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R2S App CAC Use

AFUAW

Active Member
pilot
  • Example: In sorting out a DFAS issue (SGLI payments), I eventually spoke with someone who haD been there for 30+ years. The technical skills of this person were abysmal given the need. The person's predecessor (a 35 year DFAS employee) passed away and took all institutional knowledge to the grave (ie, the person did not document or write anything down because, you know, job security)

I'm glad (or sad) to hear that I'm not the only one going through this. Did your SGLI payments also disappear into the abyss?

Screw you DFAS. Get your shit together.
 

ABMD

Bullets don't fly without Supply
  • Example: In sorting out a DFAS issue (SGLI payments), I eventually spoke with someone who haD been there for 30+ years. The technical skills of this person were abysmal given the need. The person's predecessor (a 35 year DFAS employee) passed away and took all institutional knowledge to the grave (ie, the person did not document or write anything down because, you know, job security)

not Navy related, but my old boss did this same thing. After a unfortunate series of events (maybe it was fortunate because he was a jerk) he no longer is employed with the company and I was asked to step-in to his spot. Guess what was the first thing I did, document the crap out of everything.
 

bubblehead

Registered Member
Contributor
not Navy related, but my old boss did this same thing. After a unfortunate series of events (maybe it was fortunate because he was a jerk) he no longer is employed with the company and I was asked to step-in to his spot. Guess what was the first thing I did, document the crap out of everything.
People like this are called "information brokers" and intentionally do not document anything because they are either incompetent, or they think that by keeping all of the information that they are somehow protecting their jobs, or both.

I see it all of the time in my line of work and make a concerted effort to surgically remove and eviscerate anyone who so much as smells like an information broker. People like this are extremely toxic to an organization.

I've been dealing with a turd like this in my current role for a few months. Final straw was that individual has been told numerous times to provide us with access to a couple of systems. Has yet to provide said access after numerous requests over a few weeks. They are going to fix the glitch here shortly. If I were the boss, I would have done it the first month I was here.
 
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ABMD

Bullets don't fly without Supply
He was in the same role for 20+ years and he was toxic, an outgoing coworker called him a cancer to the unit. Every person that has even worked with him has either quit or transferred internally. He was about a year away from retirement when he was given an early retirement. He had so many excuses as to why he didn't want things documented (Things change too often, you can't document every situation, regulators could find it and hold us accountable for not following the procedures to "T", etc). His attitude was definitely one of "I'm untouchable because no one has the experience that I do", well that all changed when his bad behavior irritated/triggered the wrong person. A few interviews with HR later and he was called into a meeting and never returned.
 

bubblehead

Registered Member
Contributor
He was in the same role for 20+ years and he was toxic, an outgoing coworker called him a cancer to the unit. Every person that has even worked with him has either quit or transferred internally. He was about a year away from retirement when he was given an early retirement. He had so many excuses as to why he didn't want things documented (Things change too often, you can't document every situation, regulators could find it and hold us accountable for not following the procedures to "T", etc). His attitude was definitely one of "I'm untouchable because no one has the experience that I do", well that all changed when his bad behavior irritated/triggered the wrong person. A few interviews with HR later and he was called into a meeting and never returned.
Do you work for a large financial institution. This experience is eerily similar to what I dealt with when I worked for one in particular.
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Navy IT has and always will suck. Several impediments:
  • The GS and SES (PhD required... please...) pay scales suck, which makes it difficult to attract and to retain requisite talent
    • What you end up with are a pool of people who have a CISSP or related, and very little work experience. Why? Because, all you need for many security/IT govvie jobs is a certification. And, what do these people do? They stay forever and stagnate because they are unemployable in the private sector
    • You could literally be a goat herder with a clearance and get a govvie IT job if you have a CISSP
  • Military owned and contractor operated networks and systems
  • IT rate training sucks and does not teach people how to troubleshoot. Typical Navy issue of wanting to pump out more widgets: it just lowers the bar
  • A multitude of ignorant, aging Navy civilians who are in the IT workforce who are not qualified
    • Example: In sorting out a DFAS issue (SGLI payments), I eventually spoke with someone who haD been there for 30+ years. The technical skills of this person were abysmal given the need. The person's predecessor (a 35 year DFAS employee) passed away and took all institutional knowledge to the grave (ie, the person did not document or write anything down because, you know, job security)

And yet the other services and much of government, which has nearly all of the same constraints and limitations, has IT services that are far better than the Navy's, admittedly a very low bar. . My colleagues in the Army and Air Force have nowhere near the amount of complaints related to IT as those of us who have to suffer through NMCI do and from what little I have seen over their shoulder of what they deal with is a fraction of the stupid NMCI is. The simple fact that a retired Navy reservist's link page remains the resource for much of the Navy Reserve to access Navy IT is a pathetically sad commentary on just how fucked up Navy IT is.

I'm convinced that this issue persists because our leadership doesn't have to deal with the day to day dysfunction that is NMCI, one of those 'thousand little cuts' that is added to the 'go' pile when folks are deciding whether or not to stay in the service.
 
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Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
The simple fact that a retired Navy reservist's link page remains the resource for much of the Navy Reserve to access Navy IT is a pathetically sad commentary on just how fucked up Navy IT is.
I never actively discouraged any of my reservists from using Kelly Beamsley, even if it made me cringe to see people relying on it, but I did actively encourage using the official reserve homeport. I mean the one with the CAC login. I even printed out color screenshots with bright arrows pointing to the five or six most commonly used links, the URL in giant, easy-to-read letters, and posted the copies around our computer labs (might as well make it as easy as possible).

Then the reserves "revamped" the reserve homeport webpage. The air quotes mean it's a euphemism for "screwed up something that was working just fine." Why, why, why? And that's when I stopped encouraging people from using it... waste of my time and a waste of theirs.
 

ABMD

Bullets don't fly without Supply
It isn't just the Navy. Imagine being a reservist that drills at an gov agency that requires you to log-in once every 30 days to keep your access. Now imagine you drill twice a quarter, have AT & ADT to complete, resheds, etc. They couldn't figure out how/wouldn't give Reservists remote access so it was a nonstop revolving door of having access revoked and spending 2-3 DWEs getting it back, only to have it revoked 2 months later.
 

ABMD

Bullets don't fly without Supply
Do you work for a large financial institution. This experience is eerily similar to what I dealt with when I worked for one in particular.

not a financial institution, but a regulated utility. Basically like working for the government, people started out of high school/college, worked for 40+ years and now retire with a fat pension and 401(k). Lots of people with no ambitions and no desire for higher-performance.
 

Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
I haven't said it in this thread (and aside from my general grousing about Navy IT), the reserves' R2S app along with the miniature card reader is a great idea that is well executed.

It might surprise some people, but a lot of reservists do not have a laptop or home computer (it's a generational and demographic thing), but nearly everybody has a smartphone.

The app started out a lot like a mobile version of the reserve website, including access to NMCI email and NROWS (albeit clumsy access to NROWS because it doesn't fit on a small screen). They added DTS about a year ago (I can't remember which version got it first- iOS or Android).

Maybe it's fixed by now, maybe not, but letting the app and/or NMCI webmail reset the NMCI account lockout clock would make it perfect. This isn't a reserve problem though, it's an NMCI problem. If it were my choice, I would figure out whatever admiral signed off on that policy, that if you don't login to an NMCI machine every 30 days then your account gets locked out. Then I would make sure that admiral's email got cc'ed with every single help desk account reset trouble ticket. Make him or her feel some pain for the ridiculous waste of sailors' time and the taxpayers' money that their policy has caused.


At least the timeframe got bumped up to 60 days for the reserves instead of 30 (that's a small victory like getting out of a 26 in a 25 ticket on base) but let's say you have a couple dozen guys in your unit and the next drill weekend is in 28 days and then 35 after that, except next month your unit is doing a field exercise... real good use of people's time trying to find a free NMCI computer just to login and logout, and goodness help you if you click the wrong thing and make it take ten minutes loading your entire profile. (And every single time that that happens, that same admiral get a nuisance email notification.)

Or they could just say logging in to webmail = your account clock gets reset. Nah, too sensible.
 

nittany03

Recovering NFO. Herder of Programmers.
pilot
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Well it’s all gonna be moot when encrypted OWA gets deprecated and Big Navy IT gets caught with their collective dick in their hand. What do you mean the reservists can’t do evals now?

Not to mention someone had the genius idea to push an NROWS build, with no notice mind you, that REQUIRES the Sailor to update GTCC and passport info before the unit can push orders. Bringing N3 departments across the force (or at least the one I run) to a screeching halt until I can herd the cats to get their shit updated. Because that’s just an OK thing for me to need to do on top of the two DH hats I’m wearing and my civilian job . . . ?
 

Jim123

DD-214 in hand and I'm gonna party like it's 1998
pilot
Well it’s all gonna be moot when encrypted OWA gets deprecated and Big Navy IT gets caught with their collective dick in their hand. What do you mean the reservists can’t do evals now?

Not to mention someone had the genius idea to push an NROWS build, with no notice mind you, that REQUIRES the Sailor to update GTCC and passport info before the unit can push orders. Bringing N3 departments across the force (or at least the one I run) to a screeching halt until I can herd the cats to get their shit updated. Because that’s just an OK thing for me to need to do on top of the two DH hats I’m wearing and my civilian job . . . ?
That's... really impressive. FY19 AT waivers for all my friends!!

Glad I missed that shitshow and the OWA sundown shitshow that I'll miss out on.
 

Flash

SEVAL/ECMO
None
Super Moderator
Contributor
Not to mention someone had the genius idea to push an NROWS build, with no notice mind you, that REQUIRES the Sailor to update GTCC and passport info before the unit can push orders. Bringing N3 departments across the force (or at least the one I run) to a screeching halt until I can herd the cats to get their shit updated. Because that’s just an OK thing for me to need to do on top of the two DH hats I’m wearing and my civilian job . . . ?

It's a lot easier to do that when you put in enough random numbers until it accepts them as your GTCC number and clicking you have no passport. Just sayin'.... :D
 

scoolbubba

Brett327 gargles ballsacks
pilot
Contributor
Now come to orange and white-land. You have not one but two really shitty systems that will not only lock you out, but will also delete your profile if you don’t log in.

I foresee a lot of drills spent unfucking computer access. Oh well, if the navy wants to pay me to drink coffee and sit on hold, that’s their prerogative.
 
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