I know I know...I haven't written.
I don't even know what day I am on here. Things got very busy as I expected they would. One of the things they do is pile things onto you, at first people just kind of hang back and do a little here and a little there. Well come week three they end up getting swamped. I've learned to do as much as you can and just get it done. With the job I do, I can't predict what my shift will bring, so I have always done all my shift tasks so that I can do one of two things later.
The first thing I do after I am done...absolutely nothing, which is a luxury. You want me to do nothing.
The second is I am free to do my job, I am like a conductor in the orchestra of disaster. I facilitate damn near everything that is going on in some capacity. The reality is, if I am doing my job someone is dead, dying or in serious peril. It is either balls to the wall or dead calm.
It has equipped me well for this, even with my planning this was the week where everything kind of came to a boil.
Peoples nerves have been frazzled and it has shown. I've met some cool people during this class, but I am so ready to be done for this. A lot of negativity, a lot of people who think they are experts and then just some flat out ignorance.
I don't want to be here but I don't see the point of bitching about it every five minutes. I can't get out of it so why be miserable? The experts are hilarious, they try to explain how everything is wrong and why it should be a certain way. The phrase "should be" always makes me laugh, it's very subjective. In this school there is one way, the way they teach you. A couple of these people have been served humble pie on test days. Don't get me started on ignorance.
One guy has been in 18 years and was shocked when he found out his wife would have to dress up for our graduation banquet. How do you not know that? We are all getting dressed up and you think you can have someone show up in jeans? This isn't a night out at Red Lobster.
I was talking to my wife last night and I was telling her how it amazes me that cats in here who have been in for 17 or 18 years just have no clue about things that I always thought were basic.
I mean, basic things like dressing for a banquet, how to properly wear a uniform, the difference between "to" and "too" and the list could go on to on.
Then I have found the people who really need attention.
One guy is the "one upper" which means he has to add on to anything you do or have done. If you have eaten 10 oreos in one sitting, you can bet that he has eaten 15.
He is also a TI...a new one at that, and feel the need to try and impress everyone with jumping airmen at random. Over very minor nothings. I am all about discipline and keeping people in line, but I don't like jumping someone for the sake of show or your own ego. That is foul. Then another guy has decided he needs to do that stuff too. I got into it with the TI yesterday and had we been in a different environment he would have got his feelings hurt. I am in line and I see the look of terror on some of the airmen as they see someone with a bunch of stripes standing next to them.
Airmen go through phases, there is a time where you are not nice, you don't have to be an asshole...but you aren't nice. As they progress you let them be people a bit more. So I just ask to a couple "Hey, are you guys ready for the weekend" to which elicits a small, yet unsure smile and then suddenly...the TI looks at me and said that this isn't the time for hugs. My bitch switch almost flipped, if I wasn't surrounded by airmen I would have went off...I think he knows this and that is why he does it. It's not proper for people at our rank to argue in front of airmen.
I called him on it later and he was "joking". Sure you were. That is his one and only freebie.
Today is Saturday and the airmen who graduated basic get a town pass with their family. I think to make up for the dickheadedness™ of some I am going to spend a decent part of my day shaking hands and telling families in front of their airman, what an amazing job he or she did over the past eight weeks.
Which reminds me, I went to the graduation of basic training yesterday and I stood back and watched the families. I tell you, I am a proud father and I remember what I looked like when my children were born, but not even I could smile and beam with the pride that I saw from these family members in the stands as their child marched by. It was truly amazing. I saw moms with their "parent pin" displayed proudly in the parking lot.
I never really understood the big deal with it, my parents are the same way. Always saying they are proud of me...I never quite got it, it is just something I do. It is who I am. When I saw those faces, hundreds...the energy was intense. The love could be felt across the field. It was pure, unadulterated pride.
Anyways, enough emotion...this has been a good course so far. Not academically, but just things I have learned. I have learned a lot of what not to do. Maybe that is the point of all this, maybe it's not just about the books. The book stuff is easy, it is all right there for you.
People just are spending too much time arguing about it. For the test we took Thursday, out of 190 people who took it, 70% failed. In my class alone 50% failed. Not that I would suggest this to everyone...but the night before I went to Outback with a couple friends...and one was designated driver. I got DRUNK. Yeah, drunk. I had a blast though, I talked to some cool ass people at the bar and I was relaxed. I go in the next morning hungover as hell and guess who go the highest score? Me. I looked at the material and didn't spend my time questioning, I spent my time absorbing.
Same goes for the speech I had to do yesterday. I wrote it Thursday night and gave it on Friday. The room thought I was an expert on Liberia and was captivated for 10 minutes. I could have said anything, but it was how I said it that drew people in. It's all about charisma too, which I have been blessed with. You can't teach it. I have charisma, the gift of gab and game...I'm lucky and I know that. Like right now, there is a reason you are reading this. I scored very high, and some were too busy thinking about how it should be done instead of just doing it. Sometimes thinking gets you messed up, you need to just get out there and handle business.
Actually...everything written above I wrote this morning, then I took a break to go and eat some breakfast. I went down to Cracker Barrel because my arteries just aren't as hardened as I would like them to be. As I ate I watched a family pull up, the dad got out beaming, his son was in his blues and adjusted his hat at least 439 times. That is a sure sign of a newbie.
As I went to pay for my meal the kid was next to me with his girlfriend/fiance/wife or someone along those lines. I asked him if he just graduated BMT and he locked it up, I congratulated him and his lady friend was beaming. It just felt good. Then as I left I saw another airman and his parents. I went out of my way to go back to talk to them. I said "are you the proud parents" and they beamed I shook their hands, introduced myself as Technical Sergeant Coleman and then the kid looked scared, so I talked him up and made him look even better in front of his parents.
I do things like this kind of often actually, just not at a level like this where I am seeing parents directly. People don't get thanked enough, when was the last time you really thanked the employee at McDonalds, when was the last time you asked a random person how they were doing? Those little things...you never know when, but they could be something huge..dare I say life altering in someones life. Those parents today...how do you think I made that mom feel when I further reinforced her son was, is and will be awesome? I guarantee that a few people won't forget that sergeant who came up to them at random in one of the proudest moments of their life.
The bonus part is, I still feel good about it too.
People poke at me from time to time in class because some say at times "you can't always be nice". If anything, my problem is I often care too much. You can always be nice. I learned long ago it is a lot easier to kill someone with kindness, mostly because it always keeps them guessing.
Life is too short to be a miserable anger monger.
Do me a favor...today, do something out of the blue or just nice.
Little things, I am not asking for much. Ladies...give a smile to a random guy...better yet, a wink. You just mad that guys day. Guys need their ego fed, especially as we get older...we need to know we "Still got it".
Guys, come out of that comfort zone and tell a lady how nice she looks, take notice if she changed her hair, ask her what kind of perfume she is wearing and tell her it smells amazing.
I told my waitress the other night she was the best waitress I have ever had, I wasn't lying...but I don't think she had heard that much.
I know I am straying, but this whole week was really negative from a lot of people and I am trying to shake that off. I'm no "tree hugger" but man, it's nice to be nice and to have nice things done for you.
That is all I'm really saying...
