

And promptly dissolved the the council and told all the finance and MPF officers they need to focus more on their jobs and stop sucking right?

[TAMInated]

Is that a bad thing?

It wouldn't be if he

...promptly dissolved the the council and told all the finance and MPF officers they need to focus more on their jobs and stop sucking...

But he ran because he is the type of person that wants to be CGOC president.