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Highwater FITREP Burden

Timing can get people who should have otherwise not gotten good fitreps hooked up. Saw it in my last squadron post transition where as a result a whole group of non instructors checked out together and some guys who would have been MPs in any other group get high EPs. Sucks there when you factor in sometimes you have a group of good dudes where someone loses the EP musical chairs game.

That being said, honest conversations need to happen, either with your leadership or with yourself.
 
Waveoff said:
As a JO less than halfway through my first sea tour, I appreciate everyone’s bluntness, honesty, and background information on the subject of fitreps and retirement goals. Not a pilot (and hopefully not a thread-jack) but the general principles here are a sobering reminder of the reality of the Navy machine.
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Military or civilian, just remember:
  • You can love your job, but it will never, ever love you back.
  • Everyone leaves the Navy eventually, and the grass isn't necessarily colored any differently here. It's just grass. The Navy and Navy Air does some things much better than the private sector, but also some things much worse.
  • Your CO will only give you a good FITREP if he/she feels you can add value in a higher assignment. A hiring manager will only hire you if they feel you can add value in their assignment. Bar act or good dude/good chick-ness only goes so far.
  • Value is contextual; just because you did get an EP for being a good JO doesn't necessarily mean you won't turn out to be the shitty DH JOPA hates. Or just because you got stuck in traffic doesn't mean there isn't a civilian career you can't crush. Your success is partly you and partly your good fortune in having the right surroundings. A subset of stuck-up patch wearers and of their highly-paid golden child equivalents in the private sector tend to struggle with this fact, but it's the truth.
  • No one in the private sector is going to truly understand what you went through getting and keeping gold wings any better than your Mom does. So when you get out, keep the skillset, but learn to talk, dress, and act at least somewhat like people who have the job you want to have on the civilian side. Because if they see you as "that military person" and not one of them, you're in for a loooong job search.
 
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Pags said:
Reserves can be a safety net...but they can also knock over your civilian career house of cards just when you were getting it set up with a mob.

All of the guys I know who got 2xFOS picked up O4 on their first look in the reserves. And all the guys I know who stayed 1315 SELRES outside of HW units got tagged with a MOB just as their civilian careers were taking off.

The reserves are as much a risk as they are a benefit.
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I’m not sure how much getting tagged with a MOB is going to “kick over a house of cards,” barring a really badly-timed one that blocks being able to take a job offer before USERRA kicks in or something. I mean, you will MOB as a 13X5 with a TS/SCI, at least once. That’s a fact. I’ve been told secondhand that the preference is to exhaust all qualified bodies who haven’t MOBed before dipping into folks who have MOBed at least once.

But six months to a year with USERRA protection isn’t going to make you unemployable. If anything, you can tell a prospective employer “look, I’m in dwell, that’s not going to be an issue for 2.5-5 years.” Are there hiring managers leery of reservists? Yep. But why would you want to work for someone like that anyway? One of my company’s VPs MOBed as an 18X5. If he can make VP at a F500 and retire as a SELRES, that tells me it’s not a kiss of death.
 
Pags said:
"Don't love something that doesn't love you back." Jobs, airplanes, that waitress, etc all fall into that category.
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it’s not just the job - it’s all the soft stuff you work to create (internal network, perceptions of reliability, etc) that you have to recreate. Sometimes from scratch.

Mobs can also give you a rep as someone who is gonna be gone with short notice and no backfill, which gives managers a reason to go with someone else when choosing people for assignments/special projects/etc.

None of this is insurmountable. Just harder.
 
Back on OP’s topic…

You’ve likely sustained an ego hit, or maybe entered an existential crisis. Both are warranted.

You’re still a good person. You likely did good things and had positive impact. Bask for a bit in that, then start figuring out who you want to be when you grow up after naval aviation.
 
nittany03 said:
I’m not sure how much getting tagged with a MOB is going to “kick over a house of cards,” barring a really badly-timed one that blocks being able to take a job offer before USERRA kicks in or something. I mean, you will MOB as a 13X5 with a TS/SCI, at least once. That’s a fact. I’ve been told secondhand that the preference is to exhaust all qualified bodies who haven’t MOBed before dipping into folks who have MOBed at least once.

But six months to a year with USERRA protection isn’t going to make you unemployable. If anything, you can tell a prospective employer “look, I’m in dwell, that’s not going to be an issue for 2.5-5 years.” Are there hiring managers leery of reservists? Yep. But why would you want to work for someone like that anyway? One of my company’s VPs MOBed as an 18X5. If he can make VP at a F500 and retire as a SELRES, that tells me it’s not a kiss of death.
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@squorch2 hit on what I was getting at. Yes, you have all sorts of legal protections and some employers are better than others. But you're still out of your job, someone else is doing it, your reputation is atrophying, and your network is getting stale as you're deployed. There are plenty of people who can manage this but there are also plenty of people who I've seen who end up prioritizing their reserve job at the expense of their civilian career.

About the time your MOB kicks in is about the time in most folks new career timing that they're up for their first promotion or they're making their first job jump. Which means that MOB around the 2-3yr mark can be devastating. Plenty of my peers had this happen to them and since then they've had to play catch up all over again. Which if that gets hard then people just run back to the reserves because it's a safety net. Then they end up perpetually stuck being unable to launch a civilian career and then try and make up for it as a SELTAR.
 
I listened to a lot of SELRES' concerns, just as Pags and squorch described, when I was an FTS at a NOSC. Heard it a lot from people in all sorts of employment on the outside (civ and government careers), those are real concerns people have about their livelihoods. It can make things harder but of course lots of decisions in life involve a tradeoff.
 
If you want to avoid a MOB as a 1315 in the Reserve:
  1. Change your designator when you off ramp (several NAVIFOR designators are undermanned but avoid 1835 at all costs, it's a dumpster fire). If you have a technical degree, consider 1825/IP
  2. Stay 1315 and transfer to the VTU after your 2-year dwell time expires
I have two O4 pilots in my VTU. One a former rotary wing (now pilot for American), and the other a former fixed wing (now a pilot for FedEx). They are riding it out and are loving life, especially the last 1.5 years since we have been doing "telecommuting" drill weekends. We've drilled once at the NOSC for Unit in the Spotlight. Everything else we've done virtually including all "GMT" which I send out via PDF.

Remember, in the Reserve you are entitled to 20 years commissioned service (this is different that 20 total qualifying years of service). You can FOS for O5 as many times as you want but keep in mind when you hit 20 years commissioned service, you will be force retired.

If you want to avoid employment issues while in the Reserve:
  1. Do not tell anyone you work with or your "boss" about your Reserve status until it is absolutely necessary. No one. You are not required to disclose this to your employer. You will list it on the official employer job application but hiring managers do not look at this, they look at your resume
  2. Do not list your Reserve status on your resume. This includes removing your security clearance from your resume. Your resume is a marketing tool and is not used as anything official from a job application standpoint
  3. Do not ask stupid questions during the interview process about the employers military leave policy or anything military related. Do your own research and find out
I've followed the above to a "t" and have never had any issues with employers. The only times I have had issues with employers is when I bring up my Reserve status before I am hired (i.e., listing it on my resume or mentioning it during the interview process).
 
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Jim123 said:
lots of decisions in life involve a tradeoff.
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This, this, this.

OP and others who read this, you can do what you want - just not everything, all of the time, no matter what Bo Burnham says.

If you really like flying, you can do that. Same with any of the choices (SELRES, IRR, full civilian) above.

There are always opportunity costs, and what works for others may or may not work for you.

All love, no hate.
 
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