Someone explain it to me, how the hell can it be justified that I compete for a rating with someone who I do not compete against for promotion? I do not understand this. How does my ass, the technical expert who knows the ins and out of his job compete against the person sitting in the front office who has their nose so far up their commanders ass they can almost taste their breakfast? Because that is the way that I'm hearing a lot of organizations are taking this.
The big thing I keep hearing is "you'll rack and stack your Airmen, and then you will rack and stack your NCOs. All based strictly on WORK PERFORMANCE and TECHNICAL EXPERTISE. Leadership will then rack and stack based on organizational participation and education." As horse shit as this is, this gives the work centers and flights a chance to actually stratify people based on how they perform, right? But in an organization, such as a Communications Squadron, where you have a shit ton of offices doing a large variety of tasks encompassing a huge diverse pool of career fields, things start to get out of hand.
So organizations want to stratify based on volunteer time and education. I put up all my Airmen for stratification. Well, my Airmen work in a 24 hour manned facility that is understaffed and as such does not allow for the attendance of the Squadron Bake Sale. My Airmen can't make it out to this months promotion ceremony, honoring those who don't even want to be there themselves. Hell, they can't even make it out to the mandatory fun events like Bowling Day or the Group Picnic. But that front office Airmen can. That front office Airmen is the one organizing all the shit, ITS THAT AIRMEN S GOD DAMN JOB. Now, I understand, I know, and I preach that we cannot disregard what someone does based on the fact that it is their job. But you cannot punish someone because their job does not allow it. So I've got that Airmen who works from 6 PM to 6 AM in a 24 hour shop, his shift is now over, but leadership wants his ass to stay up until 9 so that he can make the Booster Club meeting, because "if he wants that 5, its that important to him." Now this fucking Airmen is putting in twice the effort to get that fucking 5, working full shifts only to neglect sleep in order to make it to an event EVERY OTHER FUCKING LAZY SHIT IN THE SQUADRON GETS OUT OF THEIR SHIFTS TO DO.
When our Chief said this I damn near lost my shit, what if that Airmen was an Air Traffic Control airmen? Making that meeting adds one work hour right in the middle of his off time, thus preventing him from having a full 8 between shifts. Holy fucking Moses, you know what this tells me? THAT LEADERSHIP IS MORE WORRIED ABOUT THE CUPCAKES AND BROWNIES WE PUSH OUT THEN THEY ARE ABOUT AIRCRAFT FALLING OUT OF THE GOD DAMN SKY!
This shit never ceases to amaze me.