Fair winds...

Letter I sent at work recently...

-----Original Message-----

From: Witt, David

Sent: August 28, 2012

To:

Subject: Fair winds...

Ladies and Gentlemen,

I recently filed for separation from active duty, I will be out next spring. 

I've been planning on writing this letter for a while, and initially I planned it as a long rant listing all of my various grievances against the service, but ultimately decided that isn't what I wanted to spend anyone's time on.

For those of you I've talked with regularly, this is probably not a surprise, and for those of you I haven't, I doubt I have anything that original to rant about, so I don't see a need to focus on the negative at this point. The short version: This service is not the service I thought it was when I first joined. We are not led and managed as I thought we would be; we treat our people badly, and then don't even reward them adequately for the work they do and the risks they take.

Looking back, I have had years in a row where I dreaded going to work rather than looking forward to it; I haven't had fun doing my job in a long time. My current assignment here at Holloman has been the best of my career; this should not necessarily be construed as high praise for Holloman or the quality of life here, but it does beat my time in the Herc and operational RPA flying. From here, I don't see any options available to me that would be better, or even on par with this assignment; all the things in the service that still interest me are either unavailable, or I would have to fight tooth and nail for years just for a chance at them, and I no longer have enough energy for that given what it would cost me.

Finally, while all of the above is true, and more than sufficient on its own, there is also this: There is more to life than effective and efficient flight operations, and I'd really like to experience some of these things, like being near my family, or having some predictability and control over my own day/week/month/year. It has become apparent to me I won't have an opportunity to do this if I stay in, and this has made the decision incredibly easy to make.

It has been an honor and a privilege serving with you all. Of all the things I disliked about my time in, I have never regretted taking on all the world's problems when I had teammates like you to do it with. I know I'm going to miss that on the outside. I miss it already. But not enough to stay.

I wish all of you the best, whatever the future holds for you. It's a small world, and we're bound to cross paths again. I've tried to send this letter to everyone I thought would care, but please feel free to forward on as you see fit. The link to my page below will continue to have current contact information after I'm out, and I've included my phone and email as well. This isn't an end, just a transition, and I look forward to talking with all of you from the other side.

Sincerely and respectfully,

Dave

(Link to my intellipedia page.)

Reductions in Base Support Service Contracts

I know this is not the sort of this to make the evening news, so here's my small attempt to report and record it.  Since the war began in Afghanistan, the US military has been in a budget crunch.  Accordingly, we've been "saving" money by cutting training, personnel, etc.  Now that the country has self imposed a budget crunch on the whole federal govt, it's getting worse. 

Thus, in addition to doing our own personnel and finance support, my 60% manned unit is now also doing its own janitorial work; please see below.

-----Original Message-----
From:  X

Sent: Friday, May 18, 2012 4:11 PM
To:  X  ALL Personnel
Subject: Reductions in Base Support Service Contracts

All,

As we look forward to FY13, we can anticipate fiscal constraints that will severely impact base service contracts, specifically custodial, grounds maintenance, and refuse disposal. HQ ACC has mandated greatly reduced service levels across the command. The cuts are a result of a HAF programmatic decision to accept additional responsibility for base maintenance in order to preserve funds. I can assure you that I, as well as every other commander, is raising the concern of the additional workload on our already stressed workforce. However, I believe the current fiscal realities will continue to force these reduced service levels, despite our valid concerns.

Here are some of the proposed changes that we need to prepare for:

Custodial: All facilities that receive custodial services will be reduced to restroom only cleaning, with exception of the CDCs, Fitness Center, and Youth Center (which will maintain current levels of service). Expect all basic and periodic services to be terminated effective 1 October: vacuuming, sweeping/mopping, dusting, trash collection, carpet cleaning and hard floor striping/waxing. With the loss of these services, general housekeeping will become the responsibility of facility occupants. You will be responsible for your office/desk area.

Grounds Maintenance: All grounds maintenance services with exception of mowing will be terminated effective 31 October: tree trimming, pruning shrubs, litter pick-up, weeding, lawn irrigation, leaf/pine cone removal, etc. The Chiefs' Group is working with CE to establish a Base Appearance Team (BAT) program to police the common-use areas across base, but the general housekeeping of the immediate areas around bldg  X will become the squadron's responsibility. Expectations for base appearance will be codified in re-write of  [base]  AFBI 32-1002, Facility Manager Responsibilities, which extends the maximum area of coverage to a 150' radius around buildings.

Refuse Disposal: Everyone will need to take their own trash to the dumpster. Common area trashcans will needs to be emptied by squadron personnel or students.

We are not allowed to "pay our own way" to receive services above and beyond the reduced service levels described above. We will need to plan accordingly as we approach the end of the fiscal year to purchase tools and materials we will need to perform general housekeeping. The CE Self Help Store will continue to stock/issue tools and materials for general housekeeping on a first-come, first-serve basis. CE will work with our Facility Managers who will act as the focal point for handling the increased responsibilities.

I expect everyone to take ownership and show pride in our facility. As the ... schoolhouse, this is the first thing students see when coming to  [this base]  to start their RPA career. We all need to do our part to ensure that we leave a good impression. Plus, I don't want to work in a dump.

Cheers,

Lt Col  X

 [unit] CC

Office sarcasm

Some office supplies a sarcastic friend of mine brought in the other day...

Veterans

Nothing in particular prompted this, just a thought lately.  I understand why veterans don't like to talk about the military and the war except with other vets: it's a frustrating, slow and sometimes painful
process to explain things to people who haven't been there. With a vet, they can ask three questions and know more about me in the war than my parents do.

Digital publishing

Okay, so old media is finally adapting to the new world. New York Times articles no longer show up on Google searches. Full Time articles are no longer available online for free. They are getting paid for their product online. It's a good first step.

But, they are still being pretty dumb about things. Aren't they trying out their own services? Do they really think the things they're doing currently are adequate? They are still 19th century in their thinking. Here's two things they are screwing up:

1. The digital edition isn't paired with the paper edition. I have a Kindle. I have a Time subscription. But I can't get Time on my Kindle without paying for it again (same is true of the Economist). Customers
should get the digital along with the paper, and vice versa at their option. Sure, there's a place for a cheaper, digital only subscription.  So make one.

2. Digital materials aren't associated in any way the way hardcopy stories are. The great graphics they produce in hard copy aren't available online.  I can't go online and read a Time magazine as easily as I can read the paper copy at my own desk - the graphics and pictures are missing, stories aren't easy to set in the same order they are on paper, etc. The paper edition serves as a vital guide to the collection of stories for the edition. Look at Stars and Stripes (stripes.com, digital editions), which produces a pdf
version of the paper every day, searchable visually page by page, with the option to download any set of pages or the whole thing.

On a positive note, their search functions were terrible, but are getting slowly better.

The budget

Apologies my my long absence on the blog. I haven't made it regular part of
my schedule, and thus it has fallen by the wayside.

For those of you without regular contact with gov't or military workers, the
email below testifies to the current state of the budget and the havoc it
wreaks on them. Since we have no budget or continuing resolution, our
leadership has to start controlling money at a higher and higher level,
which gets more and more inefficient.

We are a teaching squadron, have probably 60-70 people working in our
building and here's how we're forced to save money, by scrimping on toner
cartridges. It's a poor plan. (This, of course, is after the last round of
personnel firings.) I'm glad Iraq will finally be wound down before the
super committee deadlocks and the real budget pain begins.

-----Original Message-----
From: X Maj USAF ACC
Sent: Monday, November 14, 2011 8:50 AM
To: ALL Personnel
Subject: HOT! Toner Use
Importance: High
[All],

We are emergency fuel on printers. The base is out of money to purchase
toner, and we were forced to return two of our four remaining toner
cartridges to the [operations group] to distribute to other squadrons.

Limit all printing to mission essential use only. If you can read it on-line
then don't print it out. Please use the Sharp copy machine in my office to
the max extent possible. It is on a DAPS contract so the toner and MX is
paid for.

When and if, Congress approves a budget we will go back to normal ops. Until
then please help us preserve what little toner we have.

-Maj X

Sullenberger into the Hudson

This has circulated via email already, but thought I'd add it here with a note. It's a computer graphic reconstruction of US Airways flight 1549 / Cactus 1549, ditching in the Hudson River by Capt Sullenberger on 15 Junary 2009. There's a couple things I like about this, like how he goes from
touching the ground to in the water in just over 7 mins, not a lot of time to react and make a decision. Also, it shows how obvious a choice it was to put it in the water vice trying to make one of the airports. Can you
imagine what news coverage wouold be like if one of our crappy 24 hour news channels would show this instead of bringing on every idiot dingaling to give his opinion?

Incidentally, right about this time (2-3 years ago), I had a buddy in Iraq who lost all four engines on a herc at low altitude after takeoff and had to put it on the gound, a fairly similar type of emergency. Saved his whole
crew and 7-10 passengers. Military does a terrible job of PR for itself - why didn't we tell that story?