Strange things about the military a civilian Daniel would find frustrating

[icarus]

Someone asked on a Yahoo Group what are some thing that would confuse and frustrate a new civilian employee of the Air Force, i.e., one Daniel Jackson.

From working with former Air Force for military contractors,
I'd say the fact that there's a form for every form, and a procedure
for every procedure. And that the official way to do things and the
*actual* way are entirely different things. The actual way is
unwritten. Somehow military people seem to learn which form is
important for what, how to keep inside the rules without actually
*doing* everything you're supposed to do.

For someone new who wants to do it right, you can waste a huge amount
of time on something nobody actually does (or they do, but only with
a lick and a promise). And there is no logical sense to it, nor will
anyone care for suggestions to improve efficiency. You just have to
accept the system as it is.

If you rebel against the forms, you can get really screwed up, very
fast. You'll find yourself stymied on projects, your pay held up, you
could wind up under investigation, or something as stupid as your
department no longer has an official budget because someone decided
you don't exist because you didn't send in form X-4712(b), as
indicated your L-f5, which you sent in last year and indicated
plainly that your X-4712(b) would be due in June of this year.

Culturally speaking, the military believes in the "idiot-proof
system." That is, they believe that if you control people enough,
make the procedures *specific* enough, blind obedience will prevent
all errors. They don't want you to think (unless you're an officer,
and even then it depends), they want you to do your job, which means
fitting your slot nicely like a cog in the machine.

Then there's the particularly strange way the military deals with
money:

Daniel: Why can't I order any decent pens?

Jack pounds on the pinball machine in his office: Damn. I almost beat
my high score. *glances up* What was that?

Daniel: Pens. These pens are shit. Why can't order some that perhaps
work?

Jack: Sorry, Daniel. Budget cuts.

Jack fires up his pinball machine again.

Daniel: So... then how did you get a pinball machine?

Jack shrugs: The Navy wanted them for their aircraft carriers, but
the Air Force wouldn't let them have pinball machines unless we
could, too.

Daniel: So I'm stuck with three-cent pens that are essential to my
work, and I can't order a fifty-cent pen. But if wanted, I could get
a pinball machine for my office?

Jack: Yep. That's about the size of it. It's all about *looking* like
you're saving money, if that helps.

Daniel heaves a sigh of disgust and starts to turn away.

Jack: Oh -- and Daniel? Don't use the paper cups around here either.
They'll leak if you leave coffee on your desk for ten minutes.

Daniel's eyes widen: Oh, shit-! *runs to his office*

Comments

[aliciajd]

"They don't want you to think (unless you're an officer, and even then it depends)"

As the daughter of a man who spent 30 years in the USAF and retired as a bird colonel, I can testify to the fact that for officers, at least those below the rank of general, the times that the air force really wants you to think are few and far between. Even then, you are expected to keep your thoughts on a very narrow proscribe path, and for the most part you had better not share them with anyone else. Ideally your thoughts should run along the lines of: "Now what would the general tell me to think in these circumstances?"

[florahart]

Oh, please. The military and all levels of government in general, including, say, state-aided institutions of higher ed. I play this fucking pen game all the TIME, man. It makes me crazy.

[annecatherine.livejournal.com]

So I'm stuck with three-cent pens that are essential to my
work, and I can't order a fifty-cent pen. But if wanted, I could get a pinball machine for my office?

Hee! It's not just in the military or institutions of higher ed, it's also in corporate offices too. Substitue toner for pens and flat screen monitors for pinball machines and you've got my office.

Upper management is too cheap to spring for toner for the printer unless it's on sale but thinks nothing of spending money on flat screen monitors for people who don't even work in our office. They work at home and have their own computers. So meanwhile, us grunts are scrambling with badly printed or smudged pages while shiny flat screen monitors are sitting in empty offices that aren't being used.

[julie507.livejournal.com]

I did a hitch in the Air Force and my brother was in for 20 years. He painted air frames and I repaired equipment. We each spent time state side and overseas. Just before the end of every fiscal year the senior NCO's would make all personnel empty the supply closets, clean, scrub and repaint the entire work area(a workshop for me, a hangar for my brother)and THROW AWAY every tool, paintbrush,fuse, capacitor, diode, roll of wire, container of paint, decal etc. that was left over. Then the appropriate forms would be completed to say that the unit had exhausted all equipment/supplies that had been dedicated to completing the mission during the fiscal year that was ending.

Other forms were completed ordering the exact same stuff that had just been "exhausted".

Soon supply trucks would arrive and all personnel would spend a couple weeks putting brand new materials away in pristine supply cabinets in glittering work spaces.

Word was if we didn't waste taxpayer $$$ this way the unit wouldn't get new stuff during the fiscal year that would begin in 12 months.

Even the inside of dumpsters are clean in the Air Force. So the stuff that had got thrown away would find itself in the hands of families, military surplus stores etc.

There's a whole Command in the Armed Forces that deals with waste fraud and abuse but I guess those folks all take leave during that time of year.