Navy Thread: SUBJ/TRANSMISSION OF STEAMY BITS//

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Fangthane: May 16, 2007; Be true, Unbeliever.

I got out a month ago, and perhaps it's just my particular brand of neuroses but I can't get over how terrified I am of living in a box. Already accepted to school, starting this fall. Objectively, everything is fine except some of my plans didn't pan out, but I can't get over having nothing to stave off the existential terror of waking up homeless one day. I wish I could be like most of you and feel relief that I'm out, but I can't seem to get there. I also echo the sentiments that TAP was a joke. We had half an afternoon on VA services by an instructor that couldn't be arsed to give a poo poo and 3 days of "this is how you write a resume". Good info, but the balance was way off into forehead-to-desk territory.

# ¿ Feb 20, 2017 04:00

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:37

Fangthane: May 16, 2007; Be true, Unbeliever.

Boon posted:

Also, now that this is on Youtube I don't mind posting this/talking about it. I was the OOD in this situation... wooooie.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htpjDopOgac

I can't make it out from the audio. What happened to get that close?

# ¿ Feb 26, 2017 23:42

Fangthane: May 16, 2007; Be true, Unbeliever.

I just need to rant for a second.

I joined the reserves in January and it's been torturous ever since. Cheap healthcare and gas money be damned, this poo poo is bananas. I had to go through a rate change to join, and I've been in my new rate for functionally 2 weeks (not even that as I haven't actually been working in my job 8 hours a day for my drill weekends). The senior leadership expects me to be some kind of expert already (I went for FC to YN, not exactly related jobs) and when they ask me something I obviously wouldn't know the ins and outs of they get a little miffed. They give me the canned response of "well you should figure it out" in the context of submitting evals with no back up and no prior experience outside of the contact non-admin rates have with them. Suffice to say I hosed it up and am trying to fix it but that's not good enough.

On top of this, I find out today that the LPO and I are on the chopping block for something that's also a big deal but we received no notification on. No face-to-face, no emails. The CoC is also upset about this for obvious reasons but... what the gently caress did they expect me to do? Read their loving minds?

Did I mention that I also have no formal training? No A-school and no OJT as the way things are done here is you don't find out you're on a dinq list until the day you walk into the drill. The NOSC hasn't given us our own access so we can send that information to the sailors during the month rather than get punched in the face on Saturday. Couple that with a network that takes, no joke, 30 minutes to print one piece of paper and it boils down to not being able to sit with the only other YN to get some training since I have to put out a bunch of fires from he word go.

I'm bitching like some seaman right now. Maybe I had it real good in the 10 years I was active, I don't know. But this is the most rear end-backwards place I've ever been in. It's stressing me the gently caress out and I just wanted to get it off my chest.

# ¿ Jun 12, 2018 17:58

Fangthane: May 16, 2007; Be true, Unbeliever.

Thanks for the responses. I've cooled off a bit since that rant but I'm still upset about the whole thing. I feel like the proper disclaimer is "I'm not clean in all this. I could have done a few things better/more efficiently/advised the CoC earlier." End of the day, the right course is just doing what I can and documenting everything which is Navy 101. It baffles me that an organization that is theoretically responsible for 1/3 the bullshit is somehow more messed up.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2018 01:42

Fangthane: May 16, 2007; Be true, Unbeliever.

KetTarma posted:

Ket's Guide to Why the Reserves Are Silly and You Should Not Care
Whenever I joined the Reserves, I had the assumption I would be doing something related to anything in my field. Instead, I was an EMN1 assigned to a cargo handling battalion. For the first 6 months, no one was really sure what to do with me and I mainly just hung around playing on my phone. Eventually, someone figured out I was really good at PowerPoint so I made briefings for the CO. Because of that, I gradually migrated into an admin role. Once I had that figured out, I knocked everything out in the first hour or so of drill day and literally spent the entire remainder of the weekend doing homework for college. No one cared because our metrics were good once I figured out how to get everything looking pristine in each database. By the second year, I was consider indispensable because I did a solid hour of work a month in Excel using formulas, conditional formatting, etc.

My first AT was going to a random school where they taught me how to load munitions onto cargo slings. I guess it was ok?

My 2nd 2 week AT was spent standing exactly 2 firewatches for a total of about 8 hours. I got some nice letter for it from some chief in the shipyard. The Reserves spent thousands of dollars sending me across the country to sit on a ship for 8 hours as an E-6 and watch a wall. I mainly hung around downtown Norfolk and visited people. I ended up meeting grover during this adventure and got to go inside Groverhaus. It didn't collapse on me so that's a win.

Eventually, I got a job that required me to frequently work weekends. I stressed out over this and eventually approached my LCPO about going IRR. He didn't care and immediately approved a special request chit for it. He forgot to route it for 6 months and someone found it in a desk when they were looking for something else. I got a funny phonecall about it a few months before my contract was up anyway.

And thus ended my Navy career.

That's uh....wow. Amazing distillation of the Navy in general I think. Remember they used to fly the ETs from Yokosuka to San Diego for a one day class then fly them back the next day. 6000 miles, 2 nights in a hotel, taxis and per diem for something they probably didn't need anyway aside from a check in the command box.

The thing that bothers me is it's evals and those can screw people over. I don't want to have a bunch of new sailors get derailed, no matter how short a time or degree of derailment, because I messed up. If it were me alone on this yea sure counseling chit and move along with my day but there are other people in on it.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2018 05:45

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# ¿ Apr 28, 2024 01:37

Fangthane: May 16, 2007; Be true, Unbeliever.

Mr. Bad Guy posted:

edit: This is not an interesting post, but for some reason the forums are the only website that will load for me right now, so instead of talking to my wife I'm talking to you goons.

The other day my Chief calls me from CIC, where he's on watch. Tells me I need to get on a SIPR computer, someone's trying to get a hold of me on chat. Turns out it's a buddy of mine on the John Finn. He's mad that my broken-rear end ship is a month behind schedule and it's directly delaying his strike group's return date, lol.

We met at MEPS when both of our paperwork got misplaced, and we hit it off immediately. We were both married young, AECF, ended up in the same division in boot camp, both got FC, same barracks at TSC back when there was a terrible bottleneck at A school so we spend almost two years in Great Lakes. We were live-ashore though since we were married, and we lived in the same apartments in Gurnee. Our wives got along great, too! Then we went off to the fleet, completely different directions, me a Tomahawker, him a SSDS guy. We've kept in touch throughout the years, but we've never been stationed in the same place since then. I don't think I've actually seen him in almost ten years but he's still my bro.

Thing is, we could not be more dissimilar. I'm a pale, thin, nerdy ADHD-riddled piece of human garbage. He looks like a Mexican Johnny Bravo, but he's sharp as a tack, hard-working, responsible. My complete opposite in nearly every way.

AAAAAAANYWAYS, mother fucker's up for Master Chief this year and wants to know why I'm still an E-6, lmao. I hit him with that "Well, you see Senior Chief, what had happened was..."

It was nice to catch up with him though, his family's doing well, and he's rooting for me, the idealistic fool.

Rare to find another self admitted TLAM tech. But fun to find in the wild. Also only made it as far as E6 before bouncing out to find greener pastures what weren't so green. No point to this either except to recognize another fellow of the trade.

# ¿ Mar 24, 2024 10:41

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