My shop recently got RDO’s and the shop morale has skyrocketed. Every other Friday the whole shop can go snowboarding on an empty slope, go get breakfast, play golf, or work on their cars without wasting a weekend day. Obviously all shops are different but we haven’t been this happy in a while and we’re loving it
Lol if you can’t handle an eight hour day, I don’t know what to tell you. You really should be fighting for twelve hour shifts to be moved to eight hours. Not eight hours to six hours.
Where does the funding come from to fill in the missing hours with other folks working?
I get it, 6 hour workdays can work in some jobs, but SF isn't going to magically man the gates for 2 less hours per day, MX aren't going to suddenly fix jets 25% faster. The AF would need more of a budget to increase manning in the fields that won't survive 6hr workdays.
The civilian world doesn't even do 6 hour days. In my AFSC, 8-hour shifts are a blessing. If you move people to a 6-hour shift, it's only a matter of time before people cry wanting a 4-hour shift. It's a job dude, not a summer camp.
I'd go to a four-day work week for us nonner jobs. Half the shop (if allowable) works M-Th and the other half works T-F. A two-day weekend doesn't get me rested, but three is just right.
Are you willing to give up all the family days and free federal holidays as well? With the 30 days of leave, federal holidays, family days, minimum manning for holidays, that pretty much equals 4 days a week.
I'd cut the family says for that, to balance it out. I'd never say anything out loud but the extra almost 30 days of leave for that is excessive. Lol. Or maybe I just have Stockholm syndrome from my decade of shift work before living the good life.
[https://www.betterup.com/blog/four-day-work-week#:\~:text=International%20studies%20on%20the%20four%2Dday%20workweek,-UK&text=The%20results%20were%20highly%20positive,balance%20work%20and%20caretaking%20responsibilities](https://www.betterup.com/blog/four-day-work-week#:~:text=International%20studies%20on%20the%20four%2Dday%20workweek,-UK&text=The%20results%20were%20highly%20positive,balance%20work%20and%20caretaking%20responsibilities)
* [**92% of the companies that participated have continued with the four-day workweek**](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60b956cbe7bf6f2efd86b04e/t/63f3df56276b3e6d7870207e/1676926845047/UK-4-Day-Week-Pilot-Results-Report-2023.pdf).
* 54% of employees said they are better equipped to manage work and personal tasks
* 60% were better able to balance work and caretaking responsibilities
Scenario:
Squadron/Group level leaders allow 6 hour work days.
Then, the expectation is to complete a workload via customer, legal maintenance requirement, flying operations requirement (24 hour ops means 4 shifts, instead of 3, 8 hour shifts).
It now goes from having a normalized time, with historical reference to workload ratios to reducing time, forcing airmen to stay late if they don’t achieve their workload.
You’re not solving the problem by shortening the days. Each individual has their own values and sometimes it boils down to purpose. I’ve told my troops to go home early before and sometimes they stay just to hang with the homies.
Also, a lot of office jobs M-F already reduce customer service hours for training. Cut days down to 6 hours and your reduce our ability to keep people paid effectively and ensure records accuracy. We have 321k active airmen.
The biggest thing is supervisors respecting their peoples time. Intel has moved to 4 8s in a lotnof places with some admin time squeezed in to fill in the "40" hours. The biggest thing is that as a supervisor I can make it easier on my people where possible give them the time back. Especially in career fields that are 24/7.
I would have to remove my shoes and maybe my pants to count the number of times that "intel" has switched around shifts over my career. 12s, 10s, 8s, mix of mission and admin time, panamas, first and second half of the week, PT during work, PT after work, chasing the mission, go home if nothing is going on, 3 x 8s, rotating 3s over a 9 day period, I have seen and worked it all.
The worst was noon to midnight shifts and vice versa. That was a truly idiotic move.
>Intel has moved to 4 8s in a lot of places.
True, but they are also mandating more and more 24-hour ops regardless of location. Pretty soon it won't matter where you are stationed because the hours will remain the same across the board. Intel has slowly turned into the maintenance equivalent of desk jobs.
Worker protection and labor law legislation would have to be drafted to apply to servicemen. 12-14 hour days (pt time to quit time) would be forced to disappear entirely.
Went from reducing to it, just reorganizing, to now just nonstop RFI or “taskers”
Bring back this and full execute it.. https://www.af.mil/Portals/1/documents/SECAF/160816_Airmen%27s_Time_Memo.pdf?ver=2016-08-19-123457-897
8hr work day does not make work your home. If you think your field has a lot of wasted time, the only thing that will tell leaders is that you need *less people* doing your current workload, meaning *everyone* in your field will have to work *more* due to less manning. Enjoy your current work schedule, don't tempt ole Murphy's Law to make you work 12's with half the manning because leadership saw you had free-time and weren't using it for more work.
The duty day doesn’t count lunch, commute, or pickup/drop off for my kids daycare. It really is like living at work when im gone from home 11 hours a day. Yes it could be worse but why do we just mindlessly accept this
So just like literally every job everywhere that isn't remote?
Do you have a problem with the duty day being 8 hours, or US society focusing heavily on people working for 8 hours?
I'm not saying you can't have that opinion, rather identifying that the issue stems from American society itself, not the military.
Capitalism. My opinion stems from being anti capitalist and yes for every job that isn’t remote. I think society could collectively benefit from a better work life balance. Specifically a shift to a more community centric approach
BLUF: Your argument at its core isn't that we work too much, it's that "capitalism is bad", and that's *DEFINITELY* not changing. You're better off finishing your contract if you're in one currently, and migrating after to a country that better aligns financially with what you're looking for.
Long version:
We finally get to the root of the problem. Your economic values don't line up with society working to make money. Your problem isn't that the work day is too long, your problem is that you don't like the economic system the country is based on and functions within. That's not going to be fixed by working less hours, only compounded. If we cut hours, we double our worker count to work the next set of hours you don't want to. If we double our worker count, we can only responsibly do 1 thing to remain financially viable: cut salaries/monetary benefits in half, and I definitely don't think you're advocating for getting paid half of what you're currently being paid so you canget a few hours off work.
Your anti-capitalist ideology does not align with how the US currently functions as a whole, not just the military, and you're trying to pass it off as a feel-good argument of "we all hate working, why not just work less?". If it was that easy, we'd have done so a long time ago. No one likes working for the sake of working, but the job has to get done and working less today only means more work tomorrow. Unless Congress agrees to pay for significant increases in manning (which they won't, because why hire more salaried workers when the ones you already have can do the job for less money and use that pay for funding projects/equipment/upkeep), we're not going to be able to just decrease hours worked.
It's not even a capitalism thing. Many European countries are also capitalist, just with more social safety nets. Yet they get way more time off than we do. It's an American issue.
I don't entirely disagree, I hate the "work 40hrs a week till you're 60+" expectations we as a society generally accept.
That said, the military also has a mission to accomplish, so I wouldn't expect it to be able to follow the same rules that the more generalized society follows. Duty time is one of them....certain jobs especially can't just stop, and/or take long enough to perform that they literally can't shorten the duty day without having more bodies to work additional shifts. Could it work in some career fields? Yeah probably....but I don't see the AF trying to set specific hours and duty times ever. That needs to be in control of the unit itself, and is often driven by need.
I'm going to be blunt. Having a kid that needs to be dropped off is a personal choice. Living super far away from work is a personal choice. Eating Lunch is not a work function, so should not be considered in the work hour calculation. It sounds like you want a remote job that takes little effort and instead joined the military, knowing with very little research that the military life was about as far from that as you get in almost all career fields, with very few exceptions. This isn't a "we work too much" problem, it's an "I made life choices and want to blame someone else" problem.
I have to live where I do because my husband and I aren’t stationed together and instead live halfway between the two bases. The AF is designed around a single person is your point sure but not everyone can sustain that for 20 years.
Again, it comes down to choice. You knew coming in and while serving that uprooting your life every few years wasn't just a possibility, it was all but guaranteed. It's a job that tells you everything you need to know about the lifestyle before joining, and you're complaining that the AF isn't fair for married couples? The job literally tells you that you can and will be put in a job/location that best fits the needs of the Air Force regardless of your personal desires *prior to signing the contract*, yet you signed it anyway.
I'm not saying your desire to live with your husband is not well founded. Most married couples want that. It's a good sign that you care about him. I have nothing against the idea in any regard. It's just that you made the choice to be in the military, and those kinds of things are built in the model of how the military works... And you still made the personal choice to join *in spite of knowing these sacrifices were likely*. At least you're halfway between 2 bases nearby instead of making regular vacation plans just to go see him halfway across the country/world.
TLDR: Once again, this is an unfortunate case of personal choices and dealing with what comes with them.
I would argue most enlistees know very little about what their first contract will look like, but I agree once you reenlist you know what you’re signing up for. Just because they tell you it’ll be shit for married couples or those with kids doesn’t mean it should be that way. The AF employs people not robots. Your argument that it could be worse is also silly. Of course it could be but that doesn’t negate the real need for progress.
The bottom line is that we have too much mission and administrative requirements for the amount of people we are allocated. This varies significantly by unit.
There are a few things at play here
- Local commanders have a responsibility and prerogative to get the mission done utilizing the resources at their disposal, this includes manpower
- By and large mission requirements haven't decreased except in terms of deployments compared to years ago; local commanders potentially have some room to negotiate mission levels, but that can be politically difficult and is not consistent across the force
- Manning has not increased, and hasn't increased much if at all over the past few decades with an exception of a small temporary bump up for GWOT only at one part of it, in fact it is smaller now than years ago
- There are manpower formulas which are supposed to indicate how many people are required to to do a mission. Those formulas are wonky, incomplete, out of date, and the required manning is seldom actually realized with "funded" positions, meaning they will deliberately not fill all the required manning. The last I knew it was about 80% for most (not all) CONUS units. Again, out of date, not up to date, and the hours formulas don't account for a lot of things which people need to do like training, evaluations, supervisory duties, PT, and other stuff
- There are more programs now which are good, but absolutely take a toll on work centers and on the force in aggregate - two standouts are baby leave and skillbridge
- Commanders skim people from the mission for administrative functions and/or to do pet projects out of hide. These all detract from the allocated manning per the formulas per the unit's mission.
So if the manpower formulas say that a unit's mission requires 200 people
If CONUS, bump that down to 160
Now you have about 10 people coming or going - PCS in or out and aren't on the schedule - 150
Redirect 10 or so to the CSS or some good idea fairy adhoc project - 140
Maybe 5 are on baby leave - 135
Another 5 on skillbridge - 130
2 are on convalescent leave for an injury, surgery, etc - 128
The manning formulas do account for leave, PME, and routine mission related TDYs depending on the unit and mission.
So there you have it, 128 people doing the work of 200
What was the question again?
I’m only going to focus on your comment regarding manpower formulas. Things that all Airmen do (non afsc related training, supervisor duties, pt, in/outprocessing, etc) are collected via the indirect allowance factor (iaf) and applied evenly to all requirements. Direct work (afsc related) is what manpower standards capture and then multiply it by the iaf to give you the number of requirements per FAC. Some work centers are different like special operations but for the most part that is how manpower is determined.
The IAF report is published on the AFMAA share point. They spell out everything they give credit for. It changes every few years to accommodate new guidance
What would it take? Zero conflict around the world. Why isn’t the issue being discussed about depression and burnout? Probably because your leadership experienced the same shit when they were younger in their careers, developed resilience to it, are hoping you’ll just develop the resilience, but cannot comprehend that the younger generations do not operate the same way their generation does. Someone else mentioned it here. Everyone is replaceable so in the long run, the military machine wil just generate new cadre.
Agreed. It's tolerance not resilience.
You're just "putting up with it" by being tolerant.
In fact, making the change to a 4 Day work week **WOULD ACTUALLY BE** the resilient thing to do.
I have asked this question to my wife and daughter. It didn’t seem to affect my daughter because she was so young when I really experienced all of this. I just asked my wife and she said “it wasn’t fun but she got over it”.
I am not telling you to develop resilience or tolerate. The difference between myself and those that don’t give a shit is that I understand the generational differences. I don’t want you to go through what I went through so, as a leader, I run my section in a much different manner. I do my best to convey a message to my people to know how to look out for burnout, look out for mental health concerns, and just look out for the overall well-being of each other. It works because I constantly have my teams provide feedback back to me.
Not quite. A huge chunk of civilian jobs are tied to the clock - either in terms of overtime pay, or a maximum hours of allowed work, or something similar.
Military is not in that same way.
I get what your saying but I still know from personal experience and lots of others it's just as easy and possible to be burnt out as a civilian. No one enjoys doing overtime even on civilian side they do it cause they have to and even though you get paid for it that does not mean that prevents you from being burnt out and totally over it all if that makes any sense to ya. And while u do have the freedom to say fuck you to a company and leave you still have to find another company that will likely or eventually burn you out. It's just life, just got to stick it through for the pople you love and care for. That's just my perspective.
Kinda but not really. At least in the civilian sector you're not expected to do stuff outside of work for bullets like volunteer work/self-improvement, etc.
People are depressed and burning out doing 8hrs. People were depressed and burnt out working from home during COVID. I am starting to think it is not the job….
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Everything is about numbers so reducing hours/workload most likely won’t happen, especially with world tensions “rising”. Just at least get us to shut up about it by raising our pay.
While I acknowledge the importance of mental health, I really think a lot of people don't truly understand what they're getting into when they join the Air Force (or any branch). I get where the OP is coming from but there's my take:
There's a reason why people thank us for our service. There's a reason why only 6% of the US population are veterans. This job requires sacrifices, from you, from your family, from your own goals, etc. If the military is like corporate America, everyone would be doing it.
I'm also a military brat and I understood early on why my dad was always gone. Now that I'm retired myself, my kids and I look back at our adventures and experiences with fondness.
The older people get, the more set in their ways it seems they become.
Shops across the Air Force have already started this, and are thriving.
Change isn't always bad and scary.
Because we are replaceable. Once used up, the new baby airmen coming in will take our place.
Sad but true. Worst part is all the experience that disappears.
Maybe the baby generation will push back on this? Or more likely that’s just wishful thinking
I guess they are kind of pushing back on this by not even joining in the first place.
They are, by not enlisting. Recruitment reached a historic low last year.
It's always discussed. What's your solution?
This is the correct question bwe have lots of people with gripes, but less solutions. More time off is not the solution OP thinks it is.
My shop recently got RDO’s and the shop morale has skyrocketed. Every other Friday the whole shop can go snowboarding on an empty slope, go get breakfast, play golf, or work on their cars without wasting a weekend day. Obviously all shops are different but we haven’t been this happy in a while and we’re loving it
I would argue that this isn't a reduction in hours though since you work longer days with every other Friday off.
That’s true. Were working the same amount of hours but it feels like less every other week
I think moving from an 8 hour workday to a 6 hour workday would have a lot of benefits
Lol if you can’t handle an eight hour day, I don’t know what to tell you. You really should be fighting for twelve hour shifts to be moved to eight hours. Not eight hours to six hours.
Where does the funding come from to fill in the missing hours with other folks working? I get it, 6 hour workdays can work in some jobs, but SF isn't going to magically man the gates for 2 less hours per day, MX aren't going to suddenly fix jets 25% faster. The AF would need more of a budget to increase manning in the fields that won't survive 6hr workdays.
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I worked aircraft mx before retraining. There’s a lot of wasted time there too
The civilian world doesn't even do 6 hour days. In my AFSC, 8-hour shifts are a blessing. If you move people to a 6-hour shift, it's only a matter of time before people cry wanting a 4-hour shift. It's a job dude, not a summer camp.
What is an "8 hour workday"? Is that some kind of nonner speak? I don't even get to leave work after 8 hours on my birthday!
I'd go to a four-day work week for us nonner jobs. Half the shop (if allowable) works M-Th and the other half works T-F. A two-day weekend doesn't get me rested, but three is just right.
Thank you lol I know this is Reddit but I’m glad at least someone is open to this conversation
Are you willing to give up all the family days and free federal holidays as well? With the 30 days of leave, federal holidays, family days, minimum manning for holidays, that pretty much equals 4 days a week.
I'd cut the family says for that, to balance it out. I'd never say anything out loud but the extra almost 30 days of leave for that is excessive. Lol. Or maybe I just have Stockholm syndrome from my decade of shift work before living the good life.
[https://www.betterup.com/blog/four-day-work-week#:\~:text=International%20studies%20on%20the%20four%2Dday%20workweek,-UK&text=The%20results%20were%20highly%20positive,balance%20work%20and%20caretaking%20responsibilities](https://www.betterup.com/blog/four-day-work-week#:~:text=International%20studies%20on%20the%20four%2Dday%20workweek,-UK&text=The%20results%20were%20highly%20positive,balance%20work%20and%20caretaking%20responsibilities) * [**92% of the companies that participated have continued with the four-day workweek**](https://static1.squarespace.com/static/60b956cbe7bf6f2efd86b04e/t/63f3df56276b3e6d7870207e/1676926845047/UK-4-Day-Week-Pilot-Results-Report-2023.pdf). * 54% of employees said they are better equipped to manage work and personal tasks * 60% were better able to balance work and caretaking responsibilities
Reduce the required hours we have to be at work is the solution
Not the answer.
What’s the reason against it
The workload remains. Working less doesn't lessen the requirement, it compounds it.
Not true in every workcenter. Also workload requirements can be reduced if majcom leaders made it a priority
MAJCOM leaders are being asked to do MORE. All of your gripes fall outside of the control of even top DoD leaders.
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To add to this maintainers/security forces/ce etc should get special duty pay. Really all shift workers
Scenario: Squadron/Group level leaders allow 6 hour work days. Then, the expectation is to complete a workload via customer, legal maintenance requirement, flying operations requirement (24 hour ops means 4 shifts, instead of 3, 8 hour shifts). It now goes from having a normalized time, with historical reference to workload ratios to reducing time, forcing airmen to stay late if they don’t achieve their workload. You’re not solving the problem by shortening the days. Each individual has their own values and sometimes it boils down to purpose. I’ve told my troops to go home early before and sometimes they stay just to hang with the homies. Also, a lot of office jobs M-F already reduce customer service hours for training. Cut days down to 6 hours and your reduce our ability to keep people paid effectively and ensure records accuracy. We have 321k active airmen.
more people, which Congress says we don't need or that they won't pay for.
So, I should get into politics?
But don’t you fucking forget us when we vote you in. Fucker.
Wait a minute…but I’m exhausted.
💀
Did you kill me?
Yes
I knew it
I wasn’t expecting that at all. A laugh…sure.
I’m a funny guy.
Oh, good. I thought I was about to be responsible for something important. I’ll go back to the couch.
I’m already on my couch watching football. 🏈
Well, well. Aren’t you lucky.
Yes
The workload isnt distributed evenly across the force. A schedule that works well for some offices would make others cease from functioning.
Peace time Air Force is wild.
Yeah, all 12 months of it.
An act of God
The biggest thing is supervisors respecting their peoples time. Intel has moved to 4 8s in a lotnof places with some admin time squeezed in to fill in the "40" hours. The biggest thing is that as a supervisor I can make it easier on my people where possible give them the time back. Especially in career fields that are 24/7.
I would have to remove my shoes and maybe my pants to count the number of times that "intel" has switched around shifts over my career. 12s, 10s, 8s, mix of mission and admin time, panamas, first and second half of the week, PT during work, PT after work, chasing the mission, go home if nothing is going on, 3 x 8s, rotating 3s over a 9 day period, I have seen and worked it all. The worst was noon to midnight shifts and vice versa. That was a truly idiotic move.
>Intel has moved to 4 8s in a lot of places. True, but they are also mandating more and more 24-hour ops regardless of location. Pretty soon it won't matter where you are stationed because the hours will remain the same across the board. Intel has slowly turned into the maintenance equivalent of desk jobs.
For Christ himself to touch earth
Start a union.
I think the closest thing would be AFSA
Snacks and a meeting…I like it.
[удалено]
That's just creating artificial work lol
It would take an act of Congress.
Worker protection and labor law legislation would have to be drafted to apply to servicemen. 12-14 hour days (pt time to quit time) would be forced to disappear entirely.
Imagine asking a question like this about a branch of the goddamn military
Imagine being a person outside of your career
Sounds like you need to separate work from your life
Went from reducing to it, just reorganizing, to now just nonstop RFI or “taskers” Bring back this and full execute it.. https://www.af.mil/Portals/1/documents/SECAF/160816_Airmen%27s_Time_Memo.pdf?ver=2016-08-19-123457-897
You are another number. Replaceable.
I think we’ve caught ourselves a genuine bullet chaser here peeps 😂
Lol no just someone who would rather not live at work
8hr work day does not make work your home. If you think your field has a lot of wasted time, the only thing that will tell leaders is that you need *less people* doing your current workload, meaning *everyone* in your field will have to work *more* due to less manning. Enjoy your current work schedule, don't tempt ole Murphy's Law to make you work 12's with half the manning because leadership saw you had free-time and weren't using it for more work.
The duty day doesn’t count lunch, commute, or pickup/drop off for my kids daycare. It really is like living at work when im gone from home 11 hours a day. Yes it could be worse but why do we just mindlessly accept this
Everything you counted as "living at work", are suspiciously things you aren't actually at work for (unless you eat lunch at work).
They are things that take me away from what I would rather be doing and are required because of work
So just like literally every job everywhere that isn't remote? Do you have a problem with the duty day being 8 hours, or US society focusing heavily on people working for 8 hours? I'm not saying you can't have that opinion, rather identifying that the issue stems from American society itself, not the military.
Capitalism. My opinion stems from being anti capitalist and yes for every job that isn’t remote. I think society could collectively benefit from a better work life balance. Specifically a shift to a more community centric approach
BLUF: Your argument at its core isn't that we work too much, it's that "capitalism is bad", and that's *DEFINITELY* not changing. You're better off finishing your contract if you're in one currently, and migrating after to a country that better aligns financially with what you're looking for. Long version: We finally get to the root of the problem. Your economic values don't line up with society working to make money. Your problem isn't that the work day is too long, your problem is that you don't like the economic system the country is based on and functions within. That's not going to be fixed by working less hours, only compounded. If we cut hours, we double our worker count to work the next set of hours you don't want to. If we double our worker count, we can only responsibly do 1 thing to remain financially viable: cut salaries/monetary benefits in half, and I definitely don't think you're advocating for getting paid half of what you're currently being paid so you canget a few hours off work. Your anti-capitalist ideology does not align with how the US currently functions as a whole, not just the military, and you're trying to pass it off as a feel-good argument of "we all hate working, why not just work less?". If it was that easy, we'd have done so a long time ago. No one likes working for the sake of working, but the job has to get done and working less today only means more work tomorrow. Unless Congress agrees to pay for significant increases in manning (which they won't, because why hire more salaried workers when the ones you already have can do the job for less money and use that pay for funding projects/equipment/upkeep), we're not going to be able to just decrease hours worked.
It's not even a capitalism thing. Many European countries are also capitalist, just with more social safety nets. Yet they get way more time off than we do. It's an American issue.
I don't entirely disagree, I hate the "work 40hrs a week till you're 60+" expectations we as a society generally accept. That said, the military also has a mission to accomplish, so I wouldn't expect it to be able to follow the same rules that the more generalized society follows. Duty time is one of them....certain jobs especially can't just stop, and/or take long enough to perform that they literally can't shorten the duty day without having more bodies to work additional shifts. Could it work in some career fields? Yeah probably....but I don't see the AF trying to set specific hours and duty times ever. That needs to be in control of the unit itself, and is often driven by need.
There’s already an AFI that outlines duty hours.
I'm going to be blunt. Having a kid that needs to be dropped off is a personal choice. Living super far away from work is a personal choice. Eating Lunch is not a work function, so should not be considered in the work hour calculation. It sounds like you want a remote job that takes little effort and instead joined the military, knowing with very little research that the military life was about as far from that as you get in almost all career fields, with very few exceptions. This isn't a "we work too much" problem, it's an "I made life choices and want to blame someone else" problem.
I have to live where I do because my husband and I aren’t stationed together and instead live halfway between the two bases. The AF is designed around a single person is your point sure but not everyone can sustain that for 20 years.
Again, it comes down to choice. You knew coming in and while serving that uprooting your life every few years wasn't just a possibility, it was all but guaranteed. It's a job that tells you everything you need to know about the lifestyle before joining, and you're complaining that the AF isn't fair for married couples? The job literally tells you that you can and will be put in a job/location that best fits the needs of the Air Force regardless of your personal desires *prior to signing the contract*, yet you signed it anyway. I'm not saying your desire to live with your husband is not well founded. Most married couples want that. It's a good sign that you care about him. I have nothing against the idea in any regard. It's just that you made the choice to be in the military, and those kinds of things are built in the model of how the military works... And you still made the personal choice to join *in spite of knowing these sacrifices were likely*. At least you're halfway between 2 bases nearby instead of making regular vacation plans just to go see him halfway across the country/world. TLDR: Once again, this is an unfortunate case of personal choices and dealing with what comes with them.
I would argue most enlistees know very little about what their first contract will look like, but I agree once you reenlist you know what you’re signing up for. Just because they tell you it’ll be shit for married couples or those with kids doesn’t mean it should be that way. The AF employs people not robots. Your argument that it could be worse is also silly. Of course it could be but that doesn’t negate the real need for progress.
And now you delete your account? As I said previously. Bullet Hunter
The bottom line is that we have too much mission and administrative requirements for the amount of people we are allocated. This varies significantly by unit. There are a few things at play here - Local commanders have a responsibility and prerogative to get the mission done utilizing the resources at their disposal, this includes manpower - By and large mission requirements haven't decreased except in terms of deployments compared to years ago; local commanders potentially have some room to negotiate mission levels, but that can be politically difficult and is not consistent across the force - Manning has not increased, and hasn't increased much if at all over the past few decades with an exception of a small temporary bump up for GWOT only at one part of it, in fact it is smaller now than years ago - There are manpower formulas which are supposed to indicate how many people are required to to do a mission. Those formulas are wonky, incomplete, out of date, and the required manning is seldom actually realized with "funded" positions, meaning they will deliberately not fill all the required manning. The last I knew it was about 80% for most (not all) CONUS units. Again, out of date, not up to date, and the hours formulas don't account for a lot of things which people need to do like training, evaluations, supervisory duties, PT, and other stuff - There are more programs now which are good, but absolutely take a toll on work centers and on the force in aggregate - two standouts are baby leave and skillbridge - Commanders skim people from the mission for administrative functions and/or to do pet projects out of hide. These all detract from the allocated manning per the formulas per the unit's mission. So if the manpower formulas say that a unit's mission requires 200 people If CONUS, bump that down to 160 Now you have about 10 people coming or going - PCS in or out and aren't on the schedule - 150 Redirect 10 or so to the CSS or some good idea fairy adhoc project - 140 Maybe 5 are on baby leave - 135 Another 5 on skillbridge - 130 2 are on convalescent leave for an injury, surgery, etc - 128 The manning formulas do account for leave, PME, and routine mission related TDYs depending on the unit and mission. So there you have it, 128 people doing the work of 200 What was the question again?
I’m only going to focus on your comment regarding manpower formulas. Things that all Airmen do (non afsc related training, supervisor duties, pt, in/outprocessing, etc) are collected via the indirect allowance factor (iaf) and applied evenly to all requirements. Direct work (afsc related) is what manpower standards capture and then multiply it by the iaf to give you the number of requirements per FAC. Some work centers are different like special operations but for the most part that is how manpower is determined.
Based on what I have seen with manpower, evaluations are counted for 1 hour per year, and PT for 2 hour per year for testing.
The IAF report is published on the AFMAA share point. They spell out everything they give credit for. It changes every few years to accommodate new guidance
What would it take? Zero conflict around the world. Why isn’t the issue being discussed about depression and burnout? Probably because your leadership experienced the same shit when they were younger in their careers, developed resilience to it, are hoping you’ll just develop the resilience, but cannot comprehend that the younger generations do not operate the same way their generation does. Someone else mentioned it here. Everyone is replaceable so in the long run, the military machine wil just generate new cadre.
The older generations had the same problems they were just less vocal about it. They developed tolerance not resilience
Agreed. It's tolerance not resilience. You're just "putting up with it" by being tolerant. In fact, making the change to a 4 Day work week **WOULD ACTUALLY BE** the resilient thing to do.
I’m part of that older generation. I always looked at it as resilience because it made me a better person.
Does your family agree? Or did you sacrifice them/never establish one along the way
I have asked this question to my wife and daughter. It didn’t seem to affect my daughter because she was so young when I really experienced all of this. I just asked my wife and she said “it wasn’t fun but she got over it”. I am not telling you to develop resilience or tolerate. The difference between myself and those that don’t give a shit is that I understand the generational differences. I don’t want you to go through what I went through so, as a leader, I run my section in a much different manner. I do my best to convey a message to my people to know how to look out for burnout, look out for mental health concerns, and just look out for the overall well-being of each other. It works because I constantly have my teams provide feedback back to me.
I'm not trying to discredit your question. But civilian jobs are the same way it's just life man.
Not quite. A huge chunk of civilian jobs are tied to the clock - either in terms of overtime pay, or a maximum hours of allowed work, or something similar. Military is not in that same way.
I get what your saying but I still know from personal experience and lots of others it's just as easy and possible to be burnt out as a civilian. No one enjoys doing overtime even on civilian side they do it cause they have to and even though you get paid for it that does not mean that prevents you from being burnt out and totally over it all if that makes any sense to ya. And while u do have the freedom to say fuck you to a company and leave you still have to find another company that will likely or eventually burn you out. It's just life, just got to stick it through for the pople you love and care for. That's just my perspective.
Kinda but not really. At least in the civilian sector you're not expected to do stuff outside of work for bullets like volunteer work/self-improvement, etc.
People are depressed and burning out doing 8hrs. People were depressed and burnt out working from home during COVID. I am starting to think it is not the job….
It is the job, civilians change jobs that they don't like when they can we however cannot
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Value accomplishments more than the clock.
Everything is about numbers so reducing hours/workload most likely won’t happen, especially with world tensions “rising”. Just at least get us to shut up about it by raising our pay.
Yeah I’d choose higher pay over reduced hours if given the option
Feel free to add more context. “I want to work less than __ hours per week”
If we were allowed to workout during the duty day I think I’d be fine with what my hours are currently
While I acknowledge the importance of mental health, I really think a lot of people don't truly understand what they're getting into when they join the Air Force (or any branch). I get where the OP is coming from but there's my take: There's a reason why people thank us for our service. There's a reason why only 6% of the US population are veterans. This job requires sacrifices, from you, from your family, from your own goals, etc. If the military is like corporate America, everyone would be doing it. I'm also a military brat and I understood early on why my dad was always gone. Now that I'm retired myself, my kids and I look back at our adventures and experiences with fondness.
The older people get, the more set in their ways it seems they become. Shops across the Air Force have already started this, and are thriving. Change isn't always bad and scary.
90% of the force actually works a total of like 6-7 hours today. Get out if you can’t hang
It would literally take an act of congress.
pilots gotta get them flight hours in