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The Living Dilbert?
AirmanTux asks: "Next march I will be separating from the US Air Force, after six years wearing 'the uniform', working in the closest thing to IT that the military has. For certain reasons, I've come to the conclusion that I will be more effective in serving the US public out of uniform than in it. There seems to be a common belief that the civilian sector is just as disorganized and mismanaged as the uniformed services. Do you think this is true? Are there any 'honest' places to work any more (where promotions/awards are based on work preformed and bureaucracy, and politics aren't encouraged to supplant the 'mission), or has America become one big living Dilbert strip?"
Short answer: No.
Longer answer: Not really...there are places where performance and ability advance, but they are few and far between indeed, and primarily in small establishments. To most employers, employees are disposable commodity, a necessary evil that is to be pruned or removed at the earliest possible convenience. Management has become the science of keeping up appearances, with many managers being completely ignorant of the trade they are in, or the tasks of the workers they supposedly manage. Color me a pessimist, but the way I see it, Dilbert has gone from a sarcastic parody to a photorealistic portrait of the American workforce.
I value nothing more than being the master of my own destiny - which should explain why I live in the South Pacific and am more or less retired from corporate life at 42. Here, in a nutshell is the modus vivendi I've developed:
Any organisation beyond a certain size inevitably becomes pathological in its behaviour. It sometimes reverts to normalcy for periods of time, but it will swing, and you will swing with it. Avoid long term commercial commitments to any large organisation. Working with groups or individuals within them for finite terms is fine, and sometimes really enjoyable, though.
Find a niche where you can work with a number of trusted individuals (perhaps as a consultant or contractor) and either work for yourself or work in a small company of less than 50 staff. The material benefits won't be as easily accessible, but your life will be infinitely more enjoyable, because you'll actually have some control over it.
Crumb's Corollary: Never bring a knife to a bun fight.
But that can be avoided! If, instead of working at a large company, you seek out a small fledgling business to work at, you will find that the benefits are proportional to the results and not to politics. A small business, especially one with 20 employees at the most, cannot afford to play these political games. These businesses are usually owner-operated, and the owner cares about moving forward in life. That's why he is taking the tremendous risk and creating jobs for his employees. These organizations usually have one boss, around whom the whole business revolves. There might be one other manager, but usually, everyone runs around the boss asking questions and finding out what he wants them to do. This is the perfect business to work in, if you're a people-person. You go over there, and start at whatever level you can get. Since there aren't thousands of employees, the owner of the business will quickly see how you learn and operate. If you do a good job, you'll find yourself earning a lot of trust and capability in the company. Your opinions will be heard. And if you can be a team member, not just by doing your job, but by learning a bit about everyone's job, learning how the owner thinks, what he wants to accomplish, etc., you can take a lot of that pressure off the owner.
By doing all of this, you can help the business grow in terms of profit, which will make it grow into a larger company. Eventually, that means the office will become a Dilbert strip, or something out of Office Space. You'll have a Lumberg working under you a few levels down. But who cares? At this point, you will have helped the U.S. economy, you will have created jobs, you will have grown the company into something successful and long lasting, and you will be at a high position at the top, earning a high salary, and no doubt owning a good portion of the stock. You'll be laughing all the way to the bank.
Stay away from state-run universities if you want to avoid the same sort of red-tape and bullshit you find working for Uncle Sam.
I'm working for a very wealthy private univesity and it's much better than the state one where I worked before. It's easier to get fired at a private place so do you work and obey the rules. If you like total job security despite the BS factor, you might enjoy working for the state--here in Texas, it took an act of God to get fired because the managers (at least where I worked) never kept enough of the right paper work to do the necessary documentation to terminate an employee.
However, universities have a bad habit of higher their own graduates and favoring them in promotions--they've never been anywhere else so changes come slow if not 10 years behind everyone else. The management types are usually not as sharp as the managers in the corporate world--mostly because they wouldn't survive out there so they're also playing the job security card.
There's also little upward mobility. But, in the right position, you're an 8-5, weekends off, extra week off between Xmas and New Years Day kind of cush job.
Oh, at the pay scale is usually lower than the corporate market bears--but you won't get laid off.
There's lots of trade-offs but you have to decide what you want.
Good luck--having "USMC" on my resume qualified me for prison guard, police work, or mall security. Hope USAF is more helpful to you.
I might know what I'm talkin' about, but then again, this is Slashdot...
short answer: no
long answer: hell, no
Every big company works exactly the same way. Instead of having prima-donna base commanders, the civies have CEOs. Instead of blow-hard group commanders, the civilians have CIOs, CFOs, etc. Instead of incompetent leutennants, you'll be faced with stupid managers.
The biggest difference? You can actually get fired from a civilian company.
Being in the military sucks sometimes. But it sure beats working for a living.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
"Are there any 'honest' places to work any more (where promotions/awards are based on work preformed and bureaucracy, and politics aren't encouraged to supplant the 'mission)." Sure... but you'll have to start your own company.
In my experience, a small company is the best place to focus on the work at hand, rather than the overhead. It's also easier to get permission to do things, because there aren't as many people to have turf wars. Plus, at smaller companies, you'll see more of the mechanitions of real business decisions, rather than the fodder of low-competence managers and colleagues.
While I agree that focussing on an area that is somewhat related to the poster's military career is good advice, don't be fooled that IT security is less BS prone than any other area. Having done security for a Fortune 100 company for ten years, I can say emphatically that Dilbertesque moments abound. I've gone into meetings on my management's behalf and given the message I was told to give only to be censured afterwards because the other people in the meeting didn't like the message. I've been told by a man who received all his promotions from his uncle that political harmony is frequently more important than security ideals. I've had to spend MONTHS collecting data and statistics from external sources to convince a division that Internet email is not an appropriate delivery platform for mission critical communications that absolutely MUST be received, unaltered and unread, within 2 minutes of sending.
If you can make the intellectual leap that a paycheck is its own reward and that, as long as you are receiving one, it doesn't really matter much what the company does, then working in the private sector can be both rewarding and relaxing. If, on the other hand, you truly belive that you can make a difference and/or save the company from itself, then perhaps you ought to consider a career with a greater chance of success, such as carrying ice cubes on the palm of your hand across the Sahara before they melt.
At least in the military, "I was just following orders" is still a plausible excuse.
Dilbert can be classified as a form of observational comedy, similar to Seinfield. The reason why this is so funny is because it takes observations from real-life situations, and exaggerates them. Therefore, they aren't a 100% mirror reflection of reality, however they start off with a kernel of truth to them. They bring about a representation of the way we feel about situations, but just as New Yorkers aren't quite like portraied on Seinfield, the private IT sector isn't exactly like Dilbert either.
I will paraphrase a story I heard around the campfire in the Boy Scouts:
An old man sat sipping iced tea on a bench in front of the little drug store in a small town. After a while a young man pulled up in his car and got out, and stopped to chat with the old man before going into the store. The younger man said he had just moved to town, and he was curious about how this new town would compare. "I hope it's like the place I just left. The people were friendly, and everyone looked out for each other."
"I've got good news," the old man said, "You will find that this town is just the same as the one you left!"
After a while another young man came along, and stopped to chat with the old man. He too was curious about what this town was like. "I hope it's better than the place I just left. The people were petty and self-centered, and everyone was out for himself."
I've got bad news," the old man said, "You will find that this town is just the same as the one you left!"
Evil is the money of root.
Then again, the opportunities to work with the latest technology are often missing, and there are many times that you will find yourself wanting to bang your head against your monitor screen over some particularly stupid management decision. But that can happen anywhere.
Just keep in mind that the job security that was one of the biggest 'perks' is a thing of the past. A-76 competitive outsourcing and the BRACs put an end to that.
Good luck to you!
Also, being a contractor (vs an employeeee) helps keep the political fog from encroaching too much on your personal life. At least it seems to help somewhat.
"I'm 110% convinced that the only way to avoid the bozos is to be your own boss."
Thing is, everyone is somebody else's "bozo", had you been sucessfull in your start-up the "bozo's" would be working for you. The only way to avoid "bozo's" is to live like a hermit and even a hermit does stupid shit to themselves every now and then.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I went into the Army straight out of high school and served about a decade. I went a lot of places and was exposed to a lot of very exciting technology. I doubt I will ever again come close to doing anything as cool in the civilian sector. Outside of the technology, I miss the sense of purpose I had while I was in. I miss knowing exactly what I needed to do to get promoted. I do make waaaaaaaaaaaaaay more money than I did then, but I am not as satisfied with the kind of work I do now. I program for a living (which I did not get to do then, so that is cool (I think)), but I don't particularly enjoy the fact that it is in support of an endless hustle for greenbacks.
Anyways, I don't know if maybe I didn't know any better at the time, but I still haven't seen the level of organization out here that I witnessed while I was in. A lot of the companies I have worked for in the 12 or so years since I got out were growing ones though.
Dilbert was written by Scott Adams from his IT desk at Pacific Bell about his daily work environment in cubeland. Having worked developing IT for businesses and governments on all 4 coasts of America (OK, Great Lakes in Canada, not the Arctic), for over a decade and a half, I can tell you that his cubeland stretches from sea to shining sea, as well as from the halls of Montezuma to the shores of Tripoli. And it's always been that way.
Which is good news. Many thousands of people have found careers doing interesting, lucrative work among the sea of nonsense that is the business world. It just takes a sense of humor. If you still want more after a military IT career, you're probably qualified.
--
make install -not war
Also, being a contractor (vs an employeeee) helps keep the political fog from encroaching too much on your personal life. At least it seems to help somewhat.
That's not to say that you can ignore it. As a contractor, it helps a lot to be canny about such things, to understand the hidden social network quickly.
But yes, it's a great way to isolate yourself from the effects of office politics.
I got my Linux laptop at System76.
I think I have a pretty good perspective on the "Dilbert factor". I have worked for Chevron (9 years), IBM (3 months) and McKinsey (2 years) and was 1 degree of separation from Scott Adams when he was at Pacific Bell. So there's my big company experience.
On the other side, I am the owner of a 15 person IT consulting firm which services only companies of 10 to 200, and so I have worked with over 50 companies of this size - in addition to owning one.
Here is the simple truth of the matter:
If a small company runs on politics, rather than business sense, it goes out of business. Yes there are exceptions - owner has a huge chunk of cash to burn - but this is very largely true. So there is very little b.s. in small business.
In large businesses, sad but true, it becomes very very hard to distinguish the true business contribution of one person from another. Also, the consequence of a good / bad decision may take years to come to light. So, whether people say so or not, you are judged on how well you fit into the culture. If you know this, understand it and accept it, you will do fine. If you act like a typical engineer and say "but my idea was better", you will be miserable. Instead of being upset at the fact that the MBA's are running the show, sit back and ask yourself why that is. If you are as smart as you think you are - you will figure it out.
The fact is that the success of big business depends on people working together. And this quality, one of fitting in, is easier to pick out than what the true ROI of converting all those Windows servers to Linux is.
Think really, really hard on this. Don't reject reality and say "it stinks" - use a bit of ju jitsu - accept reality, understand why this reality exists, and use that understanding in an effective way to achieve your personal vision of success.
A way of thinking
This reality stinks
It shouldn't be this way
I can't affect what happens
A better way of thinking
What is really going on here?
It is this way, why is that so?
I can affect how I react to what happens.
Do this and you may be very happy at a big business since you will learn how to rise within it to the point that you have real influence. If you don't understand this you will be frustrated regardless of where you work.
Consider everything you've ever heard about the two best bases in the world. That's true about who you work for as well.
I did 4.5 yrs active and another 3 with the guard. I've worked in the private sector and for state and local government. Here's how I see it:
When I was "in" there was one thing I knew for certain, the USAF was the most disorganized Mickey Mouse operation in the world. Not a doubt in my mind. It's amazing how I knew everything when I was between 19 and 24.
After working for all these other places and governments I am now certain that the USAF is one of the most organized teams anywhere in the world. They have a plan, they train for the plan and they execute the plan. Nobody anywhere else does it as well as they do.
If you want organization and logic, it doesn't get any better.
No, I'm not joking.
. Quit playing Monopoly with Bill. Switch to one of many non-Microsoft products today.
If you sense your interviewer is not already conscious of this fact, that in itself should raise a red flag. A competent manager will put her best and brightest in the interviewing chair for two reasons:
Upon getting a job with a large corporation, I was amazed at the amount of BS there. It made the military look like an efficient & well-oiled machine.
I agree. After leaving the Army, I moved through several jobs. The nonprofit world was amazing. Determining accountability for anything was like trying to nail jello to a wall. Government contracting made me realize that people who create small contracting companies and latch onto a contract or two are on the gravy train. The way government spending works, you pretty much *must* spend the money your contracting agency has allocated for you. If I had the stomach to put up with Inside-the-Beltway bullshit, I would have gone into government contracting. Big businesses (I speak only from experience with the Silicon Valley kind) are often full of energy, but the biggest problem, as with the rest of the civilian world, is that organizational leaders simply do not have much leadership training.
I don't know how it was for you in the Air Force, but I was in general impressed with the leaders I worked for in the Army. I'm sure to some degree it's a matter of your specialty, plus luck of the draw. But when you find a set of good leaders in the civilian world, in my experience it is a rare treat. Even the juggernauts of the Information Age have a great deal of employee churn, and they seldom devote necessary resources to adequately training leaders (mid-level managers in particular). That's where the Dilbert Factor is nurtured and brought to full bloom.
Others have mentioned this, but you may truly find that going small and/or going it alone may work for you. If you can maintain the military work ethic, you'll probably have an advantage over most of your competitors, at least in the areas of initiative, attention to detail, knowledge of the importance of planning, and ability to prioritize.
Read the EFF's Fair Use FAQ
"All you have to do is be fragile and grateful. So stay the underdog." Chuck Palahniuk, Choke
When Bob got his project greenlighted when my supervisor did not, because Bob was capable of making a business case for it at a meeting chaired by the guy he'd been grooming for months, was that B.S? Seems to me like thats "creative use of resources". You can either continue to laugh ruefully at the world and scorn "small talk" and "politics" and "useless meetings and reports and that bureacratic "#$"%" or you can be like Bob.
Help poke pirates in the eyepatch, arr.
Not voting is no good.
I will happily grant you that both major candidates may suck in any given election and that you might well want to protest by not voting for either one. (I do not agree with your idealistic "sullying my hands" position - I think if one of those candidates is less bad to you you should vote for them, and I think in most real cases one candidate is less bad to you if you bother to check. But that's not my major point, so I'll assume they're exactly even for now.)
But the _biggest_ consistent problem we have which makes the two candidates both suck is that the two incumbent parties have a strangehold on who we get to choose from. Voting for a third party candidates drives up the visibility of third parties existing and drives up the likelihood that OTHER people will vote for third parties.
As a bonus, if enough people do it for a presidental campaign then they get federal election money.
Looking for freelance Actionscript (Flash/Flex) or ColdFusion work and/or freelance developers. Email me, put Slashdot
You can achieve a similar effect in a large organisation by keeping an eye out for intelligent people who are seeking to achieve meaningful things. Every large organisation is made up of smaller groups and the dynamics and suck/un-suck factor varies between them. My old boss is working for a different government department entirely, but has managed to attract a pool of taleneted, motivated people and they have a good project to work on where they reall have a chance to make the country a better place (I'd go join him, but I'm already working in quite a nice team on some rather cool stuff).
The goal is to work for people who appreciate your skills and talents so that when you apply for work elsewhere, you have a cool resume and a bunch of people who really like the work you do.
Similarly, there are also wastelands filled with disillusioned people who spend 12 hours each day stressing over pointless management failures. If you end up in one of those, consider it a platform from which to find something less awful.
Xix.
"Everything is adjustable, provided you have the right tools"
I'm ex-military and pretty satisfied with the success I've had since in the commercial world. I'm also very taken aback by this post-- I've worked with both very professional and very useless people in both environments, and I'd sooner believe you're blaming your poor hiring decisions on a class of people, than I'd conclude that our veterans as a class are idiots.
You really need to look at that board in your own eye.
There are good jobs in IT that aren't as Dilbert driven. There is always some of it no question no matter where you go, private industry, universities, etc. Don't fool yourself into thinking "oh that industry has to be better!" I've found a great job doing networking/security work after working in large corporations, universities, and start ups. All of them had their inane moments, some more than others. I've got a job now that pays well, with good co-workers, and a CIO who is very tuned into his people and backs us up. Smaller organizations do help.
If you find a company which pays pretty well, doing something you like, even if there are a few Dilbert moments, stick with it. Changing jobs won't make the problems go away.
Maybe someone else actually answered your question, but I scanned the top-rate responses and didn't see it. So here goes.
/.'ers: before you burn me, consider the class of issues that this guy raised. If you want to gamble on getting rich, join a startup. If you want to move into management someday, join a big technical company. But if you want organization, stable management, and merit-based rewards... good luck finding that anywhere. Sadly, IMHO, the best that this world offers, as a whole, are defense contractors and well-funded colleges.
No. Given your concerns - disorganization and mismanagement, merit-rewards and bureaucracy - non-military employers are, in my experience, always worse in every category.
This is simply the nature of the beast. The military loves to plan, and is allowed to. Its budgets are set ahead of time, its goals and standards are relatively well-defined and stable, its policies and merit system relatively clear cut.
The closer you get to a purely commercial venture, the farther away you get from all of those things. An aggressively company in a competitive market is much more reactive than pre-planned. Budget and goals can change instantly as management's perception of the market changes. One twitchy exec can wipe out a whole division in a heartbeat. Even when the business is stable, standards and policies tend to be ad hoc. Such standards and policies that do exist, exist only to make your life harder. If you try to do something new, you have to convince the bureaucracy first; but if something non-standard and anti-policy does get done, you will have to accomodate it: nobody is going to pay the replace a working dohicky with a compliant dohicky that does the same thing.
As for merits and rewards: while your supervisor may try to be fair (or may not), the bigger issue is that he can only split the pot he is given. If you do brilliant, excellent work for a company, (or division of a company, or product line within the division) which is not profitable "enough", you get nada. Conversely, if you are a lucky screw-off who works for a group that fell into and owns a particularly profitable niche, you can do pretty well even though you and everybody else are almost worthless. Whether that is good or bad, it's hard to argue that it's fair.
In my opinion, having worked for a range of employers, you will find the easiest transition at defense contractors or well-heeled acedemic institutions. They tend to plan and have stable budgets, and don't worry to much about competively pressures. If you are spectacularly brilliant, you might find that one of the big, successful high-tech companies you. They can be horrible places, but if they are big enough, rich enough, and you are good enough, you can be insulated against much of that horribleness. But, most important of all, stay away from startups - especially privately-held startups - double especially family-owned startups. The unfairness and disorder found there would leave you absolutely breathless.
Note to
"Lord, grant that I may always be right, for Thou knowest that I am hard to turn" -- A Scots-Irish prayer
Subject says it all. There are good people everywhere, and even the most corrupt workplaces have pockets of good. Outside the military you have much more control over your own fate. You can almost always immediately change your job and location, and fairly rapidly change your profession as well.
Looks like you are going to have to get used to that. Don't fall into the trap of blaming your environment for your own lack of drive and initative.
Good luck.
With that kind of attitude, I guarantee you that you won't get very far in business. Politics is part of any organization, and it serves real and important functions in actually getting things done. You better get used to that and learn to live with it.
Being aware of politics doesn't mean that you need to turn into a Machiavellian maniac, it means that you recognize how things work, try to improve things where you can, and still have the smarts to survive when other people screw up or conspire against you (and always keep in mind that screw-ups are far more frequent than deception).
Having said that, there are some bad organizations out there that really don't function well; you can try to spot them before you get into them, but if you find yourself in a bad situation, just start looking for a new job.
is there any good jobs with job security left anywhere at all ? Or has globalization eaten them all ?
"Job security" is just another insurance policy deducted from your wages. While you may not see the line-item on your pay stub, the cost is very real and very significant.
If getting paid what you are worth is important to you, accept that you can be replaced at whim. If you want job security, be prepared to work for half of your potential wages. "Job security" just means your employer is getting a great bargain and can afford to tolerate oversight and shiftlessness on your behalf.
Rephrase your question as "are there any high-yield, zero-risk investments left anywhere at all?" if you need a rational perspective. Globalization has nothing to do with what you seek.
Problems with the type of people being hired for a position, can generally be narrowed down to problems with the people doing the hiring.
I spent 6 yrs in the AF, got out 15 years ago, and even back then in most places the tech was obsolete. I was very lucky and was stationed in two different shops that were actaully dev shops and learned a lot about software development. Pure luck, and rare at that from what I understand. I then spent 8 or 9 years doing gov contracting for agencies around D.C. Since 2000 I've been doing commercial development in Austin, TX.
This experience has taught me alot about big organizations and small companies. Some of the gov. contracting companies I worked for were 5000. I've worked in startups and largish SW deve companies. Through all of this I have noticed a couple of things.
1. Dilbert and the PHB's do indeed continue to live and prosper.
2. Bureaucracy sneaks in insidiously via "Professional HR" people and MBA's once a company grows somewhere between 200 to 500. Mostly because "thats how other companies do it, so we should to." & because they use arbitrary rules to show that they have power.
3. A publically owned company is legally mandated to be loyal to its stock holders profits and NOTHING ELSE. This means NOT TO YOU. but they do expect you to be loyal to them without understanding that loyalty is a two way street.
What does this mean? Well, I have interpreted it to mean that the very best (and very worst too *sigh*) companies to work for are privately owned companies of between 50 to 150 employees that are not actively working to be bought out / go public.
Just my 2 cents.
-- More Smoke! The mirrors aren't working!!!
"by and large it seemed like most of these applicants got very little broad-coverage training in the real IT world"
Like how? Do military computers run on different electricity that the rest and do they breakdown differently also?
`in the interview questions about where they saw themselves in 3 to five years of working for us was "to become the senior manager/director of the whole IT department"'
No-one in their right mind would ever say such thing at an interview. Especially after coming from such a hierarchy like environment like the US military.
"One particular worst offender would take a master copy of the full corporate MS Office Professional edition and install it on every desktop he touched regardless of whether the customer had purchased the full version for that machine or not"
Since when would an ex military go about doing what he pleases. Did you pause here merely to inject a little 'your IT staff cannot be trusted' fud for the PHBs who might me reading this.
'the sooner he could get the boss in trouble or fired, the better chance he thought he'd have to move up, take over and "rule with an iron fist".`
Without any corroborating evidence to back up these anecdotal tales I suspect your whole story is a work of fiction.
Most certifications (except perhaps Cisco) are meaningless
Not meaningless, but definitely overinflated. From my (limited) experience, the importance/usefulness of Microsoft certifications are overinflated by a factor of 5-10, most Linux certifications by a factor of 3-5, and Cisco certifications by a factor of 1 to 3. Generally, when there are tiered certification levels, the higher certification levels are less overinflated.
Certification indicates they understand the theory. In theory, there is no gap between theory and practice, but in practice there usually is.
//Information does not want to be free; it wants to breed.
nteresting perspectives, though I'd have to say my experiences are much different. I worked for years for a systems integrator who primarily did federal work, and we, too, had a fair amount of ex-mil come on. In a nutshell, we found that:
...
Pro - ex-military were far more mission- and team-oriented, and tended to be very pragmatic and adaptable. They tended to work harder than their civilian counterparts, who often refused to work on last-nights/weekends. Ex-mil were usually far better team players, and much less likely to be political climbers than their 'civilian' counterparts. So the whole "I wannna take your job" thing doesn't really ring true with me. In fact, I found the opposite, that people without military backgrounds far more often turned to the 'dark side', becoming more political, more likely to run games, more likely to take credit where none was due than ex-mil types. Military leadership teaches leaders to take the blame for what their juniors do wrong, and defer the credit when things go right - the exact opposite of what you relate.
Con - sometimes, that pragmatism went too far, (like your story about the Office licenses), and you'd often have problems with some, primarily older guys, and young officers who separated early, who thought their rank came with them. And, once in awhile, you'd encounter some disillusioned soul who just wanted to complain about their entire career, or impress you, all day long, with their 'war stories' - being ex-mil myself, I could usually see them coming, though.
What you say about them being very specialized was true, but never saw that recent college grads were any better on that score. In fact, in systems integration, it was my experience that you'd *never* get the combination of skills you were looking for so you looked for adaptable people that could learn and integrate experiences.
For the most part, I had better luck with ex-mil than the same age non-military. While I may have to train the ex-mil in particular technologies, or ways of doing things, for the most part, they were, at least, trainable. Whereas too many of the recent college grads had to be taught how to work - too many of them seemed to have this attitude that their degree itself entitled them to their pay, not them actually doing work - 8-hour days, which included an hour for lunch, an hour for breaks, and three hours of talking on the phone to their friends was a common view of earning their pay. And most had little loyalty - if you did, in fact train them, it usually wasn't worth the cost, they'd be gone the second someone offered them a better deal. In short, I found the military types to be more mature at the same age than non-military - which is hardly surprising.
There's one thing about ex-mil's that's also true - a great many of them do have a bit of contempt for people that have never worn the uniform. And this really could be a problem for some; you'd either have to avoid them in the first place, or put them under a ex-mil supervisor who could straighten them out.
Actively discriminate? You mean you'd rather take the guy who was sent to MCSE boot camp instead of jail? Or the failed realtor / used car salesman / Amway rep who read an ad on the back of a matchbook that said "You too can be an IT Professional - just draw Stumpy the Software Pirate, and send it to this address!" Or the welfare-to-work meth addict? Or the busty-but-ultimately-stupid-with-a-fake-resume hottie? I've seen them all out there, you're welcome to them
Some industries are already facing up to this reality, which is why there is more talk about "employee retention strategies" these days. I have a friend who does human resources at a hospital, and they basically never fire ANYONE, unless they are unusually and pathologically bad at their job. It's nearly always cheaper in the long run to invest in a bad employee and bring them up to an acceptable level of performance. Health-care is an extreme case, of course, due to the chronic labour shortage in that field, but the principles do apply elsewhere.
To summarize, although I agree that no one has a right to retain their job (nor should they -- that's why we have unemployment insurance, job placement services, retraining programs, etcetera, and, in a pinch, welfare), many businesses are quite self-destructive in their tendency to fire anyone for any reason, ignoring the costs and inefficiency that this will incurr.
What! You are only 14 years away from a government pension!
If you don't want to stay military, consider a government job and work yourself toward retirement.
No corporate jobs have pension or retirement any more, and the US government benefits have got to be better than most big corporations.
This is a good time to look at the long view.
there are 3 kinds of people:
* those who can count
* those who can't