When you think your job is difficult:

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greymouser7

greymouser7

Vagrant Vagabond “Veni Vidi Vici”
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I need some one uppers and stories here.
Today at work we were held onboard for 6 extra hours,
One of my bosses started crying,
One of my peer/co-workers started crying...

Today we secured monitoring power and stationed security for the big bomb/missiles i work with-we provided too much security...

My peer was rebuilding an auto balancing valve, and didn't wear his safety goggles while handling silicone lubricant-he is going to lose his clearance, so therefore his rating/MOS, and probably his job in the Navy after 11+ years of service (pension too then)

another guy did not mark off his procedure correctly, despite previous training,

So three of my supervisors/bosses have to monitored for every Navy thing that they do until the second coming,

All of Strategic Weapon guys are going to have two additional supervisors monitor us do anything.
Myself, my peers, my supervisors are on report, will be written up, will stand at attention while being berated, yelled at, humiliated, etc. for the careless or pig headed actions of others,

imagine having to regularly eat humble pie, and **** and crap sandwiches.

I literally was doing other work away from these activities-I am not upset, nor directly responsible, but I will now have to fulfill more direct roles much more often -I feel pity for so many of my co-workers. It was just a taste of the level of being held hostage that has occured to me before at other commands. My best men will now quit this job vice fulfill badly needed leadership roles.

There is difficulty translating the level of responsibility and care/ownership that is required to perform this work-I bet owner/operating one's own business and fulfilling payroll and bills is on par with this work. All my junior sailors would quit if they could and one just recently did cocaine in order to get out of this stress and work schedule.
 
Whats a job.
Never worked a day in my life.
Spent a lot of time collectingchecks.
But canhonestly say nothing ive ever done would qualify as work.
 
Dang. Sucks when everyone suffers for the actions of a few. I get that game in boot camp, but once out "on the job" I'm not sure its the best way.

I served 21 years in the Air Force and nothing comes close to your experience. One story that comes to mind is when I was working in the Ground Launched Cruise Missile System (GLCM). We were inside a locked building,inside a cipher locked room. A guy I worked with got a "Letter of Reprimand" for not turning the "open / closed" magnet to the open position. He was a good man and hopefully it didn't hold him back from making rank.
 
That job has a lot of responsibility and professionalism required for sure.
A lot more accountable behavior than our President has ever shown.

My best bud is a military weapons designer working for a non military company in the US, and I have heard some good ones from him but can't repeat them.
I'm actually a little surprised what was said here was.
 
Ex-navy here. Six years was enough. Don't know your rate or rank but bet I could guess pretty close. Liked the Navy life and my job. Couldn't stand politics and pinheads. I feel for you. If it's any consolation thank you for your service.
 
Different field, I do Pharmaceutical development. 30 years and have been through 8 layoffs resulting from other departments not doing their job. Missed being cut 3 times, got cut 5 times. Relocated my family 4 times to get another job in my field.

I somehow have managed to make chicken salad out of the chicken sh*t I've been served and have clawed my way up in the ranks. 70 hour weeks for decades and one year I did 104 airplane flights in 43 weeks chasing vendors and contracts. I was home less than 1/3 of the year.

My level and experience now puts me above being cut since there is always another firm that wants my expertise and will pay to get it. Only took 28 of the 30 years on the job to get to that level. :BangHead:

Now all I want to do is retire and get my life back.
 
Been there before. The nice thing about the military is everybody will PCS at sometime. You just have to make it through until the jerk leaves
 
When I was in the military I worked on nuclear weapons. One of the night shift crews messed up and damaged a component, it was BAD!! (not allowed to give details). The whole facility and everyone in it was designated as UQ (unqualified), even us guys that were at home. We had to report to work for 12 hours a day 7 days a week for 3 months as everyone got re-qualified. In the interim we were ordered to use razor blades (on our knees) to scrape the all sealant off the facility concrete floors in an extremely large building (thousands and thousands of sq ft). We scraped the floors on our hands and knees for 8 weeks all because of one night shift crew.
We were lucky though....the night shift crew was basically arrested and hauled off that night and was never seen or heard from again by anyone at the facility. Some of those guys were our friends but they basically disappeared. We weren't even allowed to ask about them (orders). To this day none of us guys ever found out what happened to that night shift crew!!!!
Like I said, I guess all the rest of us were lucky!!!

treblig
 
Treblig said:
When I was in the military I worked on nuclear weapons. One of the night shift crews messed up and damaged a component, it was BAD!! (not allowed to give details). The whole facility and everyone in it was designated as UQ (unqualified), even us guys that were at home. We had to report to work for 12 hours a day 7 days a week for 3 months as everyone got re-qualified. In the interim we were ordered to use razor blades (on our knees) to scrape the all sealant off the facility concrete floors in an extremely large building (thousands and thousands of sq ft). We scraped the floors on our hands and knees for 8 weeks all because of one night shift crew.
We were lucky though....the night shift crew was basically arrested and hauled off that night and was never seen or heard from again by anyone at the facility. Some of those guys were our friends but they basically disappeared. We weren't even allowed to ask about them (orders). To this day none of us guys ever found out what happened to that night shift crew!!!!
Like I said, I guess all the rest of us were lucky!!!

treblig
Click to expand...
Then we are brothers.
We also have shift work where we work 13-14 hour days. We prefer shift work over regular ordinance operations schedule and refit schedule. Get up at either 4 am or 5 am, at work before 6 or 7 and leave for home before 19:00 or 20:00 typically in refit when things go south like this. Not much time for anything besides food, gasoline, laundry, and sleep-let alone family.
At least this schedule is just 3-4 times a year for 5-7 weeks at a time.
Deployment is easier than in port periods with the boat, but when the other crew has the boat we are in trainers M-F 07:00-16:00 + whatever extra.
I have sold back 47 days of vacation that I'll never get (for chump change) and
have about 40 in the books to use right now.

Over a decade ago the Air Force forgot where they kept some bombs, grabbed a plane, and flew them out of state without permission. One of my co-workers used to work with at that base, with those men and we received more stand down training than they did. After talking to my best friend from the Army, despite making Lt. Colonel, he is getting out as fast as he can at 20 years because of the politically correct agenda being pushed and the blind confidence/expected success that is assumed by Army leadership in dangerous scenarios. He said the assumptions are deadly. I devoutly believe in what we do (mission), but some of the means of accomplishment or checks and balances leaves more than a bad taste in my mouth. As previously mentioned there is a tremendous amount of politics, but I expect that and try to write that off (despite being very painful) whenever possible.

My peer has to wait at least 3 days before non-judicial punishment and adjudication begins. That is ALONG TIME to sweat getting kicked out. I might have died from a heart attack from that treatment. Giving him the weekend to get drunk and screw up is a horrible idea.

The sailor that messed up marking off the procedure will transfer to an SSGN so his life will be better for a few years, but I guarantee all money that he gets out before the Navy needs him on our platform again. Two other extremely competent sailors that are possibly more brilliant than me allow this event to hammer the final nail in their service's coffin. We need bright people and the inspection and parent commands have no idea, no concern for the big picture-just visors to focus on their immediate responsibilities and worry about themselves.

It is not the same as corporate America for one important reason, the tax payers pay and the military invests so much time training these individuals that an increase in attrition is unaffordable. With such a large entity (too big too fail!??), leadership misses some of the large problems until they sinking the entire ship. My rate/MOS is manned in waves trying to keep up with the attrition.
 
long ago I was a sailor I was a medic with the 9th marines in viet nam 7-2-67 on operation buffalo 180 0f us were killed most of the rest were wounded in 2 companys that's a bad day
 
tet68 said:
long ago I was a sailor I was a medic with the 9th marines in viet nam 7-2-67 on operation buffalo 180 0f us were killed most of the rest were wounded in 2 companys that's a bad day
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Holy Crap! I remember dad having nightmares about his Vietnam service and he's got nothing on you-THANKS FOR YOUR SERVICE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
 
Thank You to those who have served...

All I can add is...... You can not become Complacent among the rank and file in these lines of work..
 
greymouser7 said:
Then we are brothers.
We also have shift work where we work 13-14 hour days. We prefer shift work over regular ordinance operations schedule and refit schedule. Get up at either 4 am or 5 am, at work before 6 or 7 and leave for home before 19:00 or 20:00 typically in refit when things go south like this. Not much time for anything besides food, gasoline, laundry, and sleep-let alone family.
At least this schedule is just 3-4 times a year for 5-7 weeks at a time.
Deployment is easier than in port periods with the boat, but when the other crew has the boat we are in trainers M-F 07:00-16:00 + whatever extra.
I have sold back 47 days of vacation that I'll never get (for chump change) and
have about 40 in the books to use right now.

Over a decade ago the Air Force forgot where they kept some bombs, grabbed a plane, and flew them out of state without permission. One of my co-workers used to work with at that base, with those men and we received more stand down training than they did. After talking to my best friend from the Army, despite making Lt. Colonel, he is getting out as fast as he can at 20 years because of the politically correct agenda being pushed and the blind confidence/expected success that is assumed by Army leadership in dangerous scenarios. He said the assumptions are deadly. I devoutly believe in what we do (mission), but some of the means of accomplishment or checks and balances leaves more than a bad taste in my mouth. As previously mentioned there is a tremendous amount of politics, but I expect that and try to write that off (despite being very painful) whenever possible.

My peer has to wait at least 3 days before non-judicial punishment and adjudication begins. That is ALONG TIME to sweat getting kicked out. I might have died from a heart attack from that treatment. Giving him the weekend to get drunk and screw up is a horrible idea.

The sailor that messed up marking off the procedure will transfer to an SSGN so his life will be better for a few years, but I guarantee all money that he gets out before the Navy needs him on our platform again. Two other extremely competent sailors that are possibly more brilliant than me allow this event to hammer the final nail in their service's coffin. We need bright people and the inspection and parent commands have no idea, no concern for the big picture-just visors to focus on their immediate responsibilities and worry about themselves.

It is not the same as corporate America for one important reason, the tax payers pay and the military invests so much time training these individuals that an increase in attrition is unaffordable. With such a large entity (too big too fail!??), leadership misses some of the large problems until they sinking the entire ship. My rate/MOS is manned in waves trying to keep up with the attrition.
Click to expand...

I totally agree about the "attrition" part of your post. The career field that I was in was a critical field and took many months of intense training besides the full blown background clearance (from the day you're born up until the day you enlist), numerous psychological tests, required exceptional scores in the electrical and mechanical field, IQ tests, etc, etc. When it came time for me to leave the service I was offered $30K to re-up. 30K was enough to buy a house back in '76!!! But it was too late, I had that "bad taste in my mouth" and couldn't do it. I loved my job working on weapons but we would spend 10 hours inside a secured assembly bay (restricted entry) only to walk out and be "written up" for not having our shoes shined or for wrinkles in our uniform. The idiots didn't even realize that we aren't allowed to have shoe shine or a buffing brush in the weapons bay much less a iron (which would have been illegal) so how in the hell could we shine our shoes or keep our uniform pressed while we performed super critical and dangerous operations??
I would still be building bombs today if they had just treated us a little better.
To make the "attrition" story even worse, not every person who was in my career field was allowed to work on the bombs. Only a select few (who were qualified) actually worked on the bombs because even though you had the clearance, passed all the tests and got all the training if you didn't have everyone's trust you weren't allowed near a bomb. If you came to work angry, upset, distraught, not your normal self, hung over, injured, etc, etc you were considered a risk. This "self policing" further deceased the number of people available to do the work and increased the workload on the rest of us who were the most dependable, reliable, and more importantly "stable".
I haven't written anything that's classified which makes it hard to explain other weird (bad) things that occurred while working in my career field. You'd think that if someone spends tons of money selecting and training a select few individuals to do a super critical and dangerous job that they would treat them with a little respect!!


PS - Hang in there Dude!! Keep your head up and surround yourself with people you can trust.

treblig
 
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All the below is FWIW and I hope it does you some good, OP:

A lot of what we take for good/bad is 'relative'.. .i.e., we often lose track of the absolute frames of reference for life, and end up judging our success/failure, or the good/bad level, of our lives relative to those around us at the time. It's hard to change perspectives and view things with a different frame of reference when you are in the middle if a situation like this, but if the OP can focus on an absolute frame of reference for his work, then that may make it more bearable. I think post #13 is the absolute frame of reference you are looking for.... and just goes to show what a really bad situation is.

Things do change in the military environment. I was volunteered in '73 for a 4 year Navy stint. And while you think it is not like this in private work, I can assure you that it is the same terms of human nature and for 'crap happening'. You are going to run into assholes and 'situations' all through life. It was awfully discouraging for myself and my fellow employees in a company that had 5 major layoffs in less than 2 years. You just got tired of being on edge all the time, and being ready to be tossed out with no warning, and have to start over. I left after all of that, and it was for the better over the long term.

Looking at it from 40 years later, the one thing I realize is that my military service it was just one phase of my life, not my whole life. That becomes harder to say/think if you have decided to make a career of it. But even if you decide to leave, then there is a lot of life and opportunity out there to grab. So you DO have choices... they may just not be the ones that you thought were going to be in your future. If you can back up a bit, look into and think of your very real options outside of the service, and then logically and willingly come to the conclusion that staying in is the choice that you WANT to make, it'll make things a LOT brighter than just 'bearing up' under it.

Bottom line: Don't let staying in for a certain number of years be the thing that controls your future, or think that you don't have a choice; that can be a bad trap.

OBTW, you mentioned running a private business: I have run my own business for 15 years now; I was unexpectedly laid off in 2003 and then decided to make the dive into running a business. The work levels can be soul-crushing from time to time. (You ought to see the condition of my house after over a decade of hard travel for work and not having time to tend to things as I should/would like.) BUT, on the flip side, there is only one 'company asshole' that I have to answer to .... me... and I can ignore that jerk as the need arises LOL. There have been years of worrying if we will survive to the next year, which always controls your life to some extent, and the end customers always has a big say in how our lives run; we canceled/delayed 2 vacation periods in 2017 just to meet critical customer deadlines. But the end reward of making the 'big bucks' (LOL) has been the compensation. In 2003, things looked bleak, but it all turned around because I took a chance.

I think what this all says is that sometimes you really needed to step back and re-assess your life and future. It sounds like you are darned if you do and darned if you don't in your present situation, and that calls for a re-think IMHO.
 
I think everybody that works for a living has a bad day or bad situation from time to time. I also think that what's bad for some doesn't necessarily mean that someone else's job isn't just as bad for them.

No disrespect meant for any in the military or who has ever served. I have the utmost respect for all of you. We might be speaking a different language were it not for yall.

Remember though, yall signed up for that ****. Just like any civilian agrees to employment for any other job. Abuse is abuse. It doesn't matter where it is. It's all up to the individual as to how bad something is. What I , or any other other civilian might be going through on a job might be just as bad to us as what someone in the military is going through. I try not to minimize anyone's troubles, because truthfully, you never know.
 
RustyRatRod said:
I think everybody that works for a living has a bad day or bad situation from time to time. I also think that what's bad for some doesn't necessarily mean that someone else's job isn't just as bad for them.

No disrespect meant for any in the military or who has ever served. I have the utmost respect for all of you. We might be speaking a different language were it not for yall.

Remember though, yall signed up for that ****. Just like any civilian agrees to employment for any other job. Abuse is abuse. It doesn't matter where it is. It's all up to the individual as to how bad something is. What I , or any other other civilian might be going through on a job might be just as bad to us as what someone in the military is going through. I try not to minimize anyone's troubles, because truthfully, you never know.
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RRR, you're absolutely correct.....except for one small detail. I worked in the civilian world for over 30 year after my stint in the military. I had some pretty bad bosses as a civilian in very stressful jobs but the big difference was that as a civilian I could quit if I wanted to. Barring any "family" necessities, but even so I could still quit. Once you sign up in the military you can't walk in one day and say "I quit", well you could but you'll go through a court martial and serve some jail time not to mention a dishonorable discharge??
So I did the next best thing....when it came time to re-enlist I chose to go back home. I did my job to the best of my ability until the last day then I turned down all that money and walked away. I signed up (voluntarily), ate all the crap I could stomach then walked away.
Again, I agree with you, there are some pretty bad "civilian" jobs out there with some pretty bad (disgusting) bosses but the civilian company can't put you in jail and discredit your honor for deciding that you no longer want to work for them.

No offense taken buddy.....Respectfully,
Treblig
 
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Looking back at my military vs civilian careers, I think my worse day in the military was better than my best day in the civilian world. I'd go back today if I could. Since leaving the Air Force I have never been able to duplicate to sense of "doing something greater" and the camaraderie that I found in the military. In addition, civilian employment is only about ONE thing, MONEY, MONEY, MONEY!

I also think our own behavior style, or personality, has a lot to do with how we perceive our work environment. For example, on the DISC Profile, I am a "high Influencer" and high Dominate" Which means I enjoy being around people and having a say in what's going on.

For reference, I...
Worked from the time I was 13 years old until I went in the military at 21 years old.
Started Army Reserve, than went active duty Air Force.
Retired from the Air Force in 2005
Owned a franchise for 5 years (closed it to move close to my aging mother - wouldn't change a thing!)
Was a real estate agent for 2 years
Assistant General Manager at Advance Auto for 6 months
Running a Furniture Medic franchise for the past year

In the military I had MUCH more responsibility than any of my civilian jobs. I think that is what made it so enjoyable.

@greymouser7, hopefully things will change for the better very soon!!!
 
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I know exactly what you and the crew are going thru as I am an ex Navy ET and served aboard the subtender USS Hunley AS 31 in Charleston and on Guam. I worked on a classified system and had clearances to go aboard the subs that came along side for maintenance and crew change. This was in the late 70"s and early eighties and I mostly worked on the old SSBN's and occasionally a fast attack. I have been aboard every SSBN in service at that time on the east and west coast. Previously I served aboard an old Aircraft carrier the FDR CV 42. WE had a collision in the Med and it was decommissioned and I was part of the decommissioning crew. My job on the FDR was very laid back and easy to cope with compared to my duties on a subtender.

When I reported to the Hunley I thought life would be great because the tender stayed in port and I could go home to my newly wed bride. I soon realized that although I was not trapped at sea my time would be limited at home. We routinely worked 12 on 12 off and stood duty 2 times a week spending the night working and sleeping on board the tender. The boomers had high priority and staying on their schedule was critical. We were always under pressure and were constantly being harassed to get it up and running sooner rather than later. I worked on a system that had water integrity and when I did repairs on it records were kept where me and my coworkers would sign off on steps taken in maintaining the water integrity so in the event of a failure they could come back and blame us. It was a lot of pressure and I was in a constant state of fatigue and learned to drink a lot of coffee.

I had a collateral duty on the radiation casualty team and trained with the nuke division to respond to radiation accidents. The subs as you know had reactors and carried nuclear weapon systems. The nuke division told us the backup team would be just that and would only be used in catastrophic conditions which would be rare. One day I am on board a boomer working when a alarm went off while loading missiles. Everyone on board started reaching for their air masks and I yelled was this a drill and they screamed back "NO GET OUT OF HERE! I scrambled up the ladder dropping my tools and test equipment and ran back to my space. Every one was told to go to their workspaces and not to go outside. Not long after I got to my work area they called the radiation casualty team so I ran thru the interior of the ship to report to the nuke division thinking we would just be sitting there while the experts took care of the situation. But when we assembled the backup team including myself were ordered to suit up and take the geiger counter instruments to check for radiation on the deck next to the sub and the subs crew topside on the sub. We could not find any radiation thank God and it was declared as a false alarm. Afterwards I wondered about the back up team designated as the first responders being expendable protecting the nuke guys from exposure.

While on Guam I had an accident that almost took my life. I was working on a power supply being so fatigued and not paying attention I touched one side of 350 volts dc and the other arched across to my other hand sending it thru my chest. It knocked be back and I was out for a second or two. Later that week my heart began pounding and beating very fast. I went to sick bay and the Doc determined that my aortic valve was leaking badly and needed surgery. I was sent to Balboa Naval hospital in San Diego and later had an artificial valve implanted and 37 yrs later still have it and am so grateful that I have lived this long. Believe it or not when I was scheduled to have the surgery in April of 81 the surgeon told me that he was on call to Bethesda because Ronald Reagan had been shot. He was never needed so I had the surgery. Thought it was cool that the surgeon that performed my valve job was good enough for the President. I was discharged from the Navy on a medical and am forever grateful on how the Navy took care of me. My son was born while I was in the Navy and he is currently a reserve Lieutenant Commander as a civil engineer in the Seabees. Grey mouser, thank you and all veterans for serving our great country especially those who gave the ultimate sacrifice.
 
Absolutely! No offense taken.......BUT that's where signin up comes in. It's not like it's a secret you're going to be in for X amount of time. But you're dead on the money.

And thanks for your service.

Treblig said:
RRR, you're absolutely correct.....except for one small detail. I worked in the civilian world for over 30 year after my stint in the military. I had some pretty bad bosses as a civilian in very stressful jobs but the big difference was that as a civilian I could quit if I wanted to. Barring any "family" necessities, but even so I could still quit. Once you sign up in the military you can't walk in one day and say "I quit", well you could but you'll go through a court martial and serve some jail time not to mention a dishonorable discharge??
So I did the next best thing....when it came time to re-enlist I chose to go back home. I did my job to the best of my ability until the last day then I turned down all that money and walked away. I signed up (voluntarily), ate all the crap I could stomach then walked away.
Again, I agree with you, there are some pretty bad "civilian" jobs out there with some pretty bad (disgusting) bosses but the civilian company can't put you in jail and discredit your honor for deciding that you no longer want to work for them.

No offense taken buddy.....Respectfully,
Treblig
Click to expand...
 
When you work on the birds with the biggest BOOM in the inventory, they don't play around. Unfortunately, there usually is enough crap to go around. I worked on the same thing OP does, only in a tube on the prairie. Security and control definitely had slipped during last admin; like some else mentioned, how do you 'lose' nuke armed missiles loaded on a bomber?
 
And, those who are 'supervising' you? Are they also qualified to do your job? If so, where did they come from? Oh, and let me get to PC and send a link to a true story from the stuff I used to work on. Only an earlier model of them.
 
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