June 2004

My Take

June 10, 2004: Be forewarned: I am not pulling any punches in the rant below. I've decided I just don't care what anybody thinks concerning my feelings of what's been happening lately. I just need to get this off my chest or else I'll explode. I don't have a cutesy little book to write in - this website is all I've got. So if you're looking for humorous, light reading, stop now. I'm sure there will be humor somewhere below, but you'll have to search for it. As I said, you've been warned. Turn around now and come back in a few days. I'm sure I'll be all happy go lucky again.

First, I must be pissing off the spammers or presenting a challenge to them as woah, did you see the guestbook today? I've already deleted it, but I think this group is like graffiti artists in that they just like to see their work everywhere. I believe me deleting the random posts has caused some anger amongst them and now they came back with a vengeance. I literally had like 50-75 posts of spam on the guestbook. That is silly. I may have to figure out a way to change my guestbook or just close it down for a while.

On to the stuff that's awkward to talk about. Let's start with the easy one: the complete suckage of work right now. Hell, where do I begin? I guess I'll start with what has set me off most recently, which occurred last Wednesday afternoon. This is the incident that caused me to delay my trip down to LA because I was just that pissed and upset that this all occurred. So there I was, early Wednesday afternoon. It had been a busy day, as when either I or Sgt Jenny is gone, all hell seems to break loose. But you know what, I was getting shit done, and it was busy but in a good way. So one of my coworkers, TSgt M, informs me that the boss, Maj V, is having a meeting at 2. I ask TSgt M about what, but he claims he doesn't know. Oooo-kay.... We had just had a meeting the week before, and we'd only been at work for a day really between meetings. But whatever. So the meeting starts and it's basically an exact rehash of what we already talked about last week. Hmmm... At the end, Maj V then asks me and TSgt M to stay while everyone else leaves. Hmmm...... He then says that it's time that the air is cleared about a few situations, namely what's happening with a different coworker, TSgt E, and ANOTHER coworker, MSgt L, neither of whom are in the room. The deal with these guys has been that TSgt E is a cop and the security manager for a particular vault, but he really has nothing to do over there. The reason for his job really doesn't exist anymore. So now he's been getting his nose into MSgt L's business, which is the comm side of the house. And TSgt E loves to promise the world to all the officers of that area, regardless of how realistic it is. And that means MSgt L is left holding the bag and has to fix the situation. I explain all this to both Maj V and TSgt M, and it seems to be making sense to them. They bring up some other minutia about other things concerning the MSgt, which I say they should bring up with him. I'm still not sure at this point what the hell I have to do with this. I admit I'm very vocal about my feelings concerning that situation, and I've had blowups with both TSgt M and E related to these matters. But whatever. THEN the door opens, and it's TSgt E. Surprise surprise. The trap had been laid and I hadn't even seen it until it fucking closed on my foot. The meeting suddenly becomes the forum for TSgt E to bring up all his unhappiness with how he's been treated by me and SSgt Jenny since he's gotten here 7 months ago. He feels that we're hostile to him, make fun of him and make it very intimidating for him to work there. Some info for anyone confused: TSgt E doesn't even work in the same building as me, and I see him maybe once or twice a day. Maybe. He then proceeds to bring up an incident he remembers concerning SSgt Jenny..... which happened 7 MONTHS AGO. And which he never brought up to anyone, primarily SSgt Jenny. And it's apparently been bugging him for this long. He then criticizes my leadership, saying I'm a weak captain for not discipling SSgt Jenny for this alleged infraction. I tell him that I will discipline when I deem necessary, but that the incident he remembers is not one I've ever been aware of. I further say that SSgt Jenny has done an outstanding job and I'll always back her up. He can't get over his 'slighting' by Jenny though, and after other reminiscings (such as when I called him to demand an explanation for telling a money person that my project wasn't right and to delete all my work), I just stop the meeting and say I'm ready for this to be over. I tell them I don't appreciate being ganged up on and furthermore, if they had problems with these other people, they should tell them. I can't speak for them as they're NOT HERE. It's at this point I realize I basically despise these two TSgts, and also realize that my boss has just made it crystal clear that he expects me to apologize to a TSgt for hurt feelings he has, whether they be justified or not. That of course, does not happen. What does happen is my mind reeling from the fact that I realize my boss has absolutely no respect or regard for me and thinks that it is appropriate to let some NCOs use him to demand some sort of apology. Apparently it never entered his head to tell them to please stop bothering him with this shit and deal with it face to face before bothering him with it. Nope. I admit while reading this just now it may not sound so bad, but I guess you had to be there. I'm nauseated still by it.

To follow on to that story, I eventually informed Sgt Jenny of what had happened and she had her own meeting with them, but on her terms. It's funny how her's turned out, as she came prepared for it, and every time she made a point against them, they changed the subject without addressing it. Bah. Anyways, this week has been interesting concerning these two, as what came out from Jenny's meeting is that TSgt E REALLLLLY doesn't like me (I am honored) and that besides her meeting with them on Monday, nobody had anything else to say to us about it afterwards. It's like all was okay now....?

But I want to continue back about Maj V. I really can't believe how he has been acting towards me and Sgt Jenny lately. Take for instance, today: Sgt Jenny missed a mandatory run this morning. It was her fault and she knows it, but you forget things. She talked to the shirt about it and he gave her the proper crap for it, and she knew she was in the bad. But she is far from the only one who has ever missed a mandatory run, especially from in our office. But apparently the shirt felt it was time to do some complaining to the boss, Maj V. Let's never mind the fact that the TSgts regularly skip mandatory things and only sometimes participate in squadron events, while Sgt Jenny is almost always there. Anyways.... so I'm at the commissary doing the snack-o run (another source of aggravation and annoyance) and apparently Maj V comes up to our office area, which is shared with numerous people, plus a few visitors, and goes off on her about missing the run. And he goes on and on about it. What I guess is that he never learned the rule of "Praise in public, criticize in private". Needless to say, when I get back from the commissary, I hear an earful from Sgt Jenny. Honestly, she would leave the Air Force today if she could. And the funny thing is, I can't think of one damn thing to say to her to try to convince her otherwise. When she first was talking about getting out of the Air Force, I would always bring up the benefits, such as education, stability, experience, etc. I could always come up with something. But with how things are going in our office, those things just don't seem worth it. That's why 2007 is just too damn far away for me. Anyways, back to Maj V - he has also been promising people things without consulting us (hmm... I guess I see why he and TSgt E get along so well) beforehand, as also today, one of the big money people is here getting the new conference center ready for it's first big meeting next week, and he asks which one of us (me or Jenny) is going to be the slide flipper next week. Excuse me? Um, we're going to teach someone how to use the equipment, but there is no way that we will be able to be gone for a week so one of us can press 'page up' to turn a fucking slide presentation. I don't say 'fucking', but everything is else is what I said. He then says that Maj V promised him comm support, and I say, well Maj V never let us know, and as we had all been promised and briefed, we were not going to have to do support for functions in the center as that would be our only job then, as this center will be heavily used once it opens. Any functions taking place in the center need to coordinate bringing their own comm and admin support for such things. He's not happy to hear that from me and starts arguing with me, with him eventually storming off and some of the visitors saying that it should be no problem to fly someone else in to do this. Damn right.

It's this kind of shit that happens on a daily basis. And it's tiring. And what has been very disconcerting to realize is that me, Sgt Jenny, and another woman there are pretty much on our own. Our supervisors, coworkers, and leadership are more than happy to sell us out and blame us and criticize us. What am I supposed to do? I have no one to go to. I honestly don't know what to do. Persevere, obviously. Hope for things to get better, which they might. Maj V is leaving this month, and who knows how the next guy will be? Try to keep a sense of humor and keep Sgt Jenny from going insane. But because of all this bullshit, I start to think and realize I am a weak captain. I'm definitely not a good strong one, but I can honestly say it's not completely all my doing. I have absolutely no support from above, and with that being the case, I am a powerless supervisor. The only thing I can do is to make sure I do my best to watch out for Sgt Jenny and myself. But even then, it seems these crazy incidents always happen when we are separated. Perhaps we are intimidating as a team. Because this shit never seems to happen when we could both possibly throw this shit back at the thrower. But back to the previous point. I never imagined my career was going to end up this way. But I probably should have seen it coming. I honestly have had weak supervisors, or more adeptly put, the most apathetic supervisors. At Kelly, my first was on his way out the door, and the second soon realized he was separating as well. While very nice guys, and decent supervisors, they both had their minds on other things, namely, getting out of the air force. In Lajes, my supervisor there was probably the best I've had yet. He honestly did care and I did love my job working for him, but after an incident where he freaked out on me while I was exec, it became a little awkward. The final supervisor I had there was a pompous ass. And then I get here to Nellis. I'm a comm guy in an analyst position in which no one knows what to do with me.....for six months. Finally they realize I'm a comm guy and I can do some good in the comm shop here. All is good for another 6 months or so until everyone stops taking their medication. And then the selling out begins, the anger ensues, the bitterness, etc. I'm sure you've read my posts from before. Hell, I even got pity from some of you for sounding so bitter and sad. I appreciate it, but this forum is definitely not intending to be a pity party. I just have to get this out of my system. Am I done? No.

Finally, all this shit is getting to me because I am pretty much alone out here. I have been the reason for that, as I am not a reach out and touch someone kind of person, and while waiting for that to happen, it hasn't. If I had some sort of support structure with some friends or what not, I'm sure this wouldn't be as big a deal as it is to me now. But because work is my only source of social interaction, the bad shit at work causes my whole life to be bad shit. How pathetic is this? I honestly thought I was a person who made friends easily, but I've found that here, no one really wants anything to do with me after work. Sure, I'm a great person to be around....at work.....when I'm helping someone with a computer problem..... but apparently I smell or freak people out or piss them off or am generally unpleasant, as well, I have no friends or love life. I realize I am now embarassed to have written all that. But since this is part of my problem as well, I might as well write it down/type it out. I am completely miserable here in Vegas because of all these factors. I honestly could go anywhere else and it wouldn't even matter, even if it didn't get better. It's not as if I'm leaving anything behind anyways.

So I think I'm done. I don't really think I feel better. In fact, I may even be more blech because it bums me out to read this shit. I hope I don't offend those of you who are my friends and family out there when I said the stuff right above. But you're all long distance friends now, and the more time we spend apart, the more time it's hard for me to communicate how I feel. As I've come to realize, it seems like listening to me must be a burden and a downer, so I refuse to make anyone do it. And hence, I don't call people or write, as honestly, what the hell am I going to write or talk about? The sporadic visits and talks do good though. It helps me forget about the shit that is my life. I do wonder if i will one day be able to look back on this time and shudder, because things are all good then. Who knows.
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