What's wrong with the Air Force?

[mcbush]

"The Air Force is preparing to cut some of the extra duties active airmen are responsible for, said Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James during a July 26 speech in Washington.

The move is an attempt to unburden airmen and make their positions more desirable as the Air Force continues to struggle with staffing problems."

Air Force to Cut Extra Duties for Airmen

Is it possible that Chang and friends are seeing enough red on the spreadsheets that they're finally willing to listen?

[dream big]

5 hours ago, mcbush said:

"The Air Force is preparing to cut some of the extra duties active airmen are responsible for, said Air Force Secretary Deborah Lee James during a July 26 speech in Washington.

The move is an attempt to unburden airmen and make their positions more desirable as the Air Force continues to struggle with staffing problems."

Air Force to Cut Extra Duties for Airmen

Is it possible that Chang and friends are seeing enough red on the spreadsheets that they're finally willing to listen?

We are already seeing this at the squadron level.  Our DO asked each shop to rank order our additional duties.  They are going to rack and stack them and just make a cut off, below which additional duties will no longer be done and the commander will accept the risk.

There is absolutely zero reason for a young LT/wingman/copilot to be worried about equipment manager, building custodian, records custodian, whatever bullshit additional duty in place of being the best aviator they can be.  That's LRS/CE/FSS/etc's job.  Mission first.

[billy pilgrim]

I hope so.  Can we please kill MICT while we're at it?

[BFM this]

We are already seeing this at the squadron level.  Our DO asked each shop to rank order our additional duties.  They are going to rack and stack them and just make a cut off, below which additional duties will no longer be done and the commander will accept the risk.

There is absolutely zero reason for a young LT/wingman/copilot to be worried about equipment manager, building custodian, records custodian, whatever bullshit additional duty in place of being the best aviator they can be.  That's LRS/CE/FSS/etc's job.  Mission first.

There's still a lot of commanders out there with the anachronistic mindset that no matter how under-resourced, everything will get done.

Ok, but you're paying the cost out of somewhere, even if you refuse to acknowledge or quantify that cost. Typically it's on the backs of Airmen (creative leave policies, long days, the list goes on). But hey, MY SQ/GP/WG got everything done, that's what really matters.

[Sprkt69]

36 minutes ago, BFM this said:

There's still a lot of commanders out there with the anachronistic mindset that no matter how under-resourced, everything will get done.

Ok, but you're paying the cost out of somewhere, even if you refuse to acknowledge or quantify that cost. Typically it's on the backs of Airmen (creative leave policies, long days, the list goes on). But hey, MY SQ/GP/WG got everything done, that's what really matters.

I have not seen any CC's that were looking to be somebody care if they drove the squadron into the ground, as long as they look good to their rater.

[Learjetter]

Everything old is new again. We went thru this "list your additional duties so we can kill them" drill at least twice since the early 90s. I don't want to be a killjoy, and it's SECAF championing this, this time...BUT:

1) many addl duties are mandated by law (records custodian, voting officer, golden flow guy/gal, etc)

2) some we do because we operators need to do it because no one else understands our programs well enough, or because we want our young guys learning those things (pubs officer, selo, training flight, tactics squab, etc)

3) we did this before...shifted addl duties to the squadron civilians where we could...ISYN, I typed an appointment letter assigning 22 (22!) Addl duties to one civ.

Good luck. I hope it takes this time...and Congress gives the AF relief from the mandatory non mission value added duties.

LJ

[HU&W]

1.  Bring back the orderly room AFSC.  And it needs to be an AFSC, not an additional duty for some other afsc.

2.  Train the folks in that AFSC on the basics of ALL common unit additional duties and admin support.  Ops addl duties like stan eval, weapons, etc would obviously stay with the guys doing it.  Same with mx specific addl duties, along with other squadrons where it relates to the primary duty.

3.  Staff EVERY unit with a 3-6 person orderly room.

4.  Profit.

 

[daynightindicator]

2 hours ago, HU&W said:

1.  Bring back the orderly room AFSC.  And it needs to be an AFSC, not an additional duty for some other afsc.

2.  Train the folks in that AFSC on the basics of ALL common unit additional duties and admin support.  Ops addl duties like stan eval, weapons, etc would obviously stay with the guys doing it.  Same with mx specific addl duties, along with other squadrons where it relates to the primary duty.

3.  Staff EVERY unit with a 3-6 person orderly room.

4.  Profit.

 

Step 1a.  Create "Executive Officer" AFSC.  I'm pretty sure the personal assistant to Google's CEO is not some up and coming programmer who is "career broadening" on their way to the top.

 

BTW, I've met a few support officers who actually really enjoyed doing exec-style work.  They were good at it, and they all said if they could have stayed in doing that as a primary duty, they wouldn't have left the USAF after their 4/5 year ADSC.

[xaarman]

I too have met a few people who lllooovvveee OPRs and medal writing and being a CEO's assistant. A CSS with a personnelist and 2-6 airmen would be amazing.

 

Anyways, I 100% believe nothing is going to change until at a minimum, DOPMA changes.

Edited July 28, 2016 by xaarman

[pawnman]

12 hours ago, dream big said:

We are already seeing this at the squadron level.  Our DO asked each shop to rank order our additional duties.  They are going to rack and stack them and just make a cut off, below which additional duties will no longer be done and the commander will accept the risk.

There is absolutely zero reason for a young LT/wingman/copilot to be worried about equipment manager, building custodian, records custodian, whatever bullshit additional duty in place of being the best aviator they can be.  That's LRS/CE/FSS/etc's job.  Mission first.

I would love to shed my equipment manager job.  It's already taken more of my life than I would care to admit, and we haven't even added or DRMO'd any equipment during my tenure.

[ThreeHoler]

Step 1a.  Create "Executive Officer" AFSC.  I'm pretty sure the personal assistant to Google's CEO is not some up and coming programmer who is "career broadening" on their way to the top.

 

BTW, I've met a few support officers who actually really enjoyed doing exec-style work.  They were good at it, and they all said if they could have stayed in doing that as a primary duty, they wouldn't have left the USAF after their 4/5 year ADSC.

97E. It already exists.

[Sprkt69]

2 hours ago, daynightindicator said:

Step 1a.  Create "Executive Officer" AFSC.  I'm pretty sure the personal assistant to Google's CEO is not some up and coming programmer who is "career broadening" on their way to the top.

 

BTW, I've met a few support officers who actually really enjoyed doing exec-style work.  They were good at it, and they all said if they could have stayed in doing that as a primary duty, they wouldn't have left the USAF after their 4/5 year ADSC.

There are plenty of pretend pilots that love to do that stuff too. 

[daynightindicator]

97E. It already exists.

Is it an additional AFSC or sub-AFSC like 91/92?

My point was to make it a no shitter career field.

[pawnman]

8 hours ago, daynightindicator said:

Is it an additional AFSC or sub-AFSC like 91/92?

My point was to make it a no shitter career field.

And while we're at it, let's stop requireing a W pre-fix to be a wing exec.  Is this common in other communities?  Over half the wing execs I've known have been patches.  I'm sure that it's a great use of all the tactical knowledge they gain at weapon school to correct OPR/EPRs and comb through awards and decorations...

[brabus]

I've only seen one fighter patch be an exec.  I'm sure it's happened more than that one guy, but it's safe to say such a thing is extremely rare.  That is insane 1/2 of the execs you've seen have been patches, what a colossal waste of expertise/knowledge.

[Champ Kind]

6 hours ago, pawnman said:

And while we're at it, let's stop requireing a W pre-fix to be a wing exec.  Is this common in other communities?  Over half the wing execs I've known have been patches.  I'm sure that it's a great use of all the tactical knowledge they gain at weapon school to correct OPR/EPRs and comb through awards and decorations...

 

1 hour ago, brabus said:

I've only seen one fighter patch be an exec.  I'm sure it's happened more than that one guy, but it's safe to say such a thing is extremely rare.  That is insane 1/2 of the execs you've seen have been patches, what a colossal waste of expertise/knowledge.

I could rattle off about ten without thinking too hard...

[daynightindicator]

1 hour ago, brabus said:

I've only seen one fighter patch be an exec.  I'm sure it's happened more than that one guy, but it's safe to say such a thing is extremely rare.  That is insane 1/2 of the execs you've seen have been patches, what a colossal waste of expertise/knowledge.

The ass-backwards thing is "leadership" is usually trying to hook those guys up with school slots, etc. by making them the wing/group exec.  We've had a few WG/CCs of late who have been very forward in telling their rated officers that they don't stack up well against the support officers around base.  My issue with that is that it's the WG/CC who decides which criteria to use in the rack'n'stack process!  Stop using volunteering and other useless BS as a criteria for promotion/school competition!  Stop telling instructor/evaluator/patch-wearers working 12-hr/day ADO gigs that some shoe has a better record because he's a "DO" of the FSS or other similar non-rate unit!

I had a WG/CC once tell me that being MCC for a large force employment (both combat mission or flag) wasn't "real leadership" and that unless you're in charge of dozens of airmen on a daily basis, that the non-rated O's would always have a leg up.  That right there is probably the issue.

Afterthought...one issue that differs from the fighter patch world is that since our WIC is a GSU, it's an uphill battle for our WIC instructors to compete in the 57th WG.  That drives some of the game where they try to get a guy a school slot prior to sending him/her to instruct at WIC.

[ViperStud]

I had my CC explain to me the reason I went off base #2 for school is because the wing commander would not allow a sitting SQ/CC go off base behind a non-CC.  Obviously being an IP/FE currently downrange meant nothing. Needless to say, said SFS/CC had no chance of getting picked up and didn't. 

 

We laughed over a scotch when I got home. At the time I was securing my guard gig and wouldn't have stayed in for any flavor of school. I say again, separate our promotions from the 0730-1630 support guys with the time/flexibility to be CGOC pres and organize a Habitat build every month. We are not the same. 

[snoopyeast]

The tail is wagging the dog.

[Karl Hungus]

1 hour ago, ViperStud said:

I say again, separate our promotions from the 0730-1630 support guys with the time/flexibility to be CGOC pres and organize a Habitat build every month. We are not the same. 

Been saying this for years.  An 11x, 14N, 17x, 37x, whatever are not equals, yet we pretend that they are.

[Sprkt69]

2 hours ago, ViperStud said:

I had my CC explain to me the reason I went off base #2 for school is because the wing commander would not allow a sitting SQ/CC go off base behind a non-CC.  Obviously being an IP/FE currently downrange meant nothing. Needless to say, said SFS/CC had no chance of getting picked up and didn't. 

 

We laughed over a scotch when I got home. At the time I was securing my guard gig and wouldn't have stayed in for any flavor of school. I say again, separate our promotions from the 0730-1630 support guys with the time/flexibility to be CGOC pres and organize a Habitat build every month. We are not the same. 

I totally agree. Just like the medical officers, make rated officers a different promotion board than the rest of the LAF. That may see minor improvements for aircrew, but it's still like putting a bandaid over severed legs. 

[matmacwc]

1 hour ago, Sprkt69 said:

I totally agree. Just like the medical officers, make rated officers a different promotion board than the rest of the LAF. That may see minor improvements for aircrew, but it's still like putting a bandaid over severed legs. 

Go back to the spouses club and Judge Judy.

[Sprkt69]

53 minutes ago, matmacwc said:

Go back to the spouses club and Judge Judy.

Did you just wake up from passing out on the toilet again? Or just jealous because you love Judge Judy and drinking "coffee"?

[ViperStud]

Be nice, children. KKMF

[matmacwc]

1 hour ago, Sprkt69 said:

Did you just wake up from passing out on the toilet again? Or just jealous because you love Judge Judy and drinking "coffee"?

Just low