A Tale To Tell: Background
I am pleased to present you the first part in a 4-part ghost-written blog entry. Basically my friend in the military told me of his trials trying to get out of the navy after being inspired by one of my posts. I recommended he post his story in his blog which predates mine but has since been neglected. He preferred to ghost write his story here as I have, well, an audience. The comedy gold comes in parts 2 and 3 in my opinion, particularly part 3, but the whole story’s interesting so enjoy…
A few years ago I was considering getting out of the Navy. I wasn’t very happy with what I was doing, nor was I happy with what the organization had become and its plans for the future. At that time it was just an idle thought in my head though. I considered what I would want to do if I got out and I finally decided that being a teacher is what I would really want to do…if I got out. A little bit of time passed and then I read in a blog (and I’ll try to quote as best I can remember) “It’s not how high on the ladder you climb, it’s knowing you’re on the right ladder.” After reading that, I thought “Wow. That directly applies to me. I’m not on the right ladder.” At this time I was just preparing to head to Halifax for 5 ½ months for a course. Truth be told, I was somewhat happy to be going on a course, but not overly happy with the course’s location. After living there for a week, I cemented the idea in my head that I wanted to get out and that I should do it sooner rather than later.
I have to pause here and explain a few things about me and the military. First off, I’m a big, mostly out of shape guy. The military does a physical fitness test every year. If you fail the test the first time, you get a ‘recorded warning’. If you fail it a second time, you get ‘counseling and probation’. We call it C&P. If you fail your C&P, you get recommended for release from the military; if you pass (like I did in 2003), the C&P goes away, but you can’t fail again or they go immediately to the recommendation for release. What generally has made them lenient in the past is the fact that I’m one of the best, most knowledgeable, and highly skilled people in my trade country wide; certainly on board my ship. Now with that knowledge, we can unpause.
The course ended a few days before Halloween and I started looking into my options for schools, courses, etc. I was only casually looking, as I was mainly pre-occupied with the upcoming festive season. In January the career manager (There’s 2 for every trade and he’s the guy who determines your eligibility for courses, where you get posted to, promotions, etc.) does his rounds of the military. You get to have a meeting with him (which you can decline) and he goes over all your information, tells you where you are on the list to get promoted, what you can do to get higher on the list, etc. He’s an advisor and he takes your thoughts and preferences into consideration when deciding things.
In my interview, he told me that my position on the promotions list was 8 out of 18. Not too bad, seeing as how not everyone makes the list. Then he told me that extra points were given to people who attended school part-time, volunteered on their own time, and who knew another language, any other language. I asked him where I would be placed if I had all those things….turns out I would have been #2. More than likely promoted this year. I thought to myself, “What do the things that I do while I’m not at work have any effect on promotions at work. I bust my ass to be the best I can be and it gets no reward…F*@# THAT!” 1 months later I had all my paperwork together to request a voluntary release. My release date was September 4th (just pure coincidence that it was the same date as the start of school) and all was good.
Or was it? Find out tomorrow!
