Keep in mind, I may be a bit jaded from being at ft. bragg for 4 years. Even when I was in the reserves here though, where it is supposedly " more laid back " There was still all, or more of the bullshit. I actually enjoyed my job, and lots of the things about the army. I would deffinantly go back in and stay, if it weren't for all the bullshit, vanity, stupidity, and heartlessness that is there. I don't have a problem with p.t. long hrs, being deployed, lots of training, or all the hard work.
There are all sorts of different jobs in the civilian workforce. Each has it's troubles, and annoyances. I'm not trying to trivialize that. I'm deffiantly not trying to be condascending. I'm not bitching about my job either. I don't even have a job, I get paid to go to school now because I was able to deal with all the bullshit for so long without shooting anyone. I kinda feel selfish, because if I had shot my 1sgt, and probably a few other people, the world, especially the army world would be a better place. It's hard to concsous not getting rid of those people while I had the chance, as well as I might have helped out so many of the predjudice peices of shit assholes, that are in the buisiness world, and that I may have had an influence in them not dieing. Sometimes I guess it's about self-preservation rather than selfishness. It's a fine line between the two for me.
You work your 8hr days, and do something productive for most of it.
The signal soldier has about 12 hr days. Much of them are spent sitting in the hot sun. Sometimes doing something productive. Whether they are doing something productive or not. Sometimes more than 12hr days, the frustrating thing is that the longer the day, doesn't correlate with the amount of " work " or training done, or amount of accomplishment.
You get paid for every hr you work. You get paid overtime for working more than 40 hrs a week.
A soldier doesn't get paid by the hr. A soldier is somewhat " working " 24-7. Almost Always on call. When a soldier works 5, or 6, or even 7 or more 12-18hr days a week, the soldier isn't paid more.
I'm not sure how your promotion system works. It might be much like the army's.
But if your boss gets promoted because of his, or her, cock-sucking abilities and looking pretty and not on their skills in their job, their leadership skills, their intelligence and other factors that seem like they should be looked at when determining someone's promotion; Most of the time, the lives of the people in your company are not at risk. Yes, someone might " snap " and bring in a gun or something. Soldiers are routinely around weopons, and ammunition. I don't know how many of you have had to walk around Iraq with a machine gun for a year, and have some idiotic piece of shit as a 1sgt, or " boss " or whatever. I do know that it creates a hazardous volitlle enviornment. Standing around outside in formation in Iraq, on a base where several mortars fall each week, is also kinda hazardous.
You probably spend your day working, getting stuff done.
When deployed, I spent my day much of that time waiting for shit to hit the fan. 12-18 days, with sometimes 2-3 days "off" a month. I don't really consider almost any day in Iraq, a day off. Or any day in Afghanistan. While waiting for shit to hit the fan, I played darts, videogames, read books, drew, wrote stuff, whatever I could to try to keep my remaining sanity. ( not that it worked. )
Most of the time, if you are on time for work, then that's good.
If the soldier, or atleast signal soldier isn't more than 10 minutes early for work, it's a " big deal " . I'm sorry, sometimes I have other things to do than to stand around for 10 or more minutes, just to stand around bullshit, and look pretty. I guess those 10 minutes are there to polish up on your cock-sucking abilities so you can get promoted.
25f's don't have an easy job, even though it may sound like it with the videogames and such. It's a lot of hard work setting up the antennas, and other equipment. It's also hard to tell other people how to do their jobs when they are idiots and don't know how. It's especially hard when the assholes and idiots on the other end are higher ranking than you. How did they get promoted to their level when they can't do their job? Cuz they looked pretty at the right times, and don't have a gag reflex. So yes, we often end up working long hrs, doing other people's jobs who get paid more than us.
Soldiers are often stomped on and shit on. It is extremely difficult to do anything about this because there are no checks and balances in the army. Power corruption is almost always redundant. People make up their own rules and enforce them over army regulations. The person over the person ( person, is probably an overstatement. Piece of shit works better. ) making up
these rules isn't even on the post. There is really minimall supervision. Micro-management sometimes happens, usually because either the underlings have fucked up so much that the " boss " over everyone doesn't trust them any more and can't fire them, or the boss has just been exposed to so much incompitence in their journeys, that they don't trust anyone.
Private buisness and such have their own rules and such, and hey, it's your buisness, it seems like you should be able to do what you want with it. It's your rules, if people have a problem with it, they can start their own.
It's rather difficult to start my own army. I pay taxes, and they go to the one we allready have. There's also all kinds of bad stigmas associated with starting your own army, and bad associations with starting a revolution and taking over your country and government. It's not something I'm going to do, especially since all they have to do is say I'm a terrorist, and treat me like an enemy combatant. Lock me up and throw away the key, taking away all my rights, and even worse " aggressively interrigating " me.
It seems like the rules in the army should be practical. It seem like it's an important enough orgtanization that promotions should be based on skill levels of things other than cock-sucking, and looking pretty.
What is your job's biggest concern on monday?
For mine, it was, what does your hair look like? Out of all the important things, or things that would seem to be important about the army, Hair-cuts are the # 1 concern. I have never seen so many people so stressed out because of what their hair, or what someone else's hair looked like before, or after I was in the army. People's hair cuts, are more important than the skills they have or don't have. If you don't, or can't do your job, it's not that big of a deal. If you desensitize your entire company to stupidity, it's not that big of a deal. If your soldier's paperwork is sitting in an office for a week, and you don't bother to get it taken care of so they can get out of the army, it's not that big of a deal. Who cares how well you shoot. All the other things are put secondary. If your hair doesn't look right, even if it is in regulation, you need to get it taken care of before you go home for the day. Most other things, can usually wait until tommoarrow, or forever.
What to do? I don't know. Write your congress-people. Don't take shit from even your employers, or prospective employers. Don't succumb to the vain, superficial ways of the world. Keep in mind what is really important. Make some speeches, do some demonstrations, set a good example. I think it was some Indian guy that said something like " Be the change you want to see in the world. " Other views are to blend in and do what works until you have power to change it. That could work, but often times by the time people have that power, they are stuck in the " evil " ways that got them that power and are corrupted by it. They have it, are uste to living the lifestyle it affords them, and don't want to lose it.
