Why do I hate new jobs?
Well first, any time I enter a new environment, I’m completely conscious
of the fact that I’m out of place…at least that’s my perception. I feel like I can’t walk or talk properly, I
feel like I drop things, I actually feel physically off-balance to the point
where I’m terribly conscious of my body, position, and gestures. I just don’t like to be in those new
situations. Some simple things that
occur is forgetting, in that first day, how to get the restroom, to my room, or
to the office. These perceptions
influence how I hear what people say and the things that I infer from statements. It’s a highly sensitive, and likely flawed
perception of reality.
So what
would I be doing for the next year? The
office that I was assigned to was the CJ5 Future Plans (FUPLANS) as an
Operational Planner in Team 1 for Campaign Plans. Theoretically, this organization looks 6-24
months out at problems facing the coalition.
In reality, around me were people figuring exact numbers of troops at
different locations and portraying those sums, in PowerPoint form, for
presentation, analysis, and decision. These
men and women were from around the globe (the United Kingdom, Australia, Italy,
the Netherlands, Poland, and Germany), all here as a contribution of their
nation to this pseudo NATO effort…why pseudo?
Australia has very little personal investment in the North Atlantic…they
aren’t in NATO yet they’re in Afghanistan operating within a NATO led effort
called ISAF. Everyone was fully
engrained in their various systems (U.S. Secret, ISAF Secret, and Unclassified)
which brings me to my first problem.
The office is dark and gloomy with
rows of hastily constructed, well-worn plywood desks with overhead shelving
with a file cabinet on the end of each row.
Computer systems primarily covered the desks while papers and folders
adorned the overhead shelving. The file
cabinets served two purposes, neither of which was intended by their designer
I’m sure…body armor was placed on top, while “care-package” snacks occupied the
drawer. It soon came to my attention
that any food left on top of the cabinets were considered excess and free game
for anyone walking down the center aisle.
The smell was one that you only encounter in enclosed environments where
individuals are highly stressed…it’s very specific and hard to describe. The classic military act of taking a building
with a cohesive layout and constructing plywood walls everywhere to suit its
purpose and inevitably blocking air-flow, doesn’t help dissipate the odor.
I am sat at a desk that has fallen
victim to what we like to call in the army, cannibalization…i.e. the act of
taking parts from an otherwise working system (or the system that has one part
broken/missing) and using it as parts for other closer to working systems in
need. Now the act of cannibalization is
very controlled when it comes to vehicles and weapons, but seems to be
completely unregulated when it comes to office equipment. So I have one monitor instead of the standard
two, I have one out of three computers, and at first, I can’t even find a mouse
to use. The computer keyboard that I
have isn’t even equipped with a Common Access Card (CAC) reader.
Conference
rooms are key locations on any new majors’ tour, and while they made this tour
as well, calling them conference rooms, in some cases, may be a little
misleading. Some looked like nothing
more than a high map table with chairs around it that encroached into the
coffee area…oh, and the coffee area? A
Bunn machine, suited more for a diner, occupied one corner flanked by a
cornucopia of various machines for brewing coffee and tea. This is a coalition, right, and everyone else
in the world drinks large amounts of tea…regularly.
To use
any one of the above computer systems, it takes the holy triumvirate of
contributing parts to make the system work.
I must be granted and account (which takes between 1-3 business
days…yes, some parts of the military have business and non-business days), I
must have the hardware (computers, monitors and interface devices), and I must
have active ports to pipe in information.
Ahhh, opportunity for another catch, as soon as new hardware is plugged
into the existing physical ports, the cyber flow is cut off to that port
because of the unauthorized entry…but, according to those in the know, it’s
quicker to get the violation and have it rectified than to have a new port
established…it’s essentially like getting stopped for speeding as an expedient
method of discovering the correct speed limit.
Now I
feel out of place and unknowledgeable, and don’t even have the means to rectify
it. The Army is a culture with its own
language…as is evidenced by this blog, acronyms rule the day. What is becoming even more evident, is that
within this language there are many different dialects or other languages. I’m no language expert, but I’ve heard it
said that learning Italian after knowing Spanish is like cheating…maybe each
new location is akin to picking up another romance language after knowing
one…perhaps it’s like learning Mandarin after Cantonese or Pashto after Dari…whatever
the case, at every location, there are terms that only the attuned ear can
understand. When I arrived at Army
North, the DSCA dialect took me weeks to master, and it was the same for the
ISAF/NATO dialect…acronyms were thrown around without notice, and I was left to
try to distill what I could and not look to stupid by asking questions. Regardless, it served no good, and only made
me feel more out of place.
The
good news about the Army is that it doesn’t let you settle in any one place for
too long, so transition stress becomes known and anticipated….I’m not sure that
makes it easier, but at least I’m not confused that I’m stressed for apparently
no reason.
The
Team works from 8 am to 9 pm, but they take lunch and dinner and everyone,
depending on work load takes a break in the afternoon to get things done while facilities
are still open…some do Physical Training, others just drop laundry or even take
a power nap. Thursday night are movie
and pizza night in the office at 6:30 pm, Friday is a late call at 1 pm, and
Sunday is a late call at noon…there are no non-business days in the CJ5. Overall, while they work hard and surge when
they have to, they are set to keep fighters going through 9-12 months of straight
strenuous, cognitive work.
Here we
go…into the grind…as soon as I can get a frickin’ computer account!
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