NEWS Air Force leadership talks frankly about pilot retention

[webmaster]

@HAL Pilot hits the nail on the head with respect to going to the majors. I did a stint at L3 like some of you and that had more politics/job items that took up my time than the majors. But both civilian jobs required very very little of me outside of my current job as a FO. That was one of the weirdest items of my transition that NO ONE was calling me to come into work, or bug me about something stupid. My quarterly online training is on topic and to the point and directly related to my flying. I don't know how to describe the feeling of freedom after 22 years of military life, watchstanding, duty, deployments and qualifications.

Now I have more time for hobbies, travel, family and basically being a bum. I'm good with that

I really enjoyed my time in the military. But one of the main reasons I got out besides the opportunity costs of staying in, dealt with the degradation of the culture and oxygen thiefs that would levy excess BS on you and the squadron. I applaud those that are in, serving and those of you in command. I hope the pendulum is shifting and you all can make the Navy's culture and warfighting capability better than you found it.

Back to my Guinness poolside on my five day weekend.

Cheers from the peanut gallery

John

PS. Go to the Show!

 

[insanebikerboy]

I guess I'm the anomaly. Granted, I'm in a resforon, but I love my job and I can deal with the random little b.s. here and there. In all honestly, I can knock out all of my annual GMT in less than an hour, as long as I don't fuck up my bosses have never been in my shit, and as long as I'm taking care of my job and my folks, again, my bosses aren't in my shit.

I've had some good leaders and some micromanaging ones, we deal with them both, but my previous statement stands.

I've been on a 1:1 deployed/dwell ratio since about 2011 and I love it. When I'm home my QOL is actually pretty good.

All that said, I'm pretty sure if I was in regular gray Navy and not a resforon, I probably would've gotten out a long time ago. More because I would've gotten bored with the job than anything else.

 

[insanebikerboy]

Well, I'm still disgusted that breeders get more BAH and sep pay simply for pushing out a few kids and that I have to pay for orthodontics out of pocket, but the Navy will fund essentially unlimited pregnancies.

I guess you think every player should get a trophy too eh?

The military already sees fit to pay you money to cover what would otherwise be out of pocket expenses, taking care of you. They also see fit to take care of their military families by paying them a little more for housing, and yes, while deployed, a little more as well. That said, I 100% guarantee a family's expenses are still more out of pocket than a single person's expenses.

As a point of clarity, I too have to pay for orthodontics for my family, that shit ain't free.

You could stop bitching and whining about what someone else gets and just be appreciative for how much you make because you are being taken care of pretty good. But then, that wouldn't be any fun would it?

 

[HAL Pilot]

Well, I'm still disgusted that breeders get more BAH and sep pay simply for pushing out a few kids and that I have to pay for orthodontics out of pocket, but the Navy will fund essentially unlimited pregnancies.

But we all have our pet peeves, I guess.

Well, I'm disgusted the military pays for sex reassignment therapies and surgeries. If people are born with these issues (as is claimed) then it is a per-existing condition. The military normally makes people fix pre-existing conditions on their own dime prior to allowing them to join. Why is the military spending big bucks on this when there are so many other things needing the money that benefits the entire military and not just those specific individuals?

 

[RadicalDude]

Well, I'm disgusted the military pays for sex reassignment therapies and surgeries. If people are born with these issues (as is claimed) then it is a per-existing condition. The military normally makes people fix pre-existing conditions on their own dime prior to allowing them to join. Why is the military spending big bucks on this when there are so many other things needing the money that benefits the entire military and not just those specific individuals?

*whoosh*

 

[RadicalDude]

I guess you think every player should get a trophy too eh?

The military already sees fit to pay you money to cover what would otherwise be out of pocket expenses, taking care of you. They also see fit to take care of their military families by paying them a little more for housing, and yes, while deployed, a little more as well. That said, I 100% guarantee a family's expenses are still more out of pocket than a single person's expenses.

As a point of clarity, I too have to pay for orthodontics for my family, that shit ain't free.

You could stop bitching and whining about what someone else gets and just be appreciative for how much you make because you are being taken care of pretty good. But then, that wouldn't be any fun would it?

First off you're not my preacher or dad, so please stop telling me to be thankful for what I have.

You completely missed the point of my post. But I enjoyed reading your faux-rage at me complaining.

For the sake of argument I actually served my country.

Your brood and wife didn't. Why should I pay for their medical care? Why do you deserve extra money for being capable of knocking up your wife? Explain that to me, instead of being a condescending douche...

 

[robav8r]

You completely missed the point of my post. But I enjoyed reading your faux-rage at me complaining.

For the sake of argument I actually served my country.

Your brood and wife didn't. Why should I pay for their medical care? Why do you deserve extra money for being capable of knocking up your wife? Explain that to me, instead of being a condescending douche...

 

[FrankTheTank]

...instead of being a condescending douche...

Irony

 

[RadicalDude]

Irony

Did I hurt your feelings at some point?

 

[FrankTheTank]

Did I hurt your feelings at some point?

Nope..

 

[RadicalDude]

Nope..

Okay good. I want to make sure my Amazon Prime gets here on time.

 

[Pags]

I can't speak to your personal experiences, but I think we're getting into the realm of apples and oranges if we're going to compare corporate and military leadership. A command and even DH level leader in the corporate world has direct control over who works for him. If those low-mid level managers can't pull their heads out of their ass, get their work done, and keep their area of the company running you fire them and move on.

In the Navy, you get what you get and if you have a particularly weak DH/DIVO/chief, you are stuck trying to squeeze blood from a stone. That fabled '90% of your time is spent on the bottom 10%' axiom. There are mechanisms to 'fire' said personnel for general weak performance, but without gross wrong-doing it is a long process that requires a substantial paper trail.

So yea, a 'leadership technique' like withholding liberty due to repeated failure to complete clearly communicated assigned tasks on time wouldn't fly in the civilian world, but that's because you would just sack the employee and move on - or presumably hire someone who is experienced and competent enough to handle the job in the first place.


Okay, so you'd rather have a fleet full of people leaking classified information and people whose dependents won't get notified and/or paid if their loved one passes away in the line of duty?

PS: No one gives a shit what the text of an E-5 eval says; if they don't know how to employ their weapons system, they won't do well on the rating exam, won't get an MP/EP, and thus won't promote to E-6.

Not talking leadership so much as I'm talking Culture and the amount of chicken shit/bullshit/nonsense you're required to put up with. And my experience as a DoD contractor supporting an ACDU test squadron and as a GS is that there's a lot less "admin overhead" than comes with being a Naval Officer, more consistent working hours, and a lot less stress than comes with being ACDU. to me, my QOL is much higher. But that's my QOL based on my metrics. If you measure QOL off of flight hours in grey airplanes, days underway, operational tasking, warfighting than you might disagree with my assessment of my QOL being better. And I think this is where these arguments fall apart as folks try to communicate them up the chain. Guys who wear stars obviously value the culture of the Service and are probably the kind of guys who measure QOL differently than an average JO. They probably love/loved being underway and they wouldn't have made flag if they didn't always put in crazy hours. For someone to put in that much consistent effort for so long they need to love what they do. So I'm not sure how you tell someone that the job they love is awful and not worth the sacrifice when they've committed themselves to the opposite of that for 30+yrs.

 

[Python]

And I think this is where these arguments fall apart as folks try to communicate them up the chain. Guys who wear stars obviously value the culture of the Service and are probably the kind of guys who measure QOL differently than an average JO. They probably love/loved being underway and they wouldn't have made flag if they didn't always put in crazy hours. For someone to put in that much consistent effort for so long they need to love what they do. So I'm not sure how you tell someone that the job they love is awful and not worth the sacrifice when they've committed themselves to the opposite of that for 30+yrs.

I think this is the absolute crux of everything.

 

[hscs]

Were you around during WW2? Does that disqualify you from talking about it? Don't gatekeep with me here.

This is not a one time failure to access enough aviators or an issue of too much early attrition... this is a cultural shift among the officer corps. I truly think it's going to end up being a much bigger and longer lasting issue than too few folks in a year group.

Is the current situation great? No - but I do not believe the situation is as bad as your sensational posts. I would not feel the need to gatekeep if you offered hard data to back up your assertions (e.g. 95% of all #1/2 EPs from the FRS / WWS are getting out and going to the airlines) or a way forward to fix the problem. But you offered neither.

I also do not feel qualified to compare the current situation or the T-notch to that of WW2, Korean War, or Vietnam aviators. I do not pretend to understand what it was like to lose an entire squadron out of a CAG, to be spit on after coming home from deployment, or keep my troops from starting race riots. The fact of the matter is that we go through some really tough times - this is one of them. The T-notch was another - where I saw (to name a small few to keep this post from being too long):

-the inability of squadrons to keep aircrew, and maintainers - during a time when you weren't kicked out for failing 3 PFAs or getting 3 x DUIs (so even if you had the flight hours, no one was around to fix the aircraft)
- There was no such thing as a DH board. You went to Pottery Barn, found a mirror to fog, and became an O4/ DH (in every community).
- you didn't have to compete to go to a production tour - you were going production unless you were broken (and this was because we didn't have enough pilots to fill production IP seats)
-I saw top guys get early selected for O4 and then get passed over for O5 because their early promotion set them up for failure because they didn't have a high water DH ticket when they were up for the O5 board
- mission aircraft hot seated between passing boats on deployment
- COs rankings affected by retention data submitted to their ISIC
- The start of the NC rate - (an auto E7 maker at the time) - for a full time person to press people to stay in

It really sucked - but today I see a lot of top officers sticking around and working to prevent us from going toward the issues of the late 90s/pre-9/11, which makes me hopeful. What kept it together through that time were officers who still cared, accepted that it was tough lot, and led to the last day of their MSR or 20-30 year mark. I would hope that you can do the same.

 

[insanebikerboy]

First off you're not my preacher or dad, so please stop telling me to be thankful for what I have.

You completely missed the point of my post. But I enjoyed reading your faux-rage at me complaining.

For the sake of argument I actually served my country.

Your brood and wife didn't. Why should I pay for their medical care? Why do you deserve extra money for being capable of knocking up your wife? Explain that to me, instead of being a condescending douche...

Your bitching about the pay differences between married and single is the perfect example of what is wrong today. The takeaway from your argument is that everyone has to be 100% the same and a slight difference is unfair. If it's not then you bitch if you think someone has it better than you, even if in reality they don't.

Until you understand that, this discussion is pointless.