The reality is, since I'm the new guy, I get all the jobs and duties that no one else wants. Which wouldn't really bother me if they were jobs and duties that really needed doing. But so much government paperwork is simply stuff that we might as well not do. Period.
If you look really hard, sometimes you can see the shadow of reasoning behind why this particular program may have been started, but the military likes to break everything down into the most simple, basic steps. And you have to follow those steps exactly. There are countless AFIs (Air Force Instructions), OIs (Operational Instructions) AFMANs (Air Force Manuals) TOs (Technical Orders) and DoD (Department of Defense) Regulations ... all of which are numbered by chapter, by section, by paragraph. And one line, which for all we know may have been a typo or someone just tossing something out on a whim, will change the ENTIRE way everyone does business.
The thing is, nearly everyone thinks it is stupid. Though there are some people who strangely get off on these technical manuals, most people agree that they are silly. So, frequently, they will cherry pick the ones that they like, or the ones that there are no avoiding, and comply with those. The rest fall by the wayside.
But life goes on. No one dies, no one gets hurt, money isn't lost, planes still fly.
Until the inspection.
These guys show up, the IG (Inspector General) to make sure that we are following every single little rule every issued completely and totally. Oh and AFSPC is Air Force Space Command. Patrick AFB, where I am stationed, primarily launches rockets into space. It is where "I Dream of Genie" takes place.
Love that AF uniform he's got!
So anyway, in preparing for this inspection, it comes out that there are multiple programs that no one has complied with. In years. We've got maybe a month to fix this issue. So what is the big decision?
Give these programs to 2nd Lt Gonnsen. Of course.
So I've spent the past month digging through regulations manuals, writing orders for the commander to sign. Since no one really wanted to deal with this stuff, it is left more or less up to me how I want to handle it, so I do get to write the orders, I just don't get to sign them. I would feel proud that several of my ideas have been adopted by the Wing (Wing = whole base) ... but I don't.
If you sit down and think about this stuff, it is usually easy enough to comply without too much pain. And if something is truly dumb (a lot is truly dumb), I make a bunch of phone calls or write a bunch of e-mails to see if I can either get the rule changed or find some other way of handling it. I also make a note, to myself, to change this when I am high enough in rank to do so.
I have tons of notes about shit that we just won't do if I ever get to call the shots.
So the IG team is here. They arrived yesterday to a small amount of pomp and circumstance, and today they began looking at the base.
Bright and early, at 0700, a small light flickers on someone's screen. The e-mail client has encountered a fatal error and is down base wide. Well. We're off to a great start.
