An Orgy of One

I've noticed something peculiar about working for the United States Army. For one, this is my first salaried job, which means that I no longer have a desire to stay behind and work extra, ever. It also amuses me that I get paid the same amount for 28 days (including a 4 day weekend off for President's Day) in February as I do for 31 days in March. If the weekends fall just right, my hourly/daily wage in February is awesome compared to March. But that's not the point of this post.

Here's what happens when soldiers finish a task 30 minutes earlier than expected - the soldiers are expected to keep themselves busy with mundane tasks until it's the standard time to get off work. When soldiers finish a task 30 minutes later than expected, they'll stay 30 minutes late. At the extremes you'll have soldiers sitting around doing nothing for days at a time, and then being asked to work a 17 hour workday about a week later. Ridiculous.

Posted by Joe Dirtbag at 12:27 AM | Permalink | Comments

Via Blackfive comes this amusing photo:

Posted by Joe Dirtbag at 1:13 PM | Permalink | Comments

CQ, or charge of quarters, is a pretty simple duty where usually an NCO and a junior enlisted CQ runner sit around and make sure nothing crazy happens in the barracks. I guess we're supposed to keep out unauthorized visitors and stuff like that, and be ready to call the appropriate authorities if something bad happens. But in reality, we just sit around, watching TV or movies and playing video games or surfing the net. This is what happens when your employees are all on salary - it doesn't matter how mundane the work is, it doesn't cost you anything more to assign more personnel to useless tasks.

I still feel cheated for having to do this on a weekend. And my "recovery day" where I don't have to work tomorrow is also a weekend. Making Saturday the worst possible day to have to do CQ.

Posted by Joe Dirtbag at 5:26 PM | Permalink | Comments

There's an Asian guy who lives on my floor who occasionally tries to start up conversation with me. He asks me about my job, and what not, but he's amazingly socially awkward. I mean, I feel bad, since he seems like a nice guy, but I don't really want to do the stop-and-chat every time we cross paths.

Of course, the white guys occasionally make a similar ridiculous mistake - there's the whole "Oh you're from [place], did you ever know [name]? He's Korean (or Chinese or Japanese or Filipino or Vietnamese)." Or the worst is when I'm mention one of my Asian friends and I have to answer yes when someone asks "Is he Asian too?" You know, since they silently jump to the conclusion that oh yeah that makes sense that they're friends.

So I just feel it needed to be said - I make friends with people of all sorts of ethnic and racial and religious backgrounds. Yes, that means I'm friends with a few Asians. No, it doesn't mean that I know that specific Asian dude in another battalion. Or that I can automatically speak an Asian language. Even though I can.

Posted by Joe Dirtbag at 11:06 PM | Permalink | Comments

Sometimes I wonder where I'd be if I had gone and worked in the civilian world after college instead.

One thing's for sure - if I were a civilian, I don't think my boss would've given me the morning off today for my motivation while dragging him 250 meters down the road on a makeshift sled. So yeah, sometimes it's nice being a soldier.

Posted by Joe Dirtbag at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments

A buddy in Kuwait just told me about the Humvee rollover simulator he just did. His one-phrase description was "Imagine the shittiest carnival ride ever." Oh man I can't wait until it's my turn.

Posted by Joe Dirtbag at 1:11 PM | Permalink | Comments