So, how long _should_ an IG complaint take?

[audette]

Assuming you file an IG complaint, you should expect _some_ type of response, right? Someone emailing you, calling you, asking for more details, saying they received the complaint, etc...

Correct?

How long does that normally take?

(I may delete this message...  just as a heads up.)

[nsl]

H has never filed one, so I don't know how long it takes for the initial contact, but resolutions can take awhile. He was a witness in two cases that both took over a year to resolve.

[audette]

Dang. I guess I'm more curious how long it should take for first contact after the complaint is made. I was under the impression that would be done really quickly, but maybe I'm confused...

[panicked]

I just asked my husband; he said around 48 hours.

[kpol]

Jan 28, 2015 12:41:46 GMT -5 panicked said:

I just asked my husband; he said around 48 hours.

MH said as early as the a few hours later to maybe a few days.

[audette]

Jan 28, 2015 17:14:07 GMT -5 kpol said:

Jan 28, 2015 12:41:46 GMT -5 panicked said:

I just asked my husband; he said around 48 hours.

MH said as early as the a few hours later to maybe a few days.

Thanks, guys.  48 hours since reporting will be in a few hours...

DH also used the BDE Cmdr's open door policy for a meeting yesterday.  It accomplished nothing.  (whee)

Part of why we are in the mess is DH's fault (he messed up on something which generated the initial cause for us to extend past our original departure date here).  Which is why we're not raising total hell.  But, there have been aspects of it that have been handled _very_ poorly, and extremely inefficiently.  DH doesn't really expect it to help us much, if at all, but maybe by reporting those issues and making complaints, it'll help someone else who ends up in a similar situation (this area is notorious for these types of inexplicably slow handling of paperwork - which even the BDE Cmdr' admitted during DH's meeting with him).

In the meantime, though, it does look like there has _finally_ been some movement on the paperwork needed to get us out of here.  It's not completed yet, but it has progressed, and we are feeling more hopeful that DH will at least make it to the next base before his report date.  We might arrive _on_ his report date, which is kinda risky when you are dealing with flights in the middle of winter, but so be it.

[dcn]

I'm not a regular poster, but Man, I really hope you guys get some progress soon!

[audette]

Part of the paperwork is now done. Yay! It was the source of why we had to stick around here. One month, to the day, after we moved out of our apartment. Because we were told we were "good to fly" while that paperwork was processing.


However, we are now stuck in place because paperwork that _should_ have been done a month ago is not yet completed. We have the XO working on it, though, and think we'll have it tomorrow or Monday. This is _basic_ fucking paperwork that should have been a no-brainer, and be something folks handle and deal with fairly often.


I give up on thinking the army gives a shit about it's people, though. This is fucking ridiculous. I can't vent at DH anymore about this. The shithead commanders (BN and BDE) both basically can't see past the fact he made a mistake that caused the initial delay, and because of that, don't give a damn about the stupidly slow processing of the other paperwork. And DH is starting to sink into himself, because a part of him is listening to them, and he's now half convinced this is all his fault. Asshole commanders.


I am so done. Frankly, I'm half tempted to start looking at places to buy in our "home of record" and start prepping the move there in anticipation of DH getting out. Because even if DH has the option to stay in, come next year, I don't think I could stand it if he did. I just can't handle the cover-your-ass-take-zero-responsibility shit that just keeps happening and happening and fucks people over.


At least in the civilian workplace you don't have to deal with this level of fuckery.

[audette]

Stan - this article is relevant, and seems to fit like a glove... I read it last night.

qz.com/322430/how-to-tell-if-your-coworker-is-an-everyday-sadist/

[audette]

Jan 29, 2015 2:47:25 GMT -5 Stan said:

"Narcissists too excel. Once at the top, narcissistic CEOs command higher salaries (pdf) than nicer leaders. Among West Point cadets, the personality trait is the single biggest predictor of success."

That's depressing as shit. But true IME. That's who succeeded at Benning.

DH hopes it might not be quite so extreme outside of combat arms.

*crosses fingers*

[amaristella]

Jan 29, 2015 2:42:23 GMT -5 audette said:

Stan - this article is relevant, and seems to fit like a glove... I read it last night.

qz.com/322430/how-to-tell-if-your-coworker-is-an-everyday-sadist/

There is a version of this phenomenon in the Navy and now having read your and Stan's experiences with Army I am suspicious that every branch must have it in some form. I can even tell you what rank the good guys start dropping out of Navy in DH's line of work. I'm sending this article to DH. I'm sure he will like it.

[audette]

Let me guess, amaristella... it's 0-3 for the navy, too?

[amaristella]

Jan 29, 2015 3:29:30 GMT -5 audette said:

Let me guess, amaristella... it's 0-3 for the navy, too?

Plenty get out within the first two years of O-3 because it's not worth it to stay after that unless you're going to go career. It's literally just a waste of time. But where I really see it is O5. Some guys and gals push it just as long as they need to for the retirement but it's right at that point where the quality human beings get weeded out left and right. It's almost as though they are picked on by the bad guys and just throw their hands in the air. They figure they have better things to do. By O7 the asshole rate is up to 50%. That's literally a coin flip. Maybe I'm just venting my anxiety because we're waiting on an appeal on something right now that's very important to me and it's waiting on a flag level review. 7.5 working days have gone by so far and I can hardly sleep at night. It's partly DH's fault for not getting the paperwork in sooner. For sure. But I just want an answer right now. I need to finish planning my move.

But what kills me is they even get fired. They get put through the ringer, sometimes over stupid shit. The official line is "loss of confidence in ability to command." DH was barely halfway done with his MOS school, the one right after OCS, the first time we saw that one go over and it was a waste. I get the Navy has to CYA sometimes. I get that a lot of times they do it because they need to. But I just hate it when, for once, I see someone who is doing all the right things. And they're demonstrating what it means to be an officer as well as a great human being but nobody that matters gives two shits.

[audette]

Interesting... I wonder - does the navy have something equivalent to the company command that O-3's get in the army? I'm not sure I've met an army O-5 that didn't feel incredibly fake when I spoke with them...

Anyways, I hope you get news on your situation soon, and that it goes the way you want it to!

[amaristella]

Jan 29, 2015 4:39:06 GMT -5 audette said:

Interesting... I wonder - does the navy have something equivalent to the company command that O-3's get in the army? I'm not sure I've met an army O-5 that didn't feel incredibly fake when I spoke with them...

Anyways, I hope you get news on your situation soon, and that it goes the way you want it to!

Yeah. I'm not super certain what a company command is. Let's say Navy has a ship or a boat. (Shore installations are similar, but this is the best I can explain) So, USS GBCN. Depending on the size of USS GBCN the CO is either an O5 or an O6. The XO is either an O4 or an O5. Prior to XO you do some mid-level stuff. Usually at least one really intense tour as an O4 or a very late O3. Below that you have department head. Sample department head titles are Suppo (supply officer, known in other branches as logistics), Engineer (usually engineer is a second department head tour you do some other one first), Communications, Weapons, Navigation. And department head has a range but typically you see it late O3 through the whole of O4. The civilian equivalent of department head is middle management in an office. DH, he did the sub thing so he was a junior officer, an O1-O2 and a department head at the same time. Uh. He is a tad ahead of his year group despite having his first tour extended and after what he's about to do he's going to be even further ahead of his peers.

But basically what I'm saying is the big names. They don't pay attention to very much beneath O5. So that's where things really start to matter. To graduate O5 you're basically going to have done CO afloat and CO ashore and that is the level where the most major scrutiny starts to happen. And that's really where it gets 100% political. You want to succeed as an O5? Don't be on the news for anything bad. Try to fit in. It's like OCS all over again. You don't want to get noticed.

Here's an example. It's Air Force but it's the same principle. Right now there's a DUI sign on the outbound side of the gate to the base. It tells you how many days have passed since the last DUI, how many DUIs in the past 30 days, the "DUICON" and the name of the unit that the last DUI happened in. Well. Here, at least every other DUI is from SFS so in a weird kind of way they get to stare at their own numbers all day. President Obama comes for a visit. His motorcade passes by this sign while he's here. Wouldn't you know it but while he was here all the numbers disappeared from the sign (not set back to zero, just taken down) and the DUICON was set to green. How convenient. So what are we learning? It doesn't matter what your dirt is as long as nobody important hears about it.

[amaristella]

Okay so I'm looking at Army org charts and I get it now. Army is not top heavy with administrators the way that Navy is. Navy really makes you wait before they increase your level of responsibility. Some of that, I'm sure, is related to the mission statement but my goodness the implications are depressing. The Navy is structured with the primary goal of protecting their assets. And boy does it show operationally.

[audette]

Oh, wow. Looks like the structure is quite a bit different...

As a O-1 or O-2, folks often spend time as a platoon leader (say, 8-10 guys). Then as an O-3, you want to have company command, which would be for a group of 100-ish folks. As an O-4, you're heading a section (ie: supply, personnel, etc) under an O-5, who heads a battalion (say 400-500 ish folks). In between command/section head roles, you hold "staff" positions, where you assist on one of the sections at the battalion or brigade level. I think the structure continues similarly as you move up to division, and so forth. (this is how my eyeballs as a spouse have seen it, at least)

As a company commander, you sign for all of the company assets. So, if anything goes missing and can't be accounted for when you leave command, you are financially responsible for it (as in, they will take money out of your paycheck to cover the loss). You are responsible for all of the folks in the company - so if stupid joe gets a DUI at 3am on a Saturday, you get a phone call at 3am (or as soon as it filters to you). And you get to notify the folks above you, who then proceed to yell at you for not sufficiently counseling stupid joe - obviously he wouldn't have gotten the DUI if you had done it properly. (I kid you not, DH got yelled at while on leave for a similar situation.) The amount of responsibility for things you have absolutely no control over is mind-boggling... And mentoring seems to be pretty much non-existent, as far as I could see. It's basically sink or swim.

It's set up so that if you can avoid having bad details carry upwards, you don't get penalized for them. So the more you can "handle" at your own level to avoid it carrying up, the better you look...

[amaristella]

Jan 29, 2015 6:40:10 GMT -5 audette said:

Oh, wow. Looks like the structure is quite a bit different...


As a company commander, you sign for all of the company assets. So, if anything goes missing and can't be accounted for when you leave command, you are financially responsible for it (as in, they will take money out of your paycheck to cover the loss). You are responsible for all of the folks in the company - so if stupid joe gets a DUI at 3am on a Saturday, you get a phone call at 3am (or as soon as it filters to you). And you get to notify the folks above you, who then proceed to yell at you for not sufficiently counseling stupid joe - obviously he wouldn't have gotten the DUI if you had done it properly. (I kid you not, DH got yelled at while on leave for a similar situation.) The amount of responsibility for things you have absolutely no control over is mind-boggling... And mentoring seems to be pretty much non-existent, as far as I could see. It's basically sink or swim.

Yeah. Way different. In the Navy the O3 may get the phone call (Officer on duty at that time of day) about the DUI but the O5 is the one who gets ruined over it....usually. Unless the O5 gets the DUI. And sadly it does happen that way.

Assets. Yeah. New supply officers have a big range of first tour responsibilities. You might be in charge of tens of millions of dollars on day one. And if you "lose" an asset that goes beyond your paycheck, you're fired. But I've never heard of smaller assets being reimbursed from the officer's paycheck. The other end of the spectrum, you might be in charge of the equivalent of a mini mart and maybe $40,000 of assets total but with so much oversight that they will find a reason to fire you if they so please.
 

[amaristella]

Ha! As of this morning we got our answer. F you Amaristella! We only care about getting a fuels officer out to our facility in Africa. Hope your family figures out a way to manage. At least I know now what I'm up against and hopefully I can still get the company that I wanted for our pack out. Our stuff is going into to storage at government expense now. They're not saving any money on this.

[audette]

Boo, amaristella!

At least you got your decision and can move forward, but that bites.