Job satisfaction

I went from private professional work to SWO to grad school to a federal agency.

First tour SWO was the lowest job satisfaction imaginable. I went from a reasonably respectable technical job to a ship, where I just got shit on by every person up and down the foodchain for not knowing anything. I gradually managed to figure the job out with the help of a BM2, an OS3, dozens of .pdfs, and an endless stream of negative feedback. Meanwhile, I probably spent several hundred hours chasing senior officers down and waiting outside offices with a stack of blue folders, contributing less to the Navy than an IN/OUT box would.

Second sea tour and shore tour were actually pretty okay. There weren't frequent high points, but it also wasn't actively depressing. By then I knew how to do my job. I could solve problems that came up, drive the issues I cared about and swing some weight around from my position and from my skills. The high points were when I got to test my personal expertise - responding to emergencies in DCC, getting called up to take the deck during tough evolutions, or working through tactical plans and responses with squadron staff.

I went back to college for grad school. It was more fun the second time, but a lot less chill than I expected.

I'm working now in a notoriously soul-sucking profession within the federal government. Unsurprisingly, it's sucking my soul. It has nothing to do with SWO.

I've actually started the process to get back into the military, but in a different role and a different branch, aligning closely to my current career. Part of that relates to job specifics; part of it relates to compensation; probably more than I want to admit relates to Stockhome syndrome.

/r/navy Thread