re: Got fired today

Hopefully you're getting disability on top of your retirement cause it sounds like a service related disability is making it difficult for you to hold a job.

Sciatica pain is no joke.

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Texted him both times

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Bad move. Call when you're unable to make it in to work.

Also, you were still within the 90 day probation period of the company. Just bad luck on your part but can't fault the company either. You'll be fine. There's a bigger plan for you.

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you're over-generalizing a little, in my opinion, but what you say is accurate to a large degree, especially regarding profit motive and budgets. it's hard to shift your mindset to think like that. that said, military guys tend to bring a "get it done" attitude that a lot of non-military guys dont have. the most successful guys are the ones who quickly learn that the trick is to "get it done" but also to do so under budget constraints. in the military, the priority is mission accomplishment. in the private sector, the priority is staying under budget (making money).

other strengths a lot of military guys can bring is an ability to manage people well. this obviously varies widely by the individual - a drill instructor probably wont do great if he cant transition from that mentality, but a guy that has been a platoon sergeant or a platoon commander is likely pretty good at management people - basic leadership.

weaknesses exist for sure - we get a ton of time off in the military. like, a TON. 30 days paid leave every year, 4 day weekends for virtually every holiday that exists and then some others that literally no one else gets off for, plus going to the gym or for a run in the middle of the workday is usually accepted if not celebrated, leaving early or coming in late for family stuff is usually fine, spending an entire day "at medical". this does not translate AT ALL to the civilian work force / private sector.

another weakness is that a lot of vets have a sense of entitlement that, quite honestly, infuriates me. i could start a whole other thread on this, but i'll leave it at that.

just for context, i spent 9 years active duty, got out and worked construction management for several years, then ultimately went back active duty. the reasons i went back in vary. some of it lines up with the stuff above, some of it is jsut that i missed the camaraderie that you dont get in the private sector. i did fine in the civilian world (not great, i'm not trying to suck my own dick here), and i would have been fine if i had stayed there. i had options. ultimately though, that life just wasnt for me. i like going to the gym durign working hours too much

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All of the strengths you mention do pay off after a period of adjustment...that is why it is imperative for companies, especially large companies and particularly those doing business with the governmnt, to hire freshly separated military people. Larger companies can weather the adjustment period better than small companies can. In the case of a business doing business with the government most operate in a space that is halfway between the two...giving the freshly separated military person a place where some things are familiar yet there is enough different to ease into the major differences.

I have a good, dear friend who was a Command Master Chief in the. I met him toward the end of his naval career when he was the highest ranked enlisted man on the base. He had some personal issues then...marital problems and a slight problem with alcohol...no worse than a lot of men in their mid 40s. He was, however, squared away militarily...as well as anyone I ever met and I have worked with a BUNCH of MCPOs and CSMs as a civillian so I have had a unique perspective of those lofty perches. When I met him we were three sheets to the wind and had been playing ship, captain and crew at the MWR Marina..he had been a prick all night and toward the end of the evening I had had enough and I started giving him as good as I was getting from him...it did not get physical (hed have beat me like a rented mule LOL but he woulda had it to do) but it got very contentious...to the point that he and I were the only one left at the marina. We both got tired and calmed down and became pretty good friends that night...we have gotten to be better friends since. He told me that night that there had only been 7 or 8 civillians in his life he could tolerate and damn if I wasn't #10. I don't know why I wasn't #9 but #10 was good enough for both of us. A few weeks after this were were playing poker and aftewards he and I were smoking cigars and drinking and he told me he was retiring...and that he would never be in charge of anything ever again. That shite hit....here was a man who had been a GOD over other men, many of them men in every sense of the word, who knew his days of being a GOD were numbered. I was truly concerned about it...I asked him if he might be depressed...he said he wasn't, wasn't suicidal but might become homocidal if I fricked with him about it LOL.

A month later they had his retirement ceremony and he came over to me and told me had a job with the base contractor as a project manager. He was going to be in charge of a project...he was on top of the world. I was happy as I could be for him. He came back to the base a month later a civillian contractor working as a PM. He was escorted off the base by the MPS less than 2 weeks in...he had the entire crew of foreign nationals working on an addition to the little house he was entitled to and was, of course, using materials that belonged to the base. I talked to him just a few days after this and he was really confused, said had he done the same thing 7 weeks earlier he'd have been recognized for solving problems. I don't know if I buy that but he is convinced of it.

Fast forward to today, he is doing fine. He works for a state department contractor doing god knows what in far flung places all over the world...and is happier than a pig in slop. Still drinks wayyy too much and probably still using foreign national labor to his own purposes but he is as happy as a person can be. It is really tough on a lot of military people to make the transition....many never make it. The longer they served and the more responsibility they had the worse it tends to be.

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A month later they had his retirement ceremony and he came over to me and told me had a job with the base contractor as a project manager. He was going to be in charge of a project...he was on top of the world. I was happy as I could be for him. He came back to the base a month later a civillian contractor working as a PM. He was escorted off the base by the MPS less than 2 weeks in...he had the entire crew of foreign nationals working on an addition to the little house he was entitled to and was, of course, using materials that belonged to the base. I talked to him just a few days after this and he was really confused, said had he done the same thing 7 weeks earlier he'd have been recognized for solving problems. I don't know if I buy that but he is convinced of it.

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this dude sounds shady as frick and i wouldnt trust him in the military, as a GS, as a contractor, or in the private sector.

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It is really tough on a lot of military people to make the transition....many never make it. The longer they served and the more responsibility they had the worse it tends to be.

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it's a sense of belonging, it's a sense of purpose, it's a sense of camaraderie. Sebastian Junger has talked about it quite a bit, and i think that's what his book Tribe is about. what a lot of vets and military-adjacent entities call "PTSD" is really just an adjustment disorder. vets arent committing suicide because of combat trauma, they're committing suicide because they dont feel they belong in the civilian world. it's a significant cultural divide.

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it is a little noticeable that you tend to respond to him a lot

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Is it, or are you just imagining things? I asked him a question in this thread (the first time I've interacted with him in a while), and he answered with a pissy little response, so I asked him about it.

Then he goes off with his hysterics such as I'm "following him around and downvoting him" (which is always a weird thing to be obsessed about in my opinion - who the hell pays attention to the voting stats - I think I up or downvote someone maybe once a month).

He also accuses me of keeping some sort of dossier on him, when the only things that I bring up are from very active threads that he started about his divorce and then harboring some illegal aliens. That's no different than bringing up Roger's alcoholism and swinging. If you talk about your life on a public message board, people may act like the information is, well, public.

Didn’t happen

You didn’t hold back any 800mg ibuprofens?

Sucks they fired you but next job up.

First time to not work for the government, huh?