SELRES and general reserve opportunities

[Gatordev]

The advantage of a telework arrangement is that it's a way around the trend of concentrating Reserve units in the Fleet concentration areas. It's not totally a substitute for physical presence, but for a lot of the routine admin work - i.e., what RMPs are supposed to be for - it makes no sense to have a SELRES drive several hours to the NOSC or the unit building just to answer emails and chop forms. You can do that just as easily from home, and it also prevents the "Chief so-and-so has the chop on that and he won't be in until next Thursday" phenomenon. I've seen stuff get hung up because a reservist who needs to review/chop/answer it isn't local and can't come in routinely.

Unfortunately that same system that allows for drilling in non-concentration areas also ends up causing significant manning issues for operational units. Like I said, I can see the benefits of teleworking (like you said, it prevents hold ups), but it seems like a fix to an already broken manning system that's trying maintain a strategic set of business rules in a post-9/11, operational world.

 

[Randy Daytona]

To go back to the original part of the thread, a few other things that can be of assistance in making yourself valuable are several courses at the Naval War College up in Newport. There is the MSOC course which is roughly a month long https://www.usnwc.edu/Academics/Maritime--Staff-Operators-Course.aspx Great course. There is also the MOPC course which is about 2 1/2 months long. https://www.usnwc.edu/Academics/Maritime-Operational-Planners-Course-(MOPC).aspx (Never got to do the latter). I would assume that funding still comes from N7. You will learn a lot and have a sought after skill.

 

[vxc961]

"Back when I was at the academy, we didn't *have* flavored creamer. We had to use regular creamer, and we were happy to have it."

I agree this can be abused, but it's the way the world is going. As somebody who has spent 16 hours trying to get one set of evals finished and printed, I'm all for it.

 

[revan1013]

Out of curiosity, how possible is it for a 1310 to transfer to intel in the reserves? I dug around a little and didn't see anything specific on this topic. I'm exploring some options for down the road and am interested in looking into doing something like that if a civilian opportunity rears its head.