My squadron commander was a pilot. So was the base commander. And the wing commander. And the head of training. Most of the pilots I flew with had additional duties that put them in charge of something or other.
I would agree. Takean on their own, these things may not be relevant to a position. But in conjunction with having the actual academic and professional qualificaitons, activities like military experience, varsity athletics, Eagle Scout, campus politics, so on and so forth, demonstrate a certain discipline and commitment.
Of course there are crappy officers just as there are crappy managers. But you look for people based on their experience and activities and hope something rubbed off.
Good lord, that looks like some sort of fiendish weather chart.
As a government employee who is about to retire after 37 years of service, I thank you for this. It’s nice to have my entire career condemned so neatly.
Oh, wait - 11 of those years were in the military, so maybe you’re not talking about me, but rather my slacker coworkers who never donned a uniform. Yeah, I’ve carried them all for years.
:rolleyes:
Then their relevant experience was being a squadron commander, a base commander, a wing commander, or the head of training. The fact that they were also pilots has nothing to do with their supervisory experience.
Former HR person here, military experience has problems because it can be forced. When you supervise people you have to get them to listen to you and do what you say and a good manager, has to do this not simply by issuing an order.
It’s a fine art to get things done.
I wouldn’t rule it out as experience, instead I’d have sat this guy down and asked him how he went about supervising people. How did he supervise the people that ranked over him. This is common that you’re given jobs that entail having the cooperation of depts you have no control over, yet you have to manage these people and if they fail, it’s your burden.
I think it’s shortsighted to say “that isn’t real” they should at least have given an exploratory interview to see what his supervisory skill are.
This isn’t to knock military. The hardest thing to find is a good manager. Often we had people will tremendous skills but couldn’t manage their staffs at all.
Yikes.
Mirror image of the OP’s boss - although they’d probably both say they were completely different from each other.
I can’t Article 15 their ass, but there is the implication that if you don’t do exactly as I say, you will get a shitty review, the shittiest of tasks (or none at all) and possibly terminated.
The main difference is that in the military you can’t quit. If you are a shitty manager, you quickly find yourself with the bottom of the barrel employees who can’t find a better job.
One of the problems in the civilian world is that most places provide little to no training in how to manage people. At least not beyond a week of corporate how-to videos. Like in the start-up where I work. They promoted some geek to manager of a new tech group. He may be a smart programmer, but he is also a smug little prick who thinks he knows everything and has no experience managing people. And every time he opens his mouth, it’s clear that he has no real idea about motivating or mentoring people.
I’d be interested in comparing the character, duration, deployments, and accomplishments of the military service of Chessic Sense on the one hand and Bear Nenno and RandMcnally on the other. I wonder what we would find.
Perhaps they will indulge us.
As others have noted, it greatly depends on the type of job and rank, but dismissing it as non ‘real world’ is just silly. A friend of mine is a CSM (high up enlisted) and he works his ass off managing people in more stressful situations than I can imagine. He’s done everything from pick up dead body parts to help a soldier and his family find a place to live after their house burnt down. He says he hates working with civilians because he finds them generally inefficient, easy to complain, and prone to procrastination. I can see why he finds civies disappointing because, for him, his job is his life. It comes first before anything else, even family. I would kill to have a boss as devoted to his employees as he is to his troops.
If I were considering hiring him, I’d look at his rank, not his years. For example, if he’s an E4 after ten years, he ain’t worth your time.
If I were hiring right now, I would absolutely count military experience, but it would open a few questions for me. I’d really want to avoid people like Chessic Sense (sorry) who disdain working with civilians; it’s just not going to be a good fit, as we don’t have any current ex-military employees. Also, I share Lil’Ol’Lady’s concern about leadership style. I’d want to ask some questions more in this area, if I were hiring a manager. The culture of my company is very collaborative and not authoritarian by any means. I wouldn’t discount the experience, but to me, it’s just like any other experience in a different field – I need you, through the interview, to tell me how it translates to this job and this company.
We have a few other ex-military folks, and yes, they seem to be a little frustrated that things aren’t as disciplined as they’re used to in the services. Of course, they (and most other people) are also frustrated at my brainless boss, but that’s another book.
Relax. Government workers have been a convenient target since. . .forever. The people that snipe at them generally have not had any wide experience with them, but have had a bad encounter at the DMV or something. I ran into some seriously lazy government assholes in WDC, but over the years my experience has been that most work as hard as anybody else.
Can’t always go by time in rate, Air Force you make rank by divine ascension … you have to wait until the rates open up by the rankers dying off [or retiring] and in the Navy you can PNA [pass no advance] for a decade if someone on the chief’s board doesn’t like you, being stalled as an E6 over 10 until you get bounced at 20.
Everyone thinks their profession/company/industry works hardest and everyone else is a bunch of lazy pikers.
In my experience, the best co-workers tend to be former NCOs, and the best bosses are not the ex-officers.
The former NCOs are uniformly hard working, no BS and extremely team oriented. If you do a good job, own up to your mistakes and back them up, they’ll do the same for you, no questions asked.
Ex officer bosses tend to have a "when I say jump, you say “how high?” sort of attitude. They frequently get frustrated and annoyed by questioning, even when it’s not questioning their authority, but just questioning why you’re doing something the way that they want. They also tend to set less than realistic deadlines and (this is the biggest one) expect commitment to your job well above and beyond what should be expected of a civilian, especially considering that it’s neither life nor death, and we’re not bound by the UCMJ or our oath of enlistment/commission, etc…
True dat. I started supervising people as an E-3 and didn’t make it to E-6 until I had ten years in. By then I was doing management level planning as a senior E-5. Got passed over for another seven years for CPO, by which time I was routinely working above my paygrade in project management and planning. If there’s no opening, you don’t get promoted, but the work doesn’t stop, and if you’re talented, it gets heavier.
It would depend on the job being offered, and the job done in the military.
In some cases, I’d accept it in lieu of a degree (especially over, say, an English lit degree).
What? It seems most in this thread agree with me.
Yeah, and with your boss’s attitude, you never will! 
The other 5% are, indeed, government employees, but they’re cool too. It’s just that that’s not always been the case. I had non-government jobs several years ago, and I’ve volunteered with civilians numerous times.
One memory that sticks out clearly is trying to help a buddy move. There were probably three military guys and, like, five civilians. We easily did twice the work they did. They wandered around aimlessly, shuffled stuff aimlessly from here to there, and generally moved slowly and without purpose. I’ve found that’s pretty typical of a bunch of civilians, especially a leaderless group.
Right. Junior sailors. I bet they didn’t out-process that way.
No offense taken. If it wouldn’t be a fit, then you’re telling me that it’s a place full of people that don’t like to actually work, make excuses, and are generally ineffectual. If that’s not the case, then I’d fit in just fine. If it is the case, then I don’t want the job anyway.
And FTR, I only said I hate working with civilians. I obviously don’t hate civilians as a whole, nor hate them when they’re working on things that don’t involve me.