This is useful because of what the Army Times recently put as a headline- officers are the main reason NCOs are going the non-reenlistment route. Interesting, though not exactly news to those of us in the green. Now, don't get me wrong. There are excellent officers in every unit in the Army, and there are not so good ones. The distinction seems to be in the CYA department. Cover Your Ass, for those who don't get the reference. Unfortunately, this sometimes becomes a full-time job.This seems to happen between the time an officer gets their railroad tracks (Captain) and goes up through Major or so- beyond that, it seems to be that the officer becomes the person whom other officers are attempting to CTA for. At this upper level (say, Major and above) we find that these are the guys giving the orders, not following them. And my experience has been those orders are generally good ones. It's down below that you find the occasional career-minded... person who is a little too ambitious in the sense that they put looking good ahead of say, actual concerns about the soldiers. It's true, Privates do get the shit jobs (I was there, guys, and I feel your pain), and us Corporals/Specialists do kind of delegate them out, but I for one don't like foisting all my workload off on someone solely because they under-rank me. Because I don't like them, well, that's another matter. But seriously, perhaps a part of the problem is that officers are, well, officers. They don't really spend much time down in the dirt, so to speak. That's not a criticism, it's simply not what they're there to do. However, that does not make them the aristocracy some of them seem to think they are. I know whatever job you work in, you'll find people who are your superiors that don't know their fourth point of contact from an artillery round, but I think the Army climate tends to foster them. And again, I feel obligated to point out that should you wish to become a commissioned officer in the Army (as opposed to an NCO, non-commissioned officer), go for it, we need more good officers. Well, of course the Army's 'downsizing', so good luck. I for one am finding it hard to believe that the situation is as dire as they'd have us think. This week has been kind of a witch hunt (pun, for once, not intended) to make sure everyone's doing a good job. So of course all of us have to go see the company commander and get talked to. Telling the company commander what I really think is, unfortunately, not a privilege in keeping with my rank. But writing it is! I think they're going about it rather in the same way one would cut off a foot to save on the cost of shoes. But what do I know, I'm just an E-4. No one has to salute me.
In other news, took a look under the hood of the new ride today, just to make sure everything was fully mission capable- fluids look good, lots of new or new-ish components, big old American V-6 block, so everything looks ready for many years of service. I'm told the vehicle was, at some point, in a major accident and rebuilt. The reason I know this is because the dealer told me- he pointed out that the title to the vehicle has an orange border, instead of the usual green. This means that the car had major body work done. Actually, you can kind of see this on the front end, which shows some evidence of non-stock parts. But nonetheless, it is fully functional, which in Buick-ese means you can run it over with a tank and not kill the thing. But let's not test that theory, I'm not sure what my insurance claim would look like for that one. I also tried to get the thing registered today, with no luck. Well, I have a temporary tag on it, it's perfectly street legal. However, apparently the dealer will mail me a duplicate title with the finance lien on it- I then bring this down to the tag agency (which is what they call the DMV in Oklahoma), and they issue me a permanent plate. Which I also have, but am not sure exactly when to put that on the car. According to the lady at the tag agency, that plate is good till December. I wondered, however, if she was a little off on that estimate, as the plate says it's valid till December of 2010, not this year. So I decided to leave the temporary tag on there until I can get in touch with the dealer, and confirm that this is in fact what's going to happen. If not, well, we'll take it from there!
Tabatha mentioned this last night, that I have great plans but the organization of a dish of spaghetti. True, but having realized this, I also have realized the value of lists. Bordering on the obsessive-compulsive, I now write lists. Usually when I wake up in the morning, I think- okay, what needs to happen today? Not that I don't even go out of the house without list in hand (and I've known people who, sadly, were not capable of something like this), but I try to take things one step at a time- today I can do this at this time, tomorrow I can do this, and this day I'll have more time, so I'll tackle this bigger project. And so on it goes, so far with success. It's a question of knowing your resources (time, money, etc) and what you want to do with them.
So all in all, it's stress with a safety valve here- about the same as always. The safety valve has been inoperable lately, but it looks like it's well on its way to getting repaired. It's important to allow yourself some time to unwind, be it at the day, or something as simple as finding a few minutes to take a couple deep breaths. I occasionally get someone telling me it's surprising how I take everything in stride. Well, not always- actually I keep a lot inside, and this means I need that safety valve more than ever. I do, however, need to make sure that this metaphorical safety valve is a safe one- nothing too self-destructive, or too much risk-taking. Lifting weights and running is pretty low-risk, and seems to have good results.
Well, that's about all the news that's fit to print from here. It's only Tuesday, which I should write a strongly worded letter about. This week is taking entirely too long. But I guess I'll just take it in stride, like always. And not drink the Tenafly Viper, of course.
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