First tour ground job

[Criminal]

Didn't find this around. What were your ground jobs in the squadrons? What are some pro/cons of different positions. What would you suggest as for a first tour guy? This is not specifially for me, so any airframe & services experiences would be appreciated by all the new guys.

 

[Pags]

It's going to change as you've been in the squadron longer. They generally come in three flavors: FNG job, mid tour, and senior JO. Each level will bring increasing responsibility and leadership. Within those three flavored there's some more granularity as to perceived worth of a job based on community values. In many cases, your only input to the process will be your reputation and maybe your preference.

Bottom line: bloom where you're planted.

 

[Recovering LSO]

bloom where you're planted.

this

 

[xj220]

That being said, never get LegalO or Command Security Manager. Your first job will be pretty easy so you can focus on upgrading but like Pags said, they'll get progressively more important/involved.

 

[BusyBee604]

Didn't find this around. What were your ground jobs in the squadrons? What are some pro/cons of different positions. What would you suggest as for a first tour guy?

I think my favorite job as a JO, was as Line Division Officer. you were a Division Officer. Excellent opportunity to hone your leadership skills very early in your career, leading one of the larger divisions in the unit. In training your division prior to deployments, you will be given the chance to shine, plus learning all the servicing requirements, plus pre-/post-flight, & corrosion inspections. On CV deployment, you will be authorized to occasionally work the flight deck with your Sailors, when not on the flight schedule, sporting the prestigious "brown FD jersey" with your unit & job title proudly displayed front and back. I was fortunate to have this assignment as a LTjg, for the workup and 2nd deployment of my first tour... good times!
BzB

 

[Renegade One]

Didn't find this around. What were your ground jobs in the squadrons? What are some pro/cons of different positions. What would you suggest as for a first tour guy? This is not specifially for me, so any airframe & services experiences would be appreciated by all the new guys.

Standard caveat: This info is very dated…but may still be relevant.

JOs would normally have "two kinds of jobs":…the real ones (that would show up on a squadron organizational diagram) and one or two "collateral duties", that probably wouldn't.

Multi-crewed aircraft squadrons had/have the luxury of more officers. I expect that's still a truism. The single seat bubbas (A-7s and legacy Hornets in my time) had less depth in the bullpen. The latter had to give JOs some pretty significant responsibilities right out of the box.

The real jobs are all that you would imagine…Branch and/or Division Officers (in Maintenance…which is a great place to start..), or "upstairs" in Admin/Ops/Safety, whatever else may pertain today. My own experience was to be the PR/AME Branch Officer in TWO squadrons to start…first operational, and FRS squadrons. Cool beans…stuff I understood and cared about both times.

The "collateral duties" (I'm sure this, too, has changed…so understand that…) came in wildly different varieties. Here are some that come to mind: Movie Officer (probably doesn't exist any longer..); CACO (other threads on the site about this); CFC Coordinator; Blood Drive Coordinator; Urinalysis Coordinator; PRT Coordinator; On-Load/Off-Load Officer; Mess Treasurer; many others…some of which couldn't be talked about…kinda like "Fight Club". Think special classified schools...

It's going to change as you've been in the squadron longer. They generally come in three flavors: FNG job, mid tour, and senior JO. Each level will bring increasing responsibility and leadership. Within those three flavored there's some more granularity as to perceived worth of a job based on community values. In many cases, your only input to the process will be your reputation and maybe your preference.

Bottom line: bloom where you're planted.

Like Pags said: Bloom where you're planted. It's all good...

 

[picklesuit]

My tour consisted of:
PAO
Ground Safety Officer
Schedules Officer
AW Divo
QAO
I learned a lot from all of my jobs, had some pretty awesome DH's that took care of me come high water FITREP time. At the end of the day, you are judged more by what you do in the airplane than behind the desk, but you can't neglect the ground job.
Pickle

 

[CommodoreMid]

My tour consisted of:
PAO
Ground Safety Officer
Schedules Officer
AW Divo
QAO
I learned a lot from all of my jobs, had some pretty awesome DH's that took care of me come high water FITREP time. At the end of the day, you are judged more by what you do in the airplane than behind the desk, but you can't neglect the ground job.
Pickle

Second all this, and if, come high water fit rep time you find yourself in a job that is unfuckupable, chances are you got it because you couldn't be trusted in other things. Your reputation, at least in MPRA (can't speak to other communities/USMC obviously, so YMMV) starts with how you are in getting up to speed with all your quals in the plane. If you can't do that efficiently, they aren't going to trust you with added responsibility on the ground. I went personnel officer-AT branch officer-skeds-readiness-AVARM divo. Over half my JO tour was in ops, which definitely raised my blood pressure though I enjoyed it in some sick way, but as others have pointed out you really don't get much of a say in that.

 

[xj220]

Mine was:
Logs & Records
ESO
Airframes Branch O
Scheds Writer
ASO
NATOPS

All had their own points but my top two were ASO and NATOPS. A lot of people will shit talk ASO and it can be a huge pain in the ass at times, but it really is a good job. You definitely see things from a different perspective and learn a lot. NATOPS was great because I was one of the senior JOs in the squadron and almost all of my events were instructor flights.

 

[Fins Out]

That being said, never get LegalO or Command Security Manager. Your first job will be pretty easy so you can focus on upgrading but like Pags said, they'll get progressively more important/involved.

Legal O isn't too bad. Good amount of face time with the front office and you get to be witness to all types of buffoonery. I did find it to be feast or famine. Lots of free time when nothing was going on but when business was booming you'd be living at the squadron.

Command security manager seemed pretty thankless. Do your job and no one cares, screw it up and go to jail.

 

[smoke_screen]

Regardless of job title, there is a lot of super immature and annoying "don't try so hard" cool kid BS that goes on among first year JOs. My best advice is to ignore that and go balls to the wall in all things, including corrosion officer or whatever. Actually that is my second best advice behind generally not speaking unless called upon. The first 3-4 months put people on completely different trajectories, which ultimately involve follow on orders and actually your whole navy career (not hyperbole) and your future professional life for that matter (not hyperbole). On the other hand many say to enjoy your first job as an opportunity to slink around for a few months, leisurely read natops, and weasel out of work after lunch. There may be some wisdom there if you are just trying to check the service commitment box and don't have plans involving a lucrative career.

 

[Gatordev]

Regardless of job title, there is a lot of super immature and annoying "don't try so hard" cool kid BS that goes on among first year JOs. My best advice is to ignore that and go balls to the wall in all things, including corrosion officer or whatever. Actually that is my second best advice behind generally not speaking unless called upon. The first 3-4 months put people on completely different trajectories, which ultimately involve follow on orders and actually your whole navy career (not hyperbole) and your future professional life for that matter (not hyperbole). On the other hand many say to enjoy your first job as an opportunity to slink around for a few months, leisurely read natops, and weasel out of work after lunch. There may be some wisdom there if you are just trying to check the service commitment box and don't have plans involving a lucrative career.

In my experience, I completely agree. I've seen the same thing. That said...while going balls to the wall in whatever job, don't take yourself too seriously while going to balls to the wall. I'm all about doing your job to the best of your ability, even if that's handing out basketballs at the gym. But just don't think that each of those basketballs is taking out a member of AQ.

 

[snacks06]

R1 said it.
In 18E/G land, you'll probably have 4-5 ground jobs when you first join a squadron. It sucks hardcore until you get a divo job, and then that is your only job.
So, you get crushed your first 1-1.5 yr, and then it's all gravy. Backwards in my opinion.
Have fun when you can and don't let DH's get you down.

 

[Pags]

Regardless of job title, there is a lot of super immature and annoying "don't try so hard" cool kid BS that goes on among first year JOs. My best advice is to ignore that and go balls to the wall in all things, including corrosion officer or whatever. Actually that is my second best advice behind generally not speaking unless called upon. The first 3-4 months put people on completely different trajectories, which ultimately involve follow on orders and actually your whole navy career (not hyperbole) and your future professional life for that matter (not hyperbole). On the other hand many say to enjoy your first job as an opportunity to slink around for a few months, leisurely read natops, and weasel out of work after lunch. There may be some wisdom there if you are just trying to check the service commitment box and don't have plans involving a lucrative career.

In my experience, I completely agree. I've seen the same thing. That said...while going balls to the wall in whatever job, don't take yourself too seriously while going to balls to the wall. I'm all about doing your job to the best of your ability, even if that's handing out basketballs at the gym. But just don't think that each of those basketballs is taking out a member of AQ.

Somewhere between these two posts is a best practice for JOs. Do your job. Do your job well. Don't try to make your job more important than it is. If you have an easy job, use that time to get ahead on aircraft quals. No JO job in and of itself should require you to be at work 12hrs a day. When coupled with flying, briefing, planning, etc than you can expect to be at work longer. If you're not on the flight sked and you're the PAO and your sign offs are complete, then go home/gym/bar.

 

[revan1013]

You could end up with many jobs too. I have one primary billet, a collateral, and tons of projects not involved with either of those two jobs in addition to making quals. You could end up being very busy. Just keep your head up, have a good attitude, and realize that even if you have a job that kinda sucks, it won't last too long. (same goes for a good gig!)