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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?"
Another Trollaxor.com exclusive!!!
ESR studied the document in his hand with interest. His brow, furrowed into numerous crap lines, was covered by his sweaty red forlock. His hands shook. He mouthed the words hoooh boy silently as he began a steady hyperventilation. Finally, after waiting for weeks and weeks, he had what he'd gone to sleep thinking about every night: the first issue of SCAT!, the magazine for poop fanatics everywhere, had fianlly hit the stands. Eric's heart burst with pride, as he had taken the last of his money made when VA Linux^H^H^H^H^HSoftware had gone public and invested in this private project of the Slashdot staff.
Running quickly to the back bedroom of his one-story shanty (and being careful not to trip on the heavy 386 PC cases or the myriad of cables, cords, dongles, and wires running in various directions across his dirt floor), Eric slammed the door and laid stomach-down on the bed. He opened to the boilerplate and read his pal's names with delights, kicking his feet back and forth against each other. He couldn't believe his dream had come true! But just as he was about to flip to the pictorial section (to examine how the GIMP performed at the cropping and scaling, of course) the phone rang. It was Jon Katz.
Eric, you son of a bitch! Where the Hell is my story? You promised me you'd publish my story in your God-damned worthless shit-fag mag! You double-crossing
ESR interrupted Katz. Whoa, whoa, I don't know what you're talking about. We agreed that I'd pick an article and have it be the cover story. I never said it would be yours. It just so happens the bois at Slashdot picked mine instead!
With a strangling, gurgling scream from Katz, ESR hung up the phone and sighed. He scratched his beer belly and thirsted for Jägermeister. Why did people always harass him? From RMS calling and reminding Eric that he was not a good a programmer as he, or Larry Augustin calling emailing death threats regarding petty cash theft from VA's offices after Eric's visits, or the trolls on Slashdot writing about his and his friends' personal lives, the Jäger was his only release. Perhaps after a few fifths of it he'd be calm enough again to dive back into his magazine.
Waking up hours later, ESR realized he'd drank too much (again) and had slept away... Well, what had he slept away? He couldn't even remember what time it was when he'd woken up or fallen asleep last. Between the early Winter Pennsylvania nights and his hacker's schedule it was so hard to keep track of what time of day, week, or month it was he might as well have been living in a cave. He remembered when he was, though, and thought warmly of his shanty built by hand from 55 gallon drums harvested from his local landfill. Over the drums ESR had filled clay, mixed from a nearby creek, and painted it brown to make it look like a log cabin. How proud he was indeed! Wouldn't you be?
ESR picked up the SCAT! magazine, unzipped his pants, and sat at his kitchen table humming with a cluster of 386s running Linux and enjoyed the rest of his freetime the way God intended: masturbating furiously to pictures of pale, skinny young men eating turds and smearing shit all over each other.
It also qualifies you to suck a lot of dick.
A guardian/parent has accepted the obligation to raise and support their dependents. A Marine PFC has accepted the obligation to go risk their life wherever ordered, accepting the pay the DoD has deemed sufficient. I realize the military is working on this, but are those obligations really compatible at the same time? In the private sector we (IMHO rightly) have little sympathy for anyone who just entered the job market and wants to have children before having developed any distinctive skills and advanced beyond the minimum wage.
My last company was just the opposite. About 1/2 our IT team was ex military (myself included). Navy and Air Force. No prima donnas, no ego trips.
Not to mention the fact that they'll blindly follow orders, regardless of how asinine, and will work long hours for shit pay.
You can post anonymously, but I will be contacting the owners of this site shortly to begin the process of tracking you down and bringing charges against you and your company.
See you in Gitmo liberal boy!
Someone who voluntarily joins the military which is killing people around the world must have the biggest personality problems of all. I wouldn't want to work with spineless assholes who are ready to kill for money and/or education.
My experience has been pretty much the same. Without exception, every single ex-military person I've worked with has had the most absurd power trip. Always positive too that they could do everyone elses job better than the person it was actually assigned to, with the end effect that they wind up spending far more time posturing and strutting around than actually getting anything done. Not to mention that you'll 'know' they were in the army. You'll know because they'll never shut up about how things were done differently in the army than in their current work environment.
So you have a military that accomplishes nothing while torturing and murdering people. Would you hire people that were a part of that? Why not just go down to the prison and hire some people. Get a few serial killers maybe -- no one can "get er done" like a serial killer. They're just about the most organized people you can hope to find in this world.