timcsaw
Gold Member
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2007
- Messages
- 21,442
Bobofish makes an excellent point... as an officer, you will (relatively) immediately be put into a position of ever growing responsibility.
Read "responsibility" to mean, responsible for the behavior, performance and actions, of those below you in the chain of command that may, or may not, all be as dedicated to mission accomplishment as you are... simply stated, you will be ultimately responsible for someone, who doesn't like what they do... who doesn't want to do their job... and it will be you who is ultimately responsible for their success or failure (now multiply that unhappy guy by 20).
As an officer, expect to spend 90 percent of your time, dealing with 10 percent of your people.
As for becoming a Non-Commissioned Officer (NCO), keep in mind that as your career progresses, you WILL be placed into higher and higher levels of responsibility as well.
In the AF you start out as an Airman... essentially an apprentice, and you can screw up, be forgiven and pretty much only be responsible for your own work... you'll have no subordinates.
When you get that next stripe, or perhaps two more, you WILL be expected to have some leadership and supervisory responsibility (a few guys may report to you). E-1 through E-3 you are a apprentice/trainee with minimal supervisory responsibility (or trained skills to be so).
At approx. E-4 through E-6 you start to get some serious training in how to lead people/supervise as well as advanced training in your chosen skill set. You WILL become a technician first/with some supervisor responsibility second.
From E-7 through E-9 that balance starts to flip and you will be a supervisor first/technician second... that is, your job function changes to one of mainly supervision and instructor.
Keep in mind that your progression to the supervisory ranks isn't just based on your work... they don't just throw you into a supervisory position without teaching you how to do it. You WILL be given training in Effective Counseling of personnel, Motivating Subordinates, Leadership techniques and a whole slew of other "Manager/Management" training classes.
By the time you reach E-6, you will have been given management/supervision training about the equivalent to the first two years in most colleges (now a days, the military teaches, Deming, Maslow, Covey, etc. to prepare you in advance for supervisory positions).
Most Master Sgt.s, Senior Master Sgt.s and Chief Master Sgt.s have been taught a set of manager skills that rival (or exceed) civilian CEO's.
After I left the military, I worked for a company (and was exposed to many other companies) who's Managers, Supervisors, and even CEO's had MUCH less formal training in "Managing" that did most E-6's I'd worked with in the military.
I attended 10 Supervision/Management college classes with a bunch of civvies from different companies and one of them was a retired AF MSgt. EVERY class we took had already been given to this guy while he was in the AF (to the surprise of the civvies in the class... they didn't realize that he had so much Management training... they figured all that all he knew was how to march in a straight line
). He graduated those courses first in the class (it was all "old hat" to him) above civvies twice his age and experience in management positions (in the civy world people often get promoted to supervisory positions and even management positions without ANY formal training and it shows:barf:.) I'd trade them all in for a few good E-7's, E-8's and Chiefs.
No matter what you decide to do (officer/enlisted) be prepared to eventually lead or get out of the way (if you are found unable, or unwilling to lead, the military WILL get you out of the way
)Good luck.
(Tim, Retired AF)
ON EDIT: If you take a position with a high expectation of seeing combat/high risk (Ranger, Infantry, Para, Combat aircraft etc.), PLEASE, PLEASE ask yourself TWO very important questions:
This first question is easy and most who are considering joining the military almost always respond "YES" (with bravado);
#1 - Are you willing to die for your country? (most have thought about this and reply "yes").
Question number 2 is not often considered, but from personal experience, I can tell you it's VERY/MORE important than the first question;
#2 - Are you willing to kill for your country--- and live every day for the rest of your life remembering that you have killed for your country?
There's an old saying (and some here can relate), "Being dead is easy but killing and living with that fact is hard."
Please give some SERIOUS consideration those two questions!
. I'll see you at the FOB... I'm gonna' fly (I'll be the one who's been waiting an hour for you to show up while lounging in the shade under the wing of my A-10).
