This is a military employment story, that is ongoing. I have been in long enough that I could request my retirement separation at anytime now. The funny thing is, although the military has screwed me over several times, I still made plans to stay longer than necessary.
I am in a job (MOS) that has always been useful after retirement, but the job market is just on fire lately. The military had been giving bonuses to keep us in the 90s, quit that in the 2000s, then started firing us until 2016, now they can’t figure out how to keep enough of us in, because the lifestyle and money is night and day in the civilian world “afterlife”.
If you’ve never been military, you might be surprised at the people they will appoint as your leader, only because they have a 4 year degree. I was in a even more surprising situation, where my boss had just transferred over to our branch (grouping of jobs by type of operations). This takes place a mere 5 weeks into him being my boss, he has literally never talked to me about my job or performance, so he doesn’t know half of what I do around here.
My dumbass actually planned to stay as long as possible, and beef up my pension. But when I made a simple request to keep my family in one place a year or two longer than normal, my new commander gave the thumbs down, which told the next 2 levels above him to do the same, because he doesn’t use me properly, or even know what my experience is.
I did my normal preparations to move on, to a final location before retirement. A month later, the s#!+ hit the fan, and I am here to save the day, pulling him out of a deep hole he dug for himself. Now he sees me as a “valuable member of the family” and urgently wants me to start the paperwork over again quickly, to keep me because only now does he realize how screwed he will be when I am gone. My replacement won’t come for months, if not close to 2 years like when I arrived here to dusty desk and an antiquated computer.
Nope. You said I didn’t contribute, because I’m the silent professional. I’m not a part of the “family” now just because you need it. Bye Felicia.