I always laugh when I see posters of climbers ascending Mt Everest or F-18s breaking the sound barrier at some corporate break room. The very reason people are working at this office is because they are not the sort of people who climb Everest or fly fighter jets.
But they want to believe they could if only they were called upon to do so. No matter that you are a fifty year old paper pusher who huffs and puffs his way from and to the golf cart, I’m sure with a couple weeks in boot camp you’ll climb a glacier and take down a Spetsnaz team all on your own, buddy.
The worst, though, are people who use (and most often mangle) military terminology in a civilian setting or claim some kind of priority by association. I work with a certain government agency where employees and subcontractors routinely describe going on travel for a meeting as “going TDY”. I’m sorry, did you receive orders to go perform a duty assignment? Did you fill out a DD-1610? No? Then you are not “TDY”, you are just traveling as a civilian. And more than once I’ve heard these asshats claiming or complaining of being denied the special accommodations that airlines provide to active duty service members, believing that they same should apply to some chair-warming bureaucrat looking for an excuse to demand a first class seat.
Stranger
I’m sorry, but what do you call it when a government civilian goes on Temporary DutY somewhere?
They are “on travel” using a travel budget provided by their program or through their contract for subcontractors (which many of them are), not filling out a DD-1610 or receiving formal orders for detached duty. They are not on “temporary duty”, they aren’t “going AWOL” when they take vacation time, and they sure as shit aren’t “under enemy fire” just because they are having a snippy dispute between departments. Most of these people are Walter Mitty-esque chair compressors who contribute little to no real work and yet to hear them speak they are single-handedly saving civilization as we know it at great peril to life and limb. The one I love the most is the guy who comes to meetings with his digicamo Maxpedition briefcase covered in MOLLE ammo pouches and a skull patch, talking nonsense about his collection of quasi-military firearms, and boasting about he’d waterboard various political figures or world leaders if he had the chance.
Stranger
Business trip?
You went to college, majored in accounting, can’t find a job, and want to do something else. So do something else. I don’t see how signing up for the US Army is going to be the next logical career move for you. You aren’t lost in life, you just aren’t sure what your occupation would be. Chances are very great that in the US Army you are going to get stuck with an occupation you don’t want and can’t simply quit like you can working with a private or public company. Based on what you’ve posted, I think you should continue to look for a job and continue to explore without enlisting.
Doesn’t matter, they can assign you to any duties they want and assign you to any location they wish and shift.
Shift? The Army has shifts?
In reality unless there are extremely extraordinary circumstances when you sign up you will get exactly what is in your contract. MOS is always stipulated. Sometimes guaranteed first duty station or special schools like Airbourne but sometimes not. For instance I was guaranteed an MOS and Germany as my first duty station. That’s exactly what happened. In fact during Basic due to some high test scores they offered to change my MOS to a MI job that was short. Offered me a nice bonus for the time. I thought about it but turned them down. I was not forced to change. There were zero negative repercussions.
Man, my experience was otherwise (bouncy castles aside).
My first duty station after leaving Corry Field was in a tenant command at Torii Station, an Army comms station on Okinawa. There I discovered that everything I had heard about army chow was true. Breakfast was okay but lunch or dinner were really abysmal. This was particularly poignant because the two years I was there, Corry had won a Ney award. I asked a corporal sitting across from me once how ‘our’ chow hall compared with other army chow halls he’d experienced. His reply was, “Well, it isn’t the best I’ve had, but it’s far from the worst.”
And yet, airmen at Kadena AFB, seven miles down the road, for lunch would drive off-base, onto Torii and pay money to eat our offerings rather than eat on Kadena for free.
/anecdote
That matches my experience in college; we thought the dining hall food was awful, but visitors thought it better than where they went to school (including my roommate’s visitor from Columbia University).
strangely enough, yes, the Army has shifts, for certain MOS’s (MOSes?), while in garrison.
Military Police work in shifts, around the clock and cooks can be assigned breakfast/lunch or lunch/dinner shift. There may be other jobs worked in shifts, but those two are the ones I’m aware of.
Loach has served and IIRC recently joined me in the retired reserve. I read his comment more in the using a day instead of a time to answer the question about when you last slept vein.
Woosh
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My recommendation is “get a real job*”. If you don’t like it, quit and do something else.
*Real job being defined as one where putting in your notice doesn’t get you threatened with a prison sentence. There are a lot of crap jobs out there, but it may behoove you to contemplate how crappy a job must be that retention requires threats of incarceration.
But, that was a long time ago, for me. Maybe things are easier now for Sgt. Bear and his ilk.
Is this some kind of veiled insult?
I’m having a hard time contriving a scenario where a Department of Justice civilian would need to fill out a DD-1610.
I’m also having a hard time comparing your information with the myriad TDY request forms that are required to be completed for various other Departments of the Executive Branch. Plus the rules for TDY pay as outlined in various GSA documents.
TDY is Temporary DutY, an acronym not solely for use by military personnel.
Former Navy Enlisted Programs Recruiter here; What Dewey said.
OK, first, there are no ‘bad’ jobs in the service - Just jobs you like, and jobs you don’t. They all pay roughly the same, commensurate with your experience and specialty. They all have the same benefits. Out in town, few people are going to care what your specialty might be.
BUT - That said - There are a lot of jobs that don’t seem accounting-related that will still use the skills and/or mindset of a junior accountant. Anything that requires organized thinking, attention to detail, and the ability to sort amongst data is a potential match. So, management (junior, of course!) - be it IT or financial, or even process-related, is a potential good call. Some gigs don’t seem related, but are - I’m an engineer by mindset, a reactor operator by training, and an IT consutant by actual job experience - But I find myself publishing biomedical reports for a large pharma, and doing quite well at it. Yes, my varied background actually alligns me very well for my current employment.
So - The message I’m giving is don’t just toss the whole thing, without getting a bit outside the box, first.
Former Recruiter here: This is factually incorrect. The contract is absolutely binding on both parties. What you’ve missed (very common - almost NO ONE actually reads the contract in detail) is that there are a number of very broad, contractually-defined, escape clauses. Most of them favor the government, yes, but they are binding none-the-less. I’ll also point out that the government often doesn’t strictly enforce the side binding on the individual, for reasons of convenience of the government.
Yes, I have absolutely seen people stand on the contract, and win - mostly because they bothered to read the damned thing, and find out what it actually means.
Including computer operations for systems they are mission critical and must be up 24/7. The people who work at missile silos are on 36 hour shifts.
I read the whole thread and all the points I would have said seem to have been covered, however;
Hi nice to meet you.
Did 4 years enlisted in the Navy, got out as an E-5 (petty officer 2nd class) and I loved it. It was a tough decision to get out or stay in. Sometimes i wish I had stayed.
Ditto, though I had a rather longer career. 
And higher final rate.