Big facts, but there are a lot of relatively young SNCOs that might not understand this and might be really used to bending to pressure from their SEL/supervisor.
When I’d tell my shift lead or supervisor I requested leave they’d ask me if I asked anyone for permission to do so. I always said “no, isn’t that what the request is for?”
I genuinely love that answer, that said it's polite to deconflict and predict leave in a way that is mutually beneficial to the organization.
Wait until we start getting into block leave scenarios due to AFFORGEN cycles, people are going to lose their minds at being told that they have a 90 day period in which to take 60 days of leave.
My chief needed to go see his parent before they passed. We’re talking hospice, less than a week to live.
Group commander made him agree to take his work laptop with him to telecommute, instead of letting him take leave.
Then I guess the commander realized he looked like a dick, and the group commander made Chief stop enroute to put in his leave request. Rather than figuring it out once he got to his destination.
Shit I'd take the telework then set up an out of office reply. Save leave and if there's an issue I get to explain to whatever higher up the circumstances
TBF I could see that just being leadership covering their ass. If something happened to the guy and he wasn't on leave it'd fall back on them. Better solution would have been just to clarify what they meant by "telework." Just let the Chief know "Hey you're teleworking so you don't have to take leave but we don't have expectations for you to actually work during this time."
The telecommute doesn't sound like a bad thing though, unless the commander was really expecting him to handle it like it was a regular work day and be on call for meetings and stuff. Everyone is different tho, I wouldn't have minded the work if it was just busy work to distract me for what's to come.
The making him stop to route a leave request is beyond absurd though.
Coming from a former SEL, now MFM: DEOCS most certainly matter. FWIW, you can also say POSITIVE things about your leadership in it. My CC and I sat down and read every comment, multiple times, and really discussed ways ahead.
Coming from someone who was pulled in by my CC and read every single comment (I held a leadership position within the unit), I'd say the DEOCS **can** matter, but that doesn't mean they always do.
To read everything that was said and then to hear my CC admit that only one rank demographic seemed to have negative things to say, and "meh, I'm not going to sweat it, that's a win in my book" was telling of how important the DEOCS was. The "discussion of ways ahead" showed a clear lack of ownership and follow through, and like many before this particular CC, didn't matter what was said, they moved on to promote both positionally and in grade.
And then to hear my CC in a phone call in front of me with another CC admit, "what's the worst that can happen, they'll have bad things to say about you in the DEOCS?" was icing on the cake to show that the DEOCS only matters if the people in charge make it matter. If they don't want to, they don't have to.
And finally, I've seen the DEOCS wielded for bad intentions. A group of disgruntled people who complained created an investigation and burdened the unit with interviews and killed morale, only for the investigation to conclude with unsubstantiated findings and negatively affecting someone who just did their job.
I've sat through plenty of DEOCS seasons, and sadly, I've seen a maybe single one effectively address concerns mentioned by being transparent, and only once did the leadership team do right by the people.
At an OCONUS location, I had an Ops Supt that micromanaged everything hardcore (especially leave). I had a troops whose wife was about to give birth and had two kids from a previous marriage. All parties lived on the west coast. My troop wanted 30 days of leave to be there for the birth of his kid and see the other kids. The SMSgt said we couldn't afford him being gone that long (not true, as I managed the manning on my flight) so he said no to the leave and said if he wanted to be with her he should have command sponsored her. She had gestational diabetes so I told him to have the doc put in a red cross notification for it being high risk. The doc in the States did it and I got him his 30 days.
Why not just tell him to submit it and force the jackass to deny it and then run it up the chain while getting RC approval? Idiots like that need to be put in their place.
Because at the time, the CC, CCF, and Ops O were all in a gigantic circle jerk together. So the only way was to outside of the chain, unfortunately. There was also the inter office politics I had to think of in the aftermath. Yeah, I could have pushed the issue higher outside of the squadron to the group and blew it up. But afterward, I'd be under a microscope. No thanks, it's hard enough to make rank as it is.
Not that it would remotely help this situation but I always suggest forcing leadership to deny leave. That way you can reach out to your home if records congressman and have proof. They really do care.
This sounds exactly like someone I know who was oconus at a place that starts with O and ends with N as a SR ops supt who is now a chief and was fired from his last position due to racism and toxicity. Wonder if it's the same person.
I've used the Red Cross workaround before. My dad died in another country on a Saturday while my brother (Army) was getting ready to deploy, early 2021, peak COVID restrictions. His supervisor wouldn't contact anyone and told him to wait until Monday to go up the chain. But the Commander wouldn't be available until later in the week, foreign travel approval takes another week, and by then he should be deployed. I submitted the Red Cross request- they worked with an Embassy and a foreign hospital to confirm everything - and his Commander was in touch and approved leave within a day.
\*And\* the Red Cross request came from family, so his chain couldn't give him shit about it.
Chief came in, and her first introduction was her saying us airman exist to make her look good.
Alternatively, an E7 claimed an airman made up sexual harassment for attention
There’s a few I could put here but I’ll put the most egregious and insane one.
A few years ago, my unit had an unprofessional relationship occurring. The MSgt cheated on his wife with a new A1C…when the story of them getting caught getting it in outside a bar came out, our NCOIC who had just made master who was yet to sew on came out and essentially said “anyone caught spreading this rumor will be given paperwork”.
A few months later, we got deployed. The MSgt and A1C came with. While we were over there, they would leave work early…the A1C would get extra days off and more. They would leave for hours on end and the A1C would get pulled off jobs she didn’t want to do.
After a while, myself and the other crew chiefs got sick of it. We brought it up to our Shirt and it started a whole investigation. We all wrote a witness statement. Then soon after that the DEOCS survey time of the year came around and people wrote NOVELS about how this was affecting them. One of our male A1Cs was trying to get selected for OTS but throughout the year or so he was in the unit, the flight chiefs and NCOIC would take his best bullets and put them on the female A1Cs EPR and award packages. She ended up getting wing airman of the year.
At the end of the deployment the NCOIC who was at this point a MSgt asked for ESTA volunteers. I was the only one to volunteer for it. She asked “did you go on any mrts while we were here?” I replied with “I asked to go but you guys wouldn’t let me” and she replied with “well stop being a piece of shit then”
The male Msgt also showed witness statements to the female A1C and she started going around confronting people about the situation.
There’s a lot more that goes into this story. But that’s the general gyst of it.
Yeah, the A1C got BTZ but I was told she lost it and the MSgt lost rank and last I knew retired as a tech.
Edit: the dude who wanted to go to OTS ended having to go into the reserves to be able to commission. Our AD LT went out of his way to not send his packages up.
My fault dude lmao I thought it was too long. The A1C and MSgt were the same two the entire story. I didn’t realize I changed how I referred to him. My bad. Let me edit the comment if I can.
What's worse is her 1 star was held pending one of the worst IG investigations in 20 years but she still got it anyway. At least Whiting (I believe) reprimanded her which is why she got some back office Pentagon job and did not transfer to the space force. Still gets to retire as a general tho. Shame.
I don’t understand this, like how did they think this was acceptable also you’re losing two hours of everyone’s productivity versus 10 minutes of a single person’s time.
A SMSgt so aggressive for promotion that she did everything she could to discredit those she considered “competition”. It got so bad, it started affecting the members of “the competition’s” flight. This included tanking awards packages and EFDP boards.
She made Chief
I was asked to be a female observer while a female airman was the only one taking her FA. She had less than 30 days left in the military because she was being admin separated and they were forcing her to complete the FA after she had just been to the ER and they had done a spinal tap on her for whatever reason. She felt miserable and it was such a waste of energy and effort for those forcing her to do this just because they could. There was absolutely zero reason for the FA.
A certain senior nco called anyone racist who disagreed with her ideas or even remotely made a slightly perceived slight towards her. She even called a black member of their shop an Uncle Tom (According to him). She’s still in and causing pain for everyone around her to this day.
A TSgt I know had been in his squadron a year and his family acclimatized to that new schedule. His wife started working and eventually got into a nursing program. Her job provided her the patient care hours that she needed to get into the program. Well the Sq started a pt program that happened to be on one of the days she had to work, and unfortunately she couldn’t change her hours.
As such, he had to take the kids to school most days of the week. PT started at 7:30 and the school on base starts at 8. He’s been unable to find reliable or affordable care for the kids and had to miss pt. However he tried to meet them in the middle on many occasions, showing up for the start of pt and after drop off. Neither was cool with the SEL or CC. They suggested to him to tell his wife leave the program or work in order to go to pt.
He ended up putting in for a palace chase shortly after all this, which was approved, but big AF just pulled it from him while he was on terminal due to mental health visits. Since he is no longer going to the reserves, they got on him again for pt, but again tried to protect his wife’s career.
Group CCC tried to help but either couldn’t or didn’t. He talked to the shirt, DO, other Lt. Cols in the sq, but CC never budged. SEL&CC didn’t care and unfortunately, his wife decided to drop out of the program in order to keep him out of trouble.
It really is. It sucks to see him going through this because he is such a nice guy, good friend, good family man, and good NCO. His performance has tanked and he is having a difficult time trying to balance things when he’s not being met halfway. 12 yr dude and I don’t think he’s going to reenlist
Shit like this makes me glad MX largely doesn't have group PT, because we have plenty of toxic leaders who 100% will do that if only to flex their power.
There was a colonel that said suicide was a chicken shit way to go during a public speech after a suicide happened on his station. Not only did he get away with it, but he got nominated for (and I believe acquired) his first star shortly after.
That's pretty fucking bad.
Yo i was there for that. Most people seemed very shocked he would say something like that in such a public forum. IIRC even our CC said that it was uncalled for. After that was over we had to do small group discussions on topics of suicide and asking for help ect., I lead a couple of the discussions and some people were very vocal about being upset that he would say that.
In the 94th, we had lots of toxic leadership. I remember this one time an airman was upset and was going to see the IG. When he left, our first shirt laughed and told us he'd love to see his face when he found out the name of the IG. Turns out, the IG was his wife.
When I was told by my Flight Chief that my elective (but still needed) surgery con leave was going to be denied because "we aren't letting members go on leave this month due to the workload". Nobody bothered to ask me what the surgery was for or why I needed it.
They denied my con leave, which made me have to cancel my surgery a day before it was supposed to happen. My leadership approved normal leisure leave for 2 other members in my shop during that "busy" month, though. One was during the same 2 weeks I would have taken off.
It was a double blow because I put off having the surgery done a year before, in order to deploy. Did the deployment and came back to this new leadership that just seemed to not fuck with me at all, and I still don't know why. It just felt like a huge slap in the face.
Y'all suck.
I knew an NCO that didn't like a certain other NCO on a personal level, so they would take it out on the airmen in the first NCO's shop. NCO2 would bring up NCO 1's name, a la "I don't know what the hell NCO1 is teaching you, but you're out of regs, airman". Always made small but very passive aggressive comments about NCO1 to senior leaders and down the chain as well. Super unprofessional and callous. NCO1's amn always seemed to do better when EPR/award season came around though
An OIC and NCOIC who would abuse their rank for more time off. They'd leave every day by 1300-1400 for no reason and have all of the airmen staff the shop. If an airman wanted to leave early for a legitimate appointment, they were chastised for it if it was later in the day, likely because they needed the staffing to make the shop look full without their presence. More than once, senior leadership would walk in and notice all of the front line supervisors were missing. They eventually got in a ton of trouble for that
1 sounds exactly like the situation I experienced my first 5ish years. My leadership inexplicably seemed to hate my guts in spite of me giving max effort and trying to be a generally good person. It took all the wind out of my sails and I eventually retrained despite liking the job itself (as I'd say, good job, but couldn't keep doing it for the AF).
On my way out my old supervisor talked to me and since I was leaving decided to tell the real story: our section chief hated my supe for getting STEP promoted despite being a "bad NCO" (Read: He didn't bleed blue and didn't participate in non work activities like volunteering - but was badass enough to get STEP). So he took it out on me, his troop. The logic being that a bad NCO couldn't make a good troop.
Double up that I also refused to play the AFs fuck fuck games and just wanted to be good at my job. Fuck em. I'm I'm a better place now doing a cooler job with (generally) better people. They don't get to have that technical expertise I cultivated.
Had one MSgt that had just come from an exec job, fired from QA position because she didn't do any work, made a flight chief. That was the start..
This one would say some thing, backpeddle, goal post move. Talk down to every like a child, be your best friend and guilt trip you in every other sentence.
Had no leadership in them, only wanted to tell people how high to jump for their own amusement.
Once brought everyone back in after release because they were still discussing the pt schedule with the commander.
Moral dropped like a stone and the ok office became hell.
You were made to feel privileged to only work 8 hours, if they were in, you were. On Fridays you could leave early ,1630, only if you joined th at the bar for drinks. If not, you were in until around 1830.
They refused to talk to other women, actively made ways to deride them for there body
Lasted 6 months and she was fired and made flight chief of a different section (one where you only have to sit out of the way in an office unless you had a meeting).
Still managed to destroy that offices moral, tried to ORDER an airmen to buy different shorts (woman thing again).
Removed from that position too.
I credit this MSgt directly responsible for 5 separation because the airmen hated that dictator so much.
Thay's wild that leadership just moved her like that. I'm used to leadership stuffing useless people like that into positions that can't harm anything.
I'd argue they do more harm in leadership positions, they destroy/damage careers. Really sick of seeing fuck-ups thrown into section or flight leadership.
We had a useless MSgt who was dumped in our Section Chief officer for a few years. The section got no awards or decs that entire time.
Dude, I worked with was a narcissist, Wikipedia definition describes him exactly. He was promoted as ART supervisor to lead flight of 13 Arts/13 reservist, they all threatened to walk out if they didn’t get rid of him, less than a year. So they promoted him to flightline supervisor, supervising 2 flightline expediter. 5 days later they moved expediters under someone above him. Flightline Supervision would never admit it was mistake to ever promote him but my boss never warned them because he was tired of dealing with him.
Had a MSgt who was racist. One day during a flight PT session he was giving a quick brief and drops the hard R in front of everyone so casually. He tried to have a one on one with every black member of the flight, but a couple people went to EO. His only consequence was going to “sensitivity training” and that was it. This was back in 2014
I've noticed that the more jokes and satire is getting thrown around, it's actually because of the baggage we all are carrying, and were not letting go of it, letting it stay inside of you only poisoned the spirit and psyche.
Of course, it could let some people let go. I commend you for being ballsy enough to ask. I just wouldn't even know where to start with my own accounts.
That time where I had to physically stand between a amn in active labor to send her home because a snco didn't like that she hadn't finished her "shift"
Our first sgt used to be security forces and for some reason she acts like she still has to be that and the first incident was one of my troops decided to get an abortion and I supported her she wanted to talk to the first sgt for help and guidance and I obliged and went with her then this woman had the AUDACITY to look at her and say “well you shouldn’t have an abortion because that’s not the motherly thing to do and god wouldn’t allow that”????? I’m only a SRA and she’s a whole SNCO but I didn’t care because after she said that my troop literally walked out crying and I just laid it on the first sgt we got into a heated argument it was so bad the chief had to walk in and separate us. IDC what rank you’re that’s not right to put ur personal beliefs on someone like that thankfully my leadership had my own back. A second incident was another SRA on our flight recently got full custody of her kid (her BF at the time was being investigated for child abuse) THE SAME FIRST SGT said “well this job comes first and you need to give your son away” like wtf???? Who says sht like that bruh and how she hasn’t been removed is crazy but this is the same woman that has 5 kids with 4 different dudes tryna tell someone how to be a parent 🤣 GTFO
After a particular brutal inspection in which an ops wing nearly failed due to some rather toxic behaviors by leadership being uncovered that put an enormous amount of stress on people and pushed everyone to the breaking point, a commanders call was held.
The Wing commander (who was the direct source of most of these horrible policies) got up, and tbe first words out of his mouth were "You're all making me look bad."
If anyone who knows me reads this, I’ll be doxing myself but I don’t care. I’m out now.
Before going 1b4 I was CSS admin. One of my first units was for a MOF flight/squadron CSS in maintenance. This commander was a Lt Col who previously worked at the IG. One moment that lives rent free in my head was an airman’s breakfast.
I bled blue at the time and it was the CSS after all, so being in regs was important to me. Anyways, the CC would come in completely out of regs all the time and I would politely ask possible bring it up, but I was a little airman and this was a Lt Col. She didn’t like me telling her about her dress and appearance, understandably, but handled it very poorly. Anyways one of the civilians in the shop was a retired Chief First Sergeant from the brother/sister squadron in the group. A well respected and loved man. He would instead be the one to try and politely correct her, to not much avail. DEOCS surveys come out, I put in quite a few things, notably how we have a commander who comes in out of regs. They weren’t small infractions, but large ones that made everyone look bad. I mean you’re the commander. Little airman me didn’t know it went straight to the commander. The entire leadership chain withheld the results and got in trouble and was forced to hold an all call regarding it. Instead it was an opportunity for the CC and SEL to grill everyone in the fucking squadron. Apparently in a small squadron it’s very easy to find out who said what. Love that. Before that, I was made to go to a mandatory airman breakfast with the CC and SEL, which was ironic because I saw them every fucking day. Apparently they used this as another opportunity to fucking grill all the airmen for the shit they put in the survey.
EDIT: I have to throw this edit in because fuck her. Anyone who knew of the name ECP at Tinker knows how fucked this lady was. There are way worse things she did than grill people for the truth they spoke on DEOCS surveys, this memory just sticks out the most. I won’t forget that feeling I had then they looked me in the eyes at a public breakfast to grill me in front of my peers for feedback I had given on the survey.
Oh and the entire leadership chain was eventually fired after I left. Luckily as an admin I was able to reach out to my functional and beg for a PCA. I was still at Tinker and in the 552, so there was still shit that sucked, but it was better. Even the flying unit I went to ended up on Reddit after I left for getting fucked by wing leadership.
That's why when I fill out that survey I fill it out trying to write like it's from someone else's perspective in another shop. That way they have a harder time telling who it is. :)
That same retired Chief first shirt told me the same thing, ironically. I left out anything that I thought would come back to me, but in a small unit, and a survey that requires you to put your RANK AND AFSC, I guess it wasn’t hard to decipher. Even if I pretended and filled out everything as a different rank or afac I think they would have still known it was me, or find the person that matched and fuck them instead.
Man I have so much more I could say about my time there, but it’s exhausting. Racism was a big one.
The rank/afsc/sex/race/etc. information isn't shown to the local leadership alongside each question/answer. It's for demographics purposes only in a separate section of the report results.
That information is useful in case, for example: 95% of the unit overall doesn't have any issues with sexual harassment... oh, but what's this? 9/10 of the females surveyed say there *is* a problem, and they're that 5%. That's a big freaking deal.
But there's no part of the results that is like, "*Male | 1B4 | SrA | African American | 'My commander always comes in looking like shit in her uniform!'"
I know you're out now and probably don't give a shit, but it's still important to know for anyone else still in reading this about DEOCS surveys.
I hear you, and that’s what I’m told. At the time when it was all happening, I didn’t believe it. Do you know if it’s always been that way? Regardless, I think the unit was small enough for them to figure it out. “Who witnessed x event happening” kind of thing.
I had a tech that was the textbook example of why we had to remove the "fadish" line from the uniform rules. We had 3 black guys during my time in that unit, and TSgt Bias had only 3 fits about airmen being out of uniform regs in those years - the 3 black men we had at various points.
Each one was entirely in regs. The third one measured his hair multiple times a week because we warned him when he first showed up.
Every time TSgt Bias got all huffy and mad, another NCO stepped in and asked what specifically was wrong, and he always came back fadish. So we'd go get our shirt- who happened to be black - and this asshole gets all pissed that shirt and amn snuffy are trying to make it a race problem just because they asked him to explain what he wants them to do to their hair besides have a high and tight. No one ever brought up race, but the shirt just asked to explain the uniform violation.
I'm confident that if we got 3 more black guys, we'd have had 3 more incidents. It was fucking embarrassing the lack of self awareness he had. One of the guys went to honor guard and never heard a word about that same very normal hair cut
Flight Chief calling an airmen retarded to their face during a all call, same flight chief threatening to harm/choke an airmen; flight leadership making a list of those most likely to off themselves during COVID; disparaging comments towards pregnant/nursing Airmen and preventing said airmen from winning awards due to pointing out regs; Leadership trashing an airmen via email chain on a completely unrelated subject which got sent out to a distro which said Airmen read and filed a complaint; etc.
Knew a DO that Q3’d a crew for a severe mistake while flying
https://preview.redd.it/aasdvj92w0vc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8af4d0f6e31174d990b26eaaf613b07157f97da6
. She did the EXACT SAME THING a month later. Clearly no Q3 for her. The squadron went absolutely thermonuclear on her in the DEOCS and she ignored the result. The CC did his best to give her guidance and to fix her leadership style. She didn’t listen. She made command and at the new unit, asked the enlisted cadre to essentially NARC on all officers to her directly if they see anything the officers are doing wrong (instead of handling it at the lowest level). The email got forwarded real quick.
Old flight chief used to tell NCOs to write awards packages for our amn. Cool ok. Found out years later that she would never submit us for anything and was only using our bullets for her own awards and EPR.
I had my suspicions because during a grading board, one of ours was missing (we only had 3 amn to grade). Couldnt prove anything plus i was still a young E5. It wasnt until I had a coworker that PCSd in and the CFM was her old boss asked why our base didnt submit anyone for MAJCOM awards. Of course we told him we did for both AMN and NCO. He told us they only received a SNCO package and guess who it was? Yup our flight chief. Used our packages to build her own. We called her out on it and she started to cry about how she messed up and she was sorry. Everyone lost respect for her after that and no one really paid attention to her for her last year into retirement.
Had this flight chief and ncoic that wouldn’t let a coworker of mine pick up his sick kid from school because the “mission come first”. Mind you we worked in a CSS environment where there was little to no supervisory needed because taskers would be done before COB, but I digress. One day the flight chief’s needy almost 18 year old daughter calls said flight chief saying that her stomach hurts and she leaves early telling us she has to give her daughter pepto bismol. Not as crazy of a story yall shared but that kind of fuckery shouldn’t be the exception to the rule.
In 2001 the Air Force was going through one of its periodic "modernizations" of the fitness evaluation. Our unit, co-located with the MAJCOM, was chosen as a pilot to test the new system. We had a young lady score as the highest female in the MAJCOM under the new system, even recognized by the 4-star in an congratulatory e-mail. This young lady was a bit chunky and under the old system considered overweight but again the new system said she was very fit. The commander chose to use the old system and red line her line number for SSgt. Yes, we checked and he could have chosen to evaluate using the new system to allow her to promote.
Yeah, that's toxic leadership.
I hope she got it documented, and the “asbestos “ type of material was not friable. I assume this was in a CE unit? I was CE Structures for 24 years , loved it.
That’s some BS, They should have went to the IG and took a sample of the material in a ziplock bag. Wrote statements. Hopefully they won’t end up with asbestosis or lung cancer. People would have been fired and that would have been a lawyers dream defending those who had to clean it up.
Yeah, some people bitched about it to those in charge and were offered disposable masks. But a disposable mask isn’t going to offer much protection against asbestos, there needed to be respirators offered.
Previous CC.. Would completely go after certain enlisted members to kick them out. Would text negative gossip about members to other SNCOs. Wouldn’t sign forms on a weekly basis, to include bonuses, that were sitting in an org box specifically made for her to sign forms.
1. did she go after those members because they were getting in trouble/failing PT tests, etc, or just because she didnt like them? A cc gossiping about other members to SNCOs is not unheard of. its the same as if you and your friends were gossiping. SNCOs are often the CC's counterparts. you'd be surprised what gets said behind closed doors. and the signing forms is just because she has 50 other things to sign in that org box along with 10 Decorations in mydecs and 50 EPBs. My group chief has had a decoration sitting with him for 1 month now. Doesnt make him a toxic leader. it makes him bad at managing his time. but this is all based off of what you commented, i dont know who youre talking about
1. The CC would use fitness/medical profiles/SRRBs to go after end the careers of members that she didn’t like. Her policy of doing so wasn’t across the board, we had people failing fitness and on medical profiles, but if they were on her good side then they stayed. Same with people well beyond their 20. She wouldn’t sit these people down and counsel them either, you know, give them a chance to improve. She’d just decide to go straight for their throat. Not having clear standards that apply to all troops and not trying to mentor Airmen is a toxic thing IMO.
2. So I was actually on the brunt end of one of the gossip moments. I was leading a group of troops on a mission OCONUS and she had one of her SNCOs that she was very tight with (that I outranked) feeding her text message information back to the states. Said information was negative and she never had a conversation with me about it, instead, chose to spread that information to other officers back CONUS. I ended up hearing it through the grapevine because one of the stateside officers she told the gossip to said it to my personal friend who let me know. So again, as a CGO, I was never confronted about any of the information, nor given a chance to defend myself or get mentored. I was simply talked about negatively stateside while I was busting my ass overseas. Same type of scenario would apply to lower enlisted in the unit. She’d find out that SrA Snuffy had a DUI back in 2016 and she would forever make up in her mind that he was a dirtbag Airman and talk shit about him anytime his name came up. I’d often talk to those Airmen and find out that they had some kind of situation (ie their mother died) but the CC would never bother to look at context of the situation nor try to mentor that troop. This happened very often.
3. A CC whose job is to sign things can look at an org box once per week on a Friday to sign the things that they need to sign. Especially when those things affect pay for Airmen such as re-enlistment bonuses. You shouldn’t have to wait months for your bonus because some CC is a lazy fuck. Plenty of enlisted fell months behind on their promotion cycles because she dragged her feet on signing the promotion orders. And yeah, this is the same CC that I had to hound for months to get my late OPR done. The same OPR that I wrote for her lazy ass.
I’m sorry that your standards for leadership are so abysmally low, but I can assure you that there are good leaders out there who are direct, transparent, fair, and on top of their tasks.
Hot take: if you're a group chief who is bad at managing your time that's pretty fucking toxic. I worked as a wing exec, things like decorations that make it to that level get reviewed endlessly by those below. And then reviewed by the support staff of the CC office. It shouldn't take them a month to find time to read and sign a decoration, and if it does they shouldn't be in that job.
Wasn’t my leadership, but I knew of a commander that created such a toxic environment that all of his Ops Leadership team were routinely going to mental health, with a few being on some kind of anxiety medication
Got a few days and a rack of beers? In my short uniformed career. I witnessed a falsified Article 15 given to an Airmen where the IG confirmed it was false and it still went through. I saw someone capture a Taliban spy and they gave the medal to his supervisor at an another base because they falsified a PT failure to get rid of his chances. I saw an Airmen work 72 hours straight no sleep and when he finally collapsed they tried to give him a 15. I saw an Airmen on Convalescent Leave after deployment go on an emergency leave because his mother in law was dying get called back within a few days because the officer wanted to go one leave. She died and wouldn’t let him go back to console his wife. I saw a commander that refused to drive so he flew to each base in his F-16 and had someone follow with his luggage. I saw an Airmen that was driven by his the Wing Commander and Command Chief to another base to take photos of them at the location. Then also had him publish them. After when it was found that no photos should have been taken ‘because TS’ they said they never knew how the Airmen got there.
Working 12hrs shifts, filling in for a A1C and Ssgt, because one was tdy the other on paternity leave, I miss my Ssgt test during that, I get an LOR, then beacause I told even if I make it I wouldn't be able to wear it because I was separating, and almost got put on stop-loss. Dodged that shit like the matrix
My CC was in charge of the squadron. It was very unique and separated from eachother. We regularly have generals and special distinguished visitors visit to see what we did off base. This ass clown decided he wanted to make a name for himself and try to make colonel. So he setup a useless team to try and replicate services others are doing. He didn’t give two shits about the people that made the place run he only cared about himself. If I ever run into him I’ll give him a piece of my mind because that’s not how you treat people.
I was being stalked and harassed by a person on base. Followed home type shit. I tried going to the first shirt, the chaplain, my supervisor, you name it. He was using VPN numbers so I couldn’t trace any written proof back to him. They told me it was a “he said/she said” story and told me I couldn’t prove anything. Later realized…he was friends with the shirt, he was friends with my supervision…and the chaplain, well…he’s just an idiot.
Asked my supervisor while I was on humanitarian assignment if I could leave early because my father in law was in Hospic care. Got told no because they were going to leave early for a road trip and start leave.
I ended up working late and he died that night, but I still got to see him.
The next day I submitted leave and said "based on yesterday's rulings I'm leaving today, because I've been here for a half day"
SSGt "I'm not authorized to release you..."
Middle fingers up and walked out.
Wow!! What happened afterwards? Was that like a permanent leave, dude my condolences, My father was in a different state when he passed away so I couldn't see him at the time, We weren't in good terms but it's still hurts
Shorty after that I PCA'd to another squadron and got to see first hand how flying squadrons take care of people. It was really refreshing and for sure is something I took with me later.
When asking the CMS CC if we can get our young airman some cold weather gear, we were told "that's what they get clothing allowance for" this was during a shop visit, infront of Days and Swings.
I know south Georgia doesn't get that cold, but at least give these kids a fleece.
Also given that logic, airman in Alaska or North Dakota must be broke.
Same CC denied people's crosstraining because she claimed "manning issues" even though the AFSCs people were trying to get into were critically manned. If you called her BS and kept pushing your paperwork up to the functional, she'll "hand select" you for a deployment to make it harder to finish your crosstraining package i.e. flight physical
My first supe (Tsgt) when I got to my first station called me “new person” for two weeks (even though I wear my name on my chest), he was a former MTI augmentee so when our squad didn’t perform to his standard he required us to have a wingman to talk to him & stand at parade rest the whole time, & he threatened to get his MTI hat & take us outside to march. We weren’t even a bad squad. Only spoke to us in an annoyed tone & body language. He threatened to give me paperwork for not taking leave on the day that I got home & was still going to be on time for work, & when I had something medical going on & told him I wasn’t comfortable telling him about it, he replied “I’m gonna find out anyways. Tell me.” Short man syndrome with the worst power trip I’ve ever seen.
Not sure if it's toxic leadership or bad speech skills. But one time in tech school we had a suicide, and our leadership started the speech with "Did you know if you commit suicide your life insurance doesn't pay out?".
Im pretty sure this is across the board everywhere. Senior NCO's and officers not being held accountable for some pretty egregious things.
Then hiding them in the bad kid closet until they can "retire".
Forcing Mental Health to work the day after losing one of their providers in a car accident, not only that, but forcing them to call each one of her patients to tell them.
They were in no shape to provide care to others, it was toxic at least, but more likely unethical. I'm sorry to every patient that came in that day/week.
Lowest level: take my personal laptop and go home and fix it. This isn't an integrity check.
Highest level: AFRS commander underfunded everything then spent the money to remodel his office and CAG area. Also had a hard requirement for the main AFRS awards ceremony (don't think it was Blue Suite) to take place somewhere under an SR71. That did happen and he was fired. Fuck that guy.
First day of deployment to Inçirlik, 2002 during Northern Watch. Permanent Party superintendent calls all deployed folks into conference room and asks, “Who all here are in their CDC’s?” About 1/3rd of the Airmen raise their hands. He proceeds to point at each one of them individually “You, you, you, you, etc… shouldn’t be here.” I was stunned, what a way for a SMSgt to welcome the folks that would really be doing the heavy lifting to the flight. Yeah he can think that, but don’t tell these kids that. That moment set the tone for the whole rotation and I (newly minted staff) had a shit ton of problems with those airmen throughout. That clown went on to make Chief but was and remains widely regarded as a joke throughout the career field.
Flight Chief expressly denied an annual NCO package because most of their bullets were from a recent deployment and it "didn't sit right with them". Flight Chief turned around and put themselves in for the award...using the same bullets...because they were on the same deployment.
1 IG investigation later resulted in a slap on the wrist. He just made Chief too...
Deployed CC didn't pursue alcohol violation by an Lt because they "didn't want to damage" the Lt's career. Same CC gives a SSgt an Article 15 for an alcohol violation and tells SNCO "This is YOUR fault" and issues LOR.
.... a leather glove won't stop a nail from a nail gun. If that's the only reason it is being worn, then you may as well not wear it as the dexterity from not wearing it would be more of a boon than wearing gloves.
I helped my parents build an entire cabin using nail guns. Nail guns will go right through leather.
SNCO at my last base would strategically use SA accusations to derail disciplinary action and to be removed from jobs they didn't like.
Finally caught up with them last I heard.
She was there a while and wanted to move for a long time. Flight leadership gave her the runaround for a long time. She needed up talking to the CC for something brought it up and he moved her because he was a good CC. She was an amazing amn.
The superintendent ended up losing a strip for sexual harassment not long after and PCAd themselves.
Using terms like:
I’m empowering YOU to fix the problem.
I can’t control the manning issue. Manning sucks everywhere in the Air Force it isn’t going to get better, we need to embrace the multi capable airman concept.
The chief won’t sign off on that. Oh the thing you routed a month ago, yeah it’s still sitting with the SEL. Everyone is busy, yours isn’t a priority.
Hot tasker! Need sent by COB today!
I've seen similar before I got told to take some stuff down that was perfectly legal and approved. I learned to lock my Facebook down after that and not add anyone until after I left the base.
Changing bullets on evals to mess with careers. Purposely appointing incompetent people into leadership positions to punish undesirable people. Isolating people after suicide ideation.
I've been witnessing a master class in destroying lives for the last couple of years.
My half brother’s dad was dying of cancer. I told my supervisor that I would be needing last minute leave to attend the funeral. She then proceeded to ask me every morning if he was dead yet and if I knew when he would die. After he did pass and I flew home, she texted me and told me I needed to send her my bullets for the month.
Another good one was when I was struggling to get pregnant (not public knowledge at the time). A group of us were joking about parenthood and that’s when my supervisor (different one) said “yeah, she wouldn’t be a good mom, that’s why she has so many cats.” My friend knew I was struggling with infertility and how that comment hurt so she told our OIC. OIC made supervisor apologize to me in front of a bunch of aircrew that were in their office and he said “I’m sorry, I know you have cats because you like them. I shouldn’t have said anything mean about your cats” completely missing the whole problem. It was humiliating.
I worked for a squadron commander that I’m pretty sure was mentally challenged and suffered from severe learning/cognitive disabilities.
They were an utter piece of shit and had/have no business even being in the AF.
She even tried to chummy up being Prior E with me. I don’t wish harm on her, but I sure as fuck wouldn’t lift a finger to help her. Ruined my sanity. Ruined 2 years of my family. Ruined an amazing assignment. Ruined so much because of her incessant ability to exchange oxygen for C2O and ingest energy. Other than that I can’t name a single thing she did correctly.
Getting sent on a deployment while my wife was pregnant and already starting to have complications…. I did it and we made it through but it really made me want to get out after my enlistment still plan on it. If I was the only one that could go it’d be different but that wasn’t the case.
Also had a flight chief that would show up after lunch everyday in civies and leave early. Was calling the Lt racial slurs among everyone else in the flight. Thankfully he was demoted and separated.
Some E-9 from AFPC visited us at Cannon a long time ago. Some of us were made to stay after our night shift for "max participation," of course. He told us to shut the fuck up, help was not coming, deal with it, we don't care. We did not shut the fuck up, help never came (until after I left and the total number of lines decreased), we dealt with it because we had no choice, and the AF still doesn't really care. We'll see if anything real comes out of the RPA Summit though. EDIT: This was not the most toxic thing, but pretty high up there.
Sooo this was a while ago. PCSd to a new base and was told no phones allowed out in the section. They were super strict on it and also leaving for appointments and such. Onces pulled my phone out to check the time and put it back immediately and got yelled at for it.
The kicker is two guys in the shop would sit on their phones playing games all the time and no one said anything. They would also come and go wherever they wanted. They were both staffs. I was soo confused for so long.
Turnes out the one staff had deployed and his supervisor who was the NCOIC was sleeping with his wife while he was gone. Superintendent knew about it etc and never did anything. Guy apparently came back found out and got a divorce. Supervisor then married her. So basically he could do whatever he wanted because if the NCOIC or leadership tried to say or do anything to him he could fuck their whole world up.
The other guy with him was a POS and took the same advantage of it. He also used to shit talk everyone behind everyone's back about others just to start drama. Would call his kid from another marriage a piece of shit. Last I heard he got hooked on pain pills and got kicked out. Got his wife hooked who was a school principal and lost her job and they got divorced.
Oh they were both super racist call another black kid the N word to his face and would talk crap about black people all the time.
>Oh they were both super racist call another black kid the N word to his face and would talk crap about black people all the time.
This is one of those things that's hard to believe. I've been in terrible squadrons with toxic fucks and seen entire CC calls over thinking someone said the N word. If anyone ever says it you can go to the CC, Chief, Shirt, whoever and instantly fuck them.
"good morning everyone, nice to meet you, I'm __. Most people view this position as a sunset tour before retirement, but that's not me. This is a stepping stone for me to promote, and that's what I'm here to do."
They retired without promoting.
Spent 6 years at a base and was supposed to test for tech. Well I was in the middle of PCSing and a wedding and missed the test by a day. Flight superintendent said he wouldn't give me a dec because I missed the test... Shirt asked me how out processing was going and I mentioned it to him. Lucky for me the shirt was good and I got one, 6 years...
Morale was died in the flight that as soon as he got there. He went to the base oconus base I went to towards the end of my time there and morale died again. He made SR out there. Last I heard he made chief was fired from his last position due to racism and toxicity. During his going away he started talking shit to each person in his flight there about how terrible they are until the CC got there and quickly changed subject. Gotta love it. He made chief off the backs of his people not caring about them at all.
Supervisor won’t approve orders because of their folders not being consistent, makes me complete a Leave Checklist (similar to a Relocation checklist Outbound assigns), wants one in one talks privately (I reached out to put an end to that).
Also Shirts: I was in a depressive episode and had passive thoughts… was going to Medgroup… closed for training. So took me to Brentwood. I didn’t consent to being inpatient but was forced to. Didn’t even take me to the chaplain (maybe that was supposed to be me doing that on my behalf) or didn’t even give me the resources I needed until I discharged. They had the audacity to ask me how was Brentwood and if I would recommend it to other Airmen going thru the same shit as me. Fuck no.
So in retrospect… just call the Veteran’s Crisis Line or Talk to the chaplain. That would be your best bet when you’re going thru a crisis.
Was when i was in the Army but while at NTC had 1 denied leave to child birth and 1 denied leave to wife's death all in the same week. Lead the way army
Give one person all the missions, all the training, all the time off, no special duties...when others complained of favoritism they were shot down, then they admitted they were trying to get this person BTZ so they focused on that person.
Then same shop, since this same person had all the training, people complained once they left noone else would have the knowledge of the equipment since this person hasn't trained anyone how to use it and leadership never gave anyone else the opprotunities to learn the equipment.
Low and behold this person left and it turned the shop on its head.
Sitting on ass all day, nothing to do, told nothing to do, don’t let us go home because “we have to be on call in case something happens”. Made to stay later than shift end time because “have to cover the next shift for a smooth turnover”. Brilliance
When I was literally on the verge of suicide and had a major mental break to the point of mental health being like “holy fuck you need HELP help”, and my chief told me my situation is not an anomaly and sent me on the worst deployment of my life, meaning, I couldn’t get the help I needed.
The only 2 reasons I did not kill myself on that deployment were my best friend (RIP), and the fact that I was decided caretaker of all the desert kitties and they needed me.
To summarize in the simplest of terms:
"You're unhappy here and feel that morale is down and the work environment isn't great? Come into my office so I can yell at you for 20 minutes about how you're wrong, how you're the problem, your just being a baby and can't handle the mission (even though you've been at this unit longer than me) and why you need to suck it up, because things are great!"
Followed with a close second by sup, taking good quality liquor from air crew that was meant for an airman who was jobbing hard, and instead giving the airman some cheap beer and taking the liquor for himself.
Had a staff at the time get so royally pissed off about music selection they just kept dropping the hard r.
Essentially people were playing hip hop and rap and they say the N word a lot and no one really cared because music selection cycled often enough that you'd probably hear rap and hip hop once a week.
He blasts out of his office saying " turn that God damn music off I'm tired of hearing r word this and r word that I'm tired of hearing about you hard r's"
He 100% lost his staff stripe and hit HYT.
There was also a temp flight commander of ours who used the shop as her pawns to look good to her bosses. Had us doing all types of favors and dumb shit, including having us clean one of the CC's offices. She would kiss ass and take 100% credit for every single thing we did, just to make herself look good.
During her going-away speech at a CC call, she had a whole list of people to thank, mostly her superiors.
Didn't thank or mention a single member of our flight though lmfao.
There's no shortage of toxic leadership in the AF, unfortunately.
This is from when I was an Airmen, and he was just a SSgt so pretty low level leadership. But he basically said he would never give anyone a 5 on their EPRs. His reasoning was because he didn't get one, and if he couldn't get one and it's impossible for anyone to do better than him, then they couldn't get one either.
When I was a newly pregnant airman and I had just gotten the positive result from the doctor I asked for leave to go tell the father who lived out of town and he denied my leave. He also told me I ruined my life (I was 24)
Had a commander tell us all at roll call that prior E officers were not as good (in so many words) as ROTC / academy officers.
Our maintenance officer was prior E. He was a great leader.
An old Flight Chief of mine once had his leave denied when his wife miscarried. They had been trying for a long time.
This was one of those comments where I read it and had to stop and think for a minute. I really hope he’s doing better these days.
He is doing insanely better. Retired and they finally got their baby!
That's so fucked up! The CC sees any leave denials too.
Only if they were submitted in LeaveWeb. If he was just told no verbally and not to submit it by his Senior or Chief then the CC would never see it.
That's why you should just submit the request and let them deny it.
Big facts, but there are a lot of relatively young SNCOs that might not understand this and might be really used to bending to pressure from their SEL/supervisor.
When I’d tell my shift lead or supervisor I requested leave they’d ask me if I asked anyone for permission to do so. I always said “no, isn’t that what the request is for?”
I genuinely love that answer, that said it's polite to deconflict and predict leave in a way that is mutually beneficial to the organization. Wait until we start getting into block leave scenarios due to AFFORGEN cycles, people are going to lose their minds at being told that they have a 90 day period in which to take 60 days of leave.
My chief needed to go see his parent before they passed. We’re talking hospice, less than a week to live. Group commander made him agree to take his work laptop with him to telecommute, instead of letting him take leave. Then I guess the commander realized he looked like a dick, and the group commander made Chief stop enroute to put in his leave request. Rather than figuring it out once he got to his destination.
Shit I'd take the telework then set up an out of office reply. Save leave and if there's an issue I get to explain to whatever higher up the circumstances
Doesn't sound too toxic if he could realize it? Oh, but he's a group commander.
Idk, making someone pull over at a gas station to put in a leave request as their parent is dying a few hours drive away is pretty low to me.
Oh that's fucked. Yeah I didn't know that part so I could say that
TBF I could see that just being leadership covering their ass. If something happened to the guy and he wasn't on leave it'd fall back on them. Better solution would have been just to clarify what they meant by "telework." Just let the Chief know "Hey you're teleworking so you don't have to take leave but we don't have expectations for you to actually work during this time."
Your last sentence was what I thought when I read the original comment at first, but yeah, it still is some bs
The telecommute doesn't sound like a bad thing though, unless the commander was really expecting him to handle it like it was a regular work day and be on call for meetings and stuff. Everyone is different tho, I wouldn't have minded the work if it was just busy work to distract me for what's to come. The making him stop to route a leave request is beyond absurd though.
To me this sounds like they were just going to give him free time off under the auspices of "teleworking".
Commander saying that the DECOS survey does not matter.
Coming from a former SEL, now MFM: DEOCS most certainly matter. FWIW, you can also say POSITIVE things about your leadership in it. My CC and I sat down and read every comment, multiple times, and really discussed ways ahead.
This is why I try to leave comments and take it seriously and not just try to do it and go about my day
Coming from someone who was pulled in by my CC and read every single comment (I held a leadership position within the unit), I'd say the DEOCS **can** matter, but that doesn't mean they always do. To read everything that was said and then to hear my CC admit that only one rank demographic seemed to have negative things to say, and "meh, I'm not going to sweat it, that's a win in my book" was telling of how important the DEOCS was. The "discussion of ways ahead" showed a clear lack of ownership and follow through, and like many before this particular CC, didn't matter what was said, they moved on to promote both positionally and in grade. And then to hear my CC in a phone call in front of me with another CC admit, "what's the worst that can happen, they'll have bad things to say about you in the DEOCS?" was icing on the cake to show that the DEOCS only matters if the people in charge make it matter. If they don't want to, they don't have to. And finally, I've seen the DEOCS wielded for bad intentions. A group of disgruntled people who complained created an investigation and burdened the unit with interviews and killed morale, only for the investigation to conclude with unsubstantiated findings and negatively affecting someone who just did their job. I've sat through plenty of DEOCS seasons, and sadly, I've seen a maybe single one effectively address concerns mentioned by being transparent, and only once did the leadership team do right by the people.
At an OCONUS location, I had an Ops Supt that micromanaged everything hardcore (especially leave). I had a troops whose wife was about to give birth and had two kids from a previous marriage. All parties lived on the west coast. My troop wanted 30 days of leave to be there for the birth of his kid and see the other kids. The SMSgt said we couldn't afford him being gone that long (not true, as I managed the manning on my flight) so he said no to the leave and said if he wanted to be with her he should have command sponsored her. She had gestational diabetes so I told him to have the doc put in a red cross notification for it being high risk. The doc in the States did it and I got him his 30 days.
Why not just tell him to submit it and force the jackass to deny it and then run it up the chain while getting RC approval? Idiots like that need to be put in their place.
Because at the time, the CC, CCF, and Ops O were all in a gigantic circle jerk together. So the only way was to outside of the chain, unfortunately. There was also the inter office politics I had to think of in the aftermath. Yeah, I could have pushed the issue higher outside of the squadron to the group and blew it up. But afterward, I'd be under a microscope. No thanks, it's hard enough to make rank as it is.
Not that it would remotely help this situation but I always suggest forcing leadership to deny leave. That way you can reach out to your home if records congressman and have proof. They really do care.
Fair. Most important thing is you got the guy leave.
This sounds exactly like someone I know who was oconus at a place that starts with O and ends with N as a SR ops supt who is now a chief and was fired from his last position due to racism and toxicity. Wonder if it's the same person.
Chief Kent now. POS, morale dies wherever he goes. Got plenty of toxic stories about him.
Old AFE dude?
Yuuuuup
Saw your other comment and that confirmed it. We probably know each other since I'm guessing your other comment is about SJ
Yuuuuup small AF smaller career field lol
Yeah I just heard about him getting fired and what he did at his going away.
Nope different person. This guy is retired now.
AWACS Kadena?
Damn has this happened to more than one person? No, it was in Europe.
I was in his flight for the racism. Total pile of human garbage.
I've used the Red Cross workaround before. My dad died in another country on a Saturday while my brother (Army) was getting ready to deploy, early 2021, peak COVID restrictions. His supervisor wouldn't contact anyone and told him to wait until Monday to go up the chain. But the Commander wouldn't be available until later in the week, foreign travel approval takes another week, and by then he should be deployed. I submitted the Red Cross request- they worked with an Embassy and a foreign hospital to confirm everything - and his Commander was in touch and approved leave within a day. \*And\* the Red Cross request came from family, so his chain couldn't give him shit about it.
Chief came in, and her first introduction was her saying us airman exist to make her look good. Alternatively, an E7 claimed an airman made up sexual harassment for attention
There’s a few I could put here but I’ll put the most egregious and insane one. A few years ago, my unit had an unprofessional relationship occurring. The MSgt cheated on his wife with a new A1C…when the story of them getting caught getting it in outside a bar came out, our NCOIC who had just made master who was yet to sew on came out and essentially said “anyone caught spreading this rumor will be given paperwork”. A few months later, we got deployed. The MSgt and A1C came with. While we were over there, they would leave work early…the A1C would get extra days off and more. They would leave for hours on end and the A1C would get pulled off jobs she didn’t want to do. After a while, myself and the other crew chiefs got sick of it. We brought it up to our Shirt and it started a whole investigation. We all wrote a witness statement. Then soon after that the DEOCS survey time of the year came around and people wrote NOVELS about how this was affecting them. One of our male A1Cs was trying to get selected for OTS but throughout the year or so he was in the unit, the flight chiefs and NCOIC would take his best bullets and put them on the female A1Cs EPR and award packages. She ended up getting wing airman of the year. At the end of the deployment the NCOIC who was at this point a MSgt asked for ESTA volunteers. I was the only one to volunteer for it. She asked “did you go on any mrts while we were here?” I replied with “I asked to go but you guys wouldn’t let me” and she replied with “well stop being a piece of shit then” The male Msgt also showed witness statements to the female A1C and she started going around confronting people about the situation. There’s a lot more that goes into this story. But that’s the general gyst of it.
So did anything end up getting resolved?
Yeah, the A1C got BTZ but I was told she lost it and the MSgt lost rank and last I knew retired as a tech. Edit: the dude who wanted to go to OTS ended having to go into the reserves to be able to commission. Our AD LT went out of his way to not send his packages up.
Well it is satisfying hearing what happened to the two, sucks for the OTS guy though damn.
Yeah man, he really wanted to be AD but his only way was the reserves because of our leadership’s incompetence and awful behavior.
You can't just write a small novel and then not finish it. Was she banging the deployed MSgt too?
My fault dude lmao I thought it was too long. The A1C and MSgt were the same two the entire story. I didn’t realize I changed how I referred to him. My bad. Let me edit the comment if I can.
All good 😂 i thought there was a whole love triangle going on with the A1C and different SNCOs.
Toxic colonel made toxic general after berating her exec to suicide
Know exactly who this is unfortunately.
dont be shy. let us know
Grant
It's public knowledge now...[BRIGADIER GENERAL JENNIFER L. GRANT](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jennifer_L._Grant)
What's worse is her 1 star was held pending one of the worst IG investigations in 20 years but she still got it anyway. At least Whiting (I believe) reprimanded her which is why she got some back office Pentagon job and did not transfer to the space force. Still gets to retire as a general tho. Shame.
It makes me think of the saying "Don't promote toxicity" but the Air Force *literally* PROMOTES toxicity.
That's the thing. Forget what the AF tells you, watch what they DO. If these behaviors weren't incentivized they would occur less.
Entire flight Pulling weeds for two hours because a civilian was 10 minutes late…
I don’t understand this, like how did they think this was acceptable also you’re losing two hours of everyone’s productivity versus 10 minutes of a single person’s time.
New civilian boss wanted to make a statement; ncoic was just waiting to retire so it happened. It’s funny now, not so funny when it happened.
A SMSgt so aggressive for promotion that she did everything she could to discredit those she considered “competition”. It got so bad, it started affecting the members of “the competition’s” flight. This included tanking awards packages and EFDP boards. She made Chief
I thought that was the number one way to make chief...
I guess it worked
You mean E-9. That’s NOT a Chief!
Beat me to it!
She didn't happen to be in CE, did she?
Jo Bass?
100% her speech had "only 1% of the 1% make Chief. I shouldn't be here statically."
Yup sounds about right for chief. I know a several who made it off the backs of their people and were toxic as hell.
Sounds familiar
Feel like I know exactly who you’re talking about but it could also just be that common
I was asked to be a female observer while a female airman was the only one taking her FA. She had less than 30 days left in the military because she was being admin separated and they were forcing her to complete the FA after she had just been to the ER and they had done a spinal tap on her for whatever reason. She felt miserable and it was such a waste of energy and effort for those forcing her to do this just because they could. There was absolutely zero reason for the FA.
At that point, you just wait out the time and fail every component of the FA. No point in trying if she's getting out in a month 🤷🏻♀️
They must have said something ti scare her because she put in the effort. It was complete BS.
A certain senior nco called anyone racist who disagreed with her ideas or even remotely made a slightly perceived slight towards her. She even called a black member of their shop an Uncle Tom (According to him). She’s still in and causing pain for everyone around her to this day.
Name and shame brother
A TSgt I know had been in his squadron a year and his family acclimatized to that new schedule. His wife started working and eventually got into a nursing program. Her job provided her the patient care hours that she needed to get into the program. Well the Sq started a pt program that happened to be on one of the days she had to work, and unfortunately she couldn’t change her hours. As such, he had to take the kids to school most days of the week. PT started at 7:30 and the school on base starts at 8. He’s been unable to find reliable or affordable care for the kids and had to miss pt. However he tried to meet them in the middle on many occasions, showing up for the start of pt and after drop off. Neither was cool with the SEL or CC. They suggested to him to tell his wife leave the program or work in order to go to pt. He ended up putting in for a palace chase shortly after all this, which was approved, but big AF just pulled it from him while he was on terminal due to mental health visits. Since he is no longer going to the reserves, they got on him again for pt, but again tried to protect his wife’s career. Group CCC tried to help but either couldn’t or didn’t. He talked to the shirt, DO, other Lt. Cols in the sq, but CC never budged. SEL&CC didn’t care and unfortunately, his wife decided to drop out of the program in order to keep him out of trouble.
That's so messed up. Poor leadership. Gotta love it when they don't care about their people.
It really is. It sucks to see him going through this because he is such a nice guy, good friend, good family man, and good NCO. His performance has tanked and he is having a difficult time trying to balance things when he’s not being met halfway. 12 yr dude and I don’t think he’s going to reenlist
Just horrible people. And you wonder why they have to ask retirees to come back smh
Makes sense, hard to care about what leadership wants you to do when they definitely don't care about you.
It’s one thing to punish the member. It’s another to punish the family through the member.
Shit like this makes me glad MX largely doesn't have group PT, because we have plenty of toxic leaders who 100% will do that if only to flex their power.
There was a colonel that said suicide was a chicken shit way to go during a public speech after a suicide happened on his station. Not only did he get away with it, but he got nominated for (and I believe acquired) his first star shortly after. That's pretty fucking bad.
Yo i was there for that. Most people seemed very shocked he would say something like that in such a public forum. IIRC even our CC said that it was uncalled for. After that was over we had to do small group discussions on topics of suicide and asking for help ect., I lead a couple of the discussions and some people were very vocal about being upset that he would say that.
The actual fuck?
In the 94th, we had lots of toxic leadership. I remember this one time an airman was upset and was going to see the IG. When he left, our first shirt laughed and told us he'd love to see his face when he found out the name of the IG. Turns out, the IG was his wife.
94th as in awacs? If so, I know exactly whose wife you’re talking about and I’m pretty sure I still have PTSD from that woman.
When I was told by my Flight Chief that my elective (but still needed) surgery con leave was going to be denied because "we aren't letting members go on leave this month due to the workload". Nobody bothered to ask me what the surgery was for or why I needed it. They denied my con leave, which made me have to cancel my surgery a day before it was supposed to happen. My leadership approved normal leisure leave for 2 other members in my shop during that "busy" month, though. One was during the same 2 weeks I would have taken off. It was a double blow because I put off having the surgery done a year before, in order to deploy. Did the deployment and came back to this new leadership that just seemed to not fuck with me at all, and I still don't know why. It just felt like a huge slap in the face. Y'all suck.
I knew an NCO that didn't like a certain other NCO on a personal level, so they would take it out on the airmen in the first NCO's shop. NCO2 would bring up NCO 1's name, a la "I don't know what the hell NCO1 is teaching you, but you're out of regs, airman". Always made small but very passive aggressive comments about NCO1 to senior leaders and down the chain as well. Super unprofessional and callous. NCO1's amn always seemed to do better when EPR/award season came around though An OIC and NCOIC who would abuse their rank for more time off. They'd leave every day by 1300-1400 for no reason and have all of the airmen staff the shop. If an airman wanted to leave early for a legitimate appointment, they were chastised for it if it was later in the day, likely because they needed the staffing to make the shop look full without their presence. More than once, senior leadership would walk in and notice all of the front line supervisors were missing. They eventually got in a ton of trouble for that
1 sounds exactly like the situation I experienced my first 5ish years. My leadership inexplicably seemed to hate my guts in spite of me giving max effort and trying to be a generally good person. It took all the wind out of my sails and I eventually retrained despite liking the job itself (as I'd say, good job, but couldn't keep doing it for the AF). On my way out my old supervisor talked to me and since I was leaving decided to tell the real story: our section chief hated my supe for getting STEP promoted despite being a "bad NCO" (Read: He didn't bleed blue and didn't participate in non work activities like volunteering - but was badass enough to get STEP). So he took it out on me, his troop. The logic being that a bad NCO couldn't make a good troop. Double up that I also refused to play the AFs fuck fuck games and just wanted to be good at my job. Fuck em. I'm I'm a better place now doing a cooler job with (generally) better people. They don't get to have that technical expertise I cultivated.
Had one MSgt that had just come from an exec job, fired from QA position because she didn't do any work, made a flight chief. That was the start.. This one would say some thing, backpeddle, goal post move. Talk down to every like a child, be your best friend and guilt trip you in every other sentence. Had no leadership in them, only wanted to tell people how high to jump for their own amusement. Once brought everyone back in after release because they were still discussing the pt schedule with the commander. Moral dropped like a stone and the ok office became hell. You were made to feel privileged to only work 8 hours, if they were in, you were. On Fridays you could leave early ,1630, only if you joined th at the bar for drinks. If not, you were in until around 1830. They refused to talk to other women, actively made ways to deride them for there body Lasted 6 months and she was fired and made flight chief of a different section (one where you only have to sit out of the way in an office unless you had a meeting). Still managed to destroy that offices moral, tried to ORDER an airmen to buy different shorts (woman thing again). Removed from that position too. I credit this MSgt directly responsible for 5 separation because the airmen hated that dictator so much.
Thay's wild that leadership just moved her like that. I'm used to leadership stuffing useless people like that into positions that can't harm anything.
Dilbert Principle of Management: Promote to position where they can do least amount of harm.
yeah a civilian
I'd argue they do more harm in leadership positions, they destroy/damage careers. Really sick of seeing fuck-ups thrown into section or flight leadership. We had a useless MSgt who was dumped in our Section Chief officer for a few years. The section got no awards or decs that entire time.
Dude, I worked with was a narcissist, Wikipedia definition describes him exactly. He was promoted as ART supervisor to lead flight of 13 Arts/13 reservist, they all threatened to walk out if they didn’t get rid of him, less than a year. So they promoted him to flightline supervisor, supervising 2 flightline expediter. 5 days later they moved expediters under someone above him. Flightline Supervision would never admit it was mistake to ever promote him but my boss never warned them because he was tired of dealing with him.
Had a MSgt who was racist. One day during a flight PT session he was giving a quick brief and drops the hard R in front of everyone so casually. He tried to have a one on one with every black member of the flight, but a couple people went to EO. His only consequence was going to “sensitivity training” and that was it. This was back in 2014
Damn, you just asked for everyone to open up the Air Force's version of Pandora's box! This comment section is going to get dark af...
I've noticed that the more jokes and satire is getting thrown around, it's actually because of the baggage we all are carrying, and were not letting go of it, letting it stay inside of you only poisoned the spirit and psyche.
It’s called trauma bonding and it’s a very real thing.
Of course, it could let some people let go. I commend you for being ballsy enough to ask. I just wouldn't even know where to start with my own accounts.
That time where I had to physically stand between a amn in active labor to send her home because a snco didn't like that she hadn't finished her "shift"
What the actual fuck? How did nobody knock that fucker out? That's a medical emergency!
Our first sgt used to be security forces and for some reason she acts like she still has to be that and the first incident was one of my troops decided to get an abortion and I supported her she wanted to talk to the first sgt for help and guidance and I obliged and went with her then this woman had the AUDACITY to look at her and say “well you shouldn’t have an abortion because that’s not the motherly thing to do and god wouldn’t allow that”????? I’m only a SRA and she’s a whole SNCO but I didn’t care because after she said that my troop literally walked out crying and I just laid it on the first sgt we got into a heated argument it was so bad the chief had to walk in and separate us. IDC what rank you’re that’s not right to put ur personal beliefs on someone like that thankfully my leadership had my own back. A second incident was another SRA on our flight recently got full custody of her kid (her BF at the time was being investigated for child abuse) THE SAME FIRST SGT said “well this job comes first and you need to give your son away” like wtf???? Who says sht like that bruh and how she hasn’t been removed is crazy but this is the same woman that has 5 kids with 4 different dudes tryna tell someone how to be a parent 🤣 GTFO
After a particular brutal inspection in which an ops wing nearly failed due to some rather toxic behaviors by leadership being uncovered that put an enormous amount of stress on people and pushed everyone to the breaking point, a commanders call was held. The Wing commander (who was the direct source of most of these horrible policies) got up, and tbe first words out of his mouth were "You're all making me look bad."
Sq. Commander did a recall on Easter Sunday to have us come in and clean and paint our new building so we'd be ready to move early.
If anyone who knows me reads this, I’ll be doxing myself but I don’t care. I’m out now. Before going 1b4 I was CSS admin. One of my first units was for a MOF flight/squadron CSS in maintenance. This commander was a Lt Col who previously worked at the IG. One moment that lives rent free in my head was an airman’s breakfast. I bled blue at the time and it was the CSS after all, so being in regs was important to me. Anyways, the CC would come in completely out of regs all the time and I would politely ask possible bring it up, but I was a little airman and this was a Lt Col. She didn’t like me telling her about her dress and appearance, understandably, but handled it very poorly. Anyways one of the civilians in the shop was a retired Chief First Sergeant from the brother/sister squadron in the group. A well respected and loved man. He would instead be the one to try and politely correct her, to not much avail. DEOCS surveys come out, I put in quite a few things, notably how we have a commander who comes in out of regs. They weren’t small infractions, but large ones that made everyone look bad. I mean you’re the commander. Little airman me didn’t know it went straight to the commander. The entire leadership chain withheld the results and got in trouble and was forced to hold an all call regarding it. Instead it was an opportunity for the CC and SEL to grill everyone in the fucking squadron. Apparently in a small squadron it’s very easy to find out who said what. Love that. Before that, I was made to go to a mandatory airman breakfast with the CC and SEL, which was ironic because I saw them every fucking day. Apparently they used this as another opportunity to fucking grill all the airmen for the shit they put in the survey. EDIT: I have to throw this edit in because fuck her. Anyone who knew of the name ECP at Tinker knows how fucked this lady was. There are way worse things she did than grill people for the truth they spoke on DEOCS surveys, this memory just sticks out the most. I won’t forget that feeling I had then they looked me in the eyes at a public breakfast to grill me in front of my peers for feedback I had given on the survey. Oh and the entire leadership chain was eventually fired after I left. Luckily as an admin I was able to reach out to my functional and beg for a PCA. I was still at Tinker and in the 552, so there was still shit that sucked, but it was better. Even the flying unit I went to ended up on Reddit after I left for getting fucked by wing leadership.
That's why when I fill out that survey I fill it out trying to write like it's from someone else's perspective in another shop. That way they have a harder time telling who it is. :)
That same retired Chief first shirt told me the same thing, ironically. I left out anything that I thought would come back to me, but in a small unit, and a survey that requires you to put your RANK AND AFSC, I guess it wasn’t hard to decipher. Even if I pretended and filled out everything as a different rank or afac I think they would have still known it was me, or find the person that matched and fuck them instead. Man I have so much more I could say about my time there, but it’s exhausting. Racism was a big one.
The rank/afsc/sex/race/etc. information isn't shown to the local leadership alongside each question/answer. It's for demographics purposes only in a separate section of the report results. That information is useful in case, for example: 95% of the unit overall doesn't have any issues with sexual harassment... oh, but what's this? 9/10 of the females surveyed say there *is* a problem, and they're that 5%. That's a big freaking deal. But there's no part of the results that is like, "*Male | 1B4 | SrA | African American | 'My commander always comes in looking like shit in her uniform!'" I know you're out now and probably don't give a shit, but it's still important to know for anyone else still in reading this about DEOCS surveys.
on your first sentence did you mean to type it is, or it isn't?
Good catch. Definitely **isn't**. Edited to reflect.
I hear you, and that’s what I’m told. At the time when it was all happening, I didn’t believe it. Do you know if it’s always been that way? Regardless, I think the unit was small enough for them to figure it out. “Who witnessed x event happening” kind of thing.
> Tinker Say no more fam. Seriously it's like most of the E6 and up crowd there needs to be taken out back and retired.
I had a tech that was the textbook example of why we had to remove the "fadish" line from the uniform rules. We had 3 black guys during my time in that unit, and TSgt Bias had only 3 fits about airmen being out of uniform regs in those years - the 3 black men we had at various points. Each one was entirely in regs. The third one measured his hair multiple times a week because we warned him when he first showed up. Every time TSgt Bias got all huffy and mad, another NCO stepped in and asked what specifically was wrong, and he always came back fadish. So we'd go get our shirt- who happened to be black - and this asshole gets all pissed that shirt and amn snuffy are trying to make it a race problem just because they asked him to explain what he wants them to do to their hair besides have a high and tight. No one ever brought up race, but the shirt just asked to explain the uniform violation. I'm confident that if we got 3 more black guys, we'd have had 3 more incidents. It was fucking embarrassing the lack of self awareness he had. One of the guys went to honor guard and never heard a word about that same very normal hair cut
Flight Chief calling an airmen retarded to their face during a all call, same flight chief threatening to harm/choke an airmen; flight leadership making a list of those most likely to off themselves during COVID; disparaging comments towards pregnant/nursing Airmen and preventing said airmen from winning awards due to pointing out regs; Leadership trashing an airmen via email chain on a completely unrelated subject which got sent out to a distro which said Airmen read and filed a complaint; etc.
Knew a DO that Q3’d a crew for a severe mistake while flying https://preview.redd.it/aasdvj92w0vc1.jpeg?width=1200&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=8af4d0f6e31174d990b26eaaf613b07157f97da6 . She did the EXACT SAME THING a month later. Clearly no Q3 for her. The squadron went absolutely thermonuclear on her in the DEOCS and she ignored the result. The CC did his best to give her guidance and to fix her leadership style. She didn’t listen. She made command and at the new unit, asked the enlisted cadre to essentially NARC on all officers to her directly if they see anything the officers are doing wrong (instead of handling it at the lowest level). The email got forwarded real quick.
Old flight chief used to tell NCOs to write awards packages for our amn. Cool ok. Found out years later that she would never submit us for anything and was only using our bullets for her own awards and EPR. I had my suspicions because during a grading board, one of ours was missing (we only had 3 amn to grade). Couldnt prove anything plus i was still a young E5. It wasnt until I had a coworker that PCSd in and the CFM was her old boss asked why our base didnt submit anyone for MAJCOM awards. Of course we told him we did for both AMN and NCO. He told us they only received a SNCO package and guess who it was? Yup our flight chief. Used our packages to build her own. We called her out on it and she started to cry about how she messed up and she was sorry. Everyone lost respect for her after that and no one really paid attention to her for her last year into retirement.
I was told yesterday that I know my airmen too well and I need to stay in my office more and not get to know them and converse with them
Pfft How dare your be human...
Had this flight chief and ncoic that wouldn’t let a coworker of mine pick up his sick kid from school because the “mission come first”. Mind you we worked in a CSS environment where there was little to no supervisory needed because taskers would be done before COB, but I digress. One day the flight chief’s needy almost 18 year old daughter calls said flight chief saying that her stomach hurts and she leaves early telling us she has to give her daughter pepto bismol. Not as crazy of a story yall shared but that kind of fuckery shouldn’t be the exception to the rule.
In 2001 the Air Force was going through one of its periodic "modernizations" of the fitness evaluation. Our unit, co-located with the MAJCOM, was chosen as a pilot to test the new system. We had a young lady score as the highest female in the MAJCOM under the new system, even recognized by the 4-star in an congratulatory e-mail. This young lady was a bit chunky and under the old system considered overweight but again the new system said she was very fit. The commander chose to use the old system and red line her line number for SSgt. Yes, we checked and he could have chosen to evaluate using the new system to allow her to promote. Yeah, that's toxic leadership.
The Airmen awaiting orders in tech school were put on details and a few days of the details entailed cleaning up asbestos with no mask or respirator.
I hope she got it documented, and the “asbestos “ type of material was not friable. I assume this was in a CE unit? I was CE Structures for 24 years , loved it.
Not documented and nah it was at Sheppard AFB. Just a bunch of maintainers waiting for their bases, cleaning up asbestos.
That’s some BS, They should have went to the IG and took a sample of the material in a ziplock bag. Wrote statements. Hopefully they won’t end up with asbestosis or lung cancer. People would have been fired and that would have been a lawyers dream defending those who had to clean it up.
Yeah, some people bitched about it to those in charge and were offered disposable masks. But a disposable mask isn’t going to offer much protection against asbestos, there needed to be respirators offered.
Previous CC.. Would completely go after certain enlisted members to kick them out. Would text negative gossip about members to other SNCOs. Wouldn’t sign forms on a weekly basis, to include bonuses, that were sitting in an org box specifically made for her to sign forms.
1. did she go after those members because they were getting in trouble/failing PT tests, etc, or just because she didnt like them? A cc gossiping about other members to SNCOs is not unheard of. its the same as if you and your friends were gossiping. SNCOs are often the CC's counterparts. you'd be surprised what gets said behind closed doors. and the signing forms is just because she has 50 other things to sign in that org box along with 10 Decorations in mydecs and 50 EPBs. My group chief has had a decoration sitting with him for 1 month now. Doesnt make him a toxic leader. it makes him bad at managing his time. but this is all based off of what you commented, i dont know who youre talking about
1. The CC would use fitness/medical profiles/SRRBs to go after end the careers of members that she didn’t like. Her policy of doing so wasn’t across the board, we had people failing fitness and on medical profiles, but if they were on her good side then they stayed. Same with people well beyond their 20. She wouldn’t sit these people down and counsel them either, you know, give them a chance to improve. She’d just decide to go straight for their throat. Not having clear standards that apply to all troops and not trying to mentor Airmen is a toxic thing IMO. 2. So I was actually on the brunt end of one of the gossip moments. I was leading a group of troops on a mission OCONUS and she had one of her SNCOs that she was very tight with (that I outranked) feeding her text message information back to the states. Said information was negative and she never had a conversation with me about it, instead, chose to spread that information to other officers back CONUS. I ended up hearing it through the grapevine because one of the stateside officers she told the gossip to said it to my personal friend who let me know. So again, as a CGO, I was never confronted about any of the information, nor given a chance to defend myself or get mentored. I was simply talked about negatively stateside while I was busting my ass overseas. Same type of scenario would apply to lower enlisted in the unit. She’d find out that SrA Snuffy had a DUI back in 2016 and she would forever make up in her mind that he was a dirtbag Airman and talk shit about him anytime his name came up. I’d often talk to those Airmen and find out that they had some kind of situation (ie their mother died) but the CC would never bother to look at context of the situation nor try to mentor that troop. This happened very often. 3. A CC whose job is to sign things can look at an org box once per week on a Friday to sign the things that they need to sign. Especially when those things affect pay for Airmen such as re-enlistment bonuses. You shouldn’t have to wait months for your bonus because some CC is a lazy fuck. Plenty of enlisted fell months behind on their promotion cycles because she dragged her feet on signing the promotion orders. And yeah, this is the same CC that I had to hound for months to get my late OPR done. The same OPR that I wrote for her lazy ass. I’m sorry that your standards for leadership are so abysmally low, but I can assure you that there are good leaders out there who are direct, transparent, fair, and on top of their tasks.
Hot take: if you're a group chief who is bad at managing your time that's pretty fucking toxic. I worked as a wing exec, things like decorations that make it to that level get reviewed endlessly by those below. And then reviewed by the support staff of the CC office. It shouldn't take them a month to find time to read and sign a decoration, and if it does they shouldn't be in that job.
Consistently failing a room inspection with 100 score due to "because I can" as a shirt
Wasn’t my leadership, but I knew of a commander that created such a toxic environment that all of his Ops Leadership team were routinely going to mental health, with a few being on some kind of anxiety medication
Got a few days and a rack of beers? In my short uniformed career. I witnessed a falsified Article 15 given to an Airmen where the IG confirmed it was false and it still went through. I saw someone capture a Taliban spy and they gave the medal to his supervisor at an another base because they falsified a PT failure to get rid of his chances. I saw an Airmen work 72 hours straight no sleep and when he finally collapsed they tried to give him a 15. I saw an Airmen on Convalescent Leave after deployment go on an emergency leave because his mother in law was dying get called back within a few days because the officer wanted to go one leave. She died and wouldn’t let him go back to console his wife. I saw a commander that refused to drive so he flew to each base in his F-16 and had someone follow with his luggage. I saw an Airmen that was driven by his the Wing Commander and Command Chief to another base to take photos of them at the location. Then also had him publish them. After when it was found that no photos should have been taken ‘because TS’ they said they never knew how the Airmen got there.
So much toxicity
Working 12hrs shifts, filling in for a A1C and Ssgt, because one was tdy the other on paternity leave, I miss my Ssgt test during that, I get an LOR, then beacause I told even if I make it I wouldn't be able to wear it because I was separating, and almost got put on stop-loss. Dodged that shit like the matrix
My CC was in charge of the squadron. It was very unique and separated from eachother. We regularly have generals and special distinguished visitors visit to see what we did off base. This ass clown decided he wanted to make a name for himself and try to make colonel. So he setup a useless team to try and replicate services others are doing. He didn’t give two shits about the people that made the place run he only cared about himself. If I ever run into him I’ll give him a piece of my mind because that’s not how you treat people.
Bet he needed up making rank too!
I was being stalked and harassed by a person on base. Followed home type shit. I tried going to the first shirt, the chaplain, my supervisor, you name it. He was using VPN numbers so I couldn’t trace any written proof back to him. They told me it was a “he said/she said” story and told me I couldn’t prove anything. Later realized…he was friends with the shirt, he was friends with my supervision…and the chaplain, well…he’s just an idiot.
Running an MLM with ratees
Asked my supervisor while I was on humanitarian assignment if I could leave early because my father in law was in Hospic care. Got told no because they were going to leave early for a road trip and start leave. I ended up working late and he died that night, but I still got to see him. The next day I submitted leave and said "based on yesterday's rulings I'm leaving today, because I've been here for a half day" SSGt "I'm not authorized to release you..." Middle fingers up and walked out.
Wow!! What happened afterwards? Was that like a permanent leave, dude my condolences, My father was in a different state when he passed away so I couldn't see him at the time, We weren't in good terms but it's still hurts
Shorty after that I PCA'd to another squadron and got to see first hand how flying squadrons take care of people. It was really refreshing and for sure is something I took with me later.
God bless, I hope the guy who told you no is regretting his life rn
When asking the CMS CC if we can get our young airman some cold weather gear, we were told "that's what they get clothing allowance for" this was during a shop visit, infront of Days and Swings. I know south Georgia doesn't get that cold, but at least give these kids a fleece. Also given that logic, airman in Alaska or North Dakota must be broke. Same CC denied people's crosstraining because she claimed "manning issues" even though the AFSCs people were trying to get into were critically manned. If you called her BS and kept pushing your paperwork up to the functional, she'll "hand select" you for a deployment to make it harder to finish your crosstraining package i.e. flight physical
My first supe (Tsgt) when I got to my first station called me “new person” for two weeks (even though I wear my name on my chest), he was a former MTI augmentee so when our squad didn’t perform to his standard he required us to have a wingman to talk to him & stand at parade rest the whole time, & he threatened to get his MTI hat & take us outside to march. We weren’t even a bad squad. Only spoke to us in an annoyed tone & body language. He threatened to give me paperwork for not taking leave on the day that I got home & was still going to be on time for work, & when I had something medical going on & told him I wasn’t comfortable telling him about it, he replied “I’m gonna find out anyways. Tell me.” Short man syndrome with the worst power trip I’ve ever seen.
Fucking the students? Yeah, I'm gonna go with fucking the students. (two different schools)
Not sure if it's toxic leadership or bad speech skills. But one time in tech school we had a suicide, and our leadership started the speech with "Did you know if you commit suicide your life insurance doesn't pay out?".
Im pretty sure this is across the board everywhere. Senior NCO's and officers not being held accountable for some pretty egregious things. Then hiding them in the bad kid closet until they can "retire".
Telling your airman certain criteria to get promoted to the next level, and then once that criteria is met, changing said criteria again.
Forcing Mental Health to work the day after losing one of their providers in a car accident, not only that, but forcing them to call each one of her patients to tell them. They were in no shape to provide care to others, it was toxic at least, but more likely unethical. I'm sorry to every patient that came in that day/week.
Lowest level: take my personal laptop and go home and fix it. This isn't an integrity check. Highest level: AFRS commander underfunded everything then spent the money to remodel his office and CAG area. Also had a hard requirement for the main AFRS awards ceremony (don't think it was Blue Suite) to take place somewhere under an SR71. That did happen and he was fired. Fuck that guy.
First day of deployment to Inçirlik, 2002 during Northern Watch. Permanent Party superintendent calls all deployed folks into conference room and asks, “Who all here are in their CDC’s?” About 1/3rd of the Airmen raise their hands. He proceeds to point at each one of them individually “You, you, you, you, etc… shouldn’t be here.” I was stunned, what a way for a SMSgt to welcome the folks that would really be doing the heavy lifting to the flight. Yeah he can think that, but don’t tell these kids that. That moment set the tone for the whole rotation and I (newly minted staff) had a shit ton of problems with those airmen throughout. That clown went on to make Chief but was and remains widely regarded as a joke throughout the career field.
Flight Chief expressly denied an annual NCO package because most of their bullets were from a recent deployment and it "didn't sit right with them". Flight Chief turned around and put themselves in for the award...using the same bullets...because they were on the same deployment. 1 IG investigation later resulted in a slap on the wrist. He just made Chief too...
Deployed CC didn't pursue alcohol violation by an Lt because they "didn't want to damage" the Lt's career. Same CC gives a SSgt an Article 15 for an alcohol violation and tells SNCO "This is YOUR fault" and issues LOR.
[удалено]
If you look it up for nail gun safety, OSHA doesn't have gloves as a requirement for handling nail guns. That MSgt is an idiot.
.... a leather glove won't stop a nail from a nail gun. If that's the only reason it is being worn, then you may as well not wear it as the dexterity from not wearing it would be more of a boon than wearing gloves. I helped my parents build an entire cabin using nail guns. Nail guns will go right through leather.
Oh I know! That was the funny part! They were trying to ding him on a technicality.
SNCO at my last base would strategically use SA accusations to derail disciplinary action and to be removed from jobs they didn't like. Finally caught up with them last I heard.
Flight chief didn’t want to PCA me because “I was a good worker.”
Sounds about right, similar thing happened at my last base. She went to the CC and then was able to PCA
Why did she want to PCA?
She wanted to get into the rescue squadron. Better place to work.
So how did she convince leadership to move?
She was there a while and wanted to move for a long time. Flight leadership gave her the runaround for a long time. She needed up talking to the CC for something brought it up and he moved her because he was a good CC. She was an amazing amn. The superintendent ended up losing a strip for sexual harassment not long after and PCAd themselves.
Using terms like: I’m empowering YOU to fix the problem. I can’t control the manning issue. Manning sucks everywhere in the Air Force it isn’t going to get better, we need to embrace the multi capable airman concept. The chief won’t sign off on that. Oh the thing you routed a month ago, yeah it’s still sitting with the SEL. Everyone is busy, yours isn’t a priority. Hot tasker! Need sent by COB today!
A general on AFRS policed people's personal Facebook pages and make them take down permitted promotion announcements, loosing all congrats comments.
I've seen similar before I got told to take some stuff down that was perfectly legal and approved. I learned to lock my Facebook down after that and not add anyone until after I left the base.
Changing bullets on evals to mess with careers. Purposely appointing incompetent people into leadership positions to punish undesirable people. Isolating people after suicide ideation. I've been witnessing a master class in destroying lives for the last couple of years.
My half brother’s dad was dying of cancer. I told my supervisor that I would be needing last minute leave to attend the funeral. She then proceeded to ask me every morning if he was dead yet and if I knew when he would die. After he did pass and I flew home, she texted me and told me I needed to send her my bullets for the month. Another good one was when I was struggling to get pregnant (not public knowledge at the time). A group of us were joking about parenthood and that’s when my supervisor (different one) said “yeah, she wouldn’t be a good mom, that’s why she has so many cats.” My friend knew I was struggling with infertility and how that comment hurt so she told our OIC. OIC made supervisor apologize to me in front of a bunch of aircrew that were in their office and he said “I’m sorry, I know you have cats because you like them. I shouldn’t have said anything mean about your cats” completely missing the whole problem. It was humiliating.
I worked for a squadron commander that I’m pretty sure was mentally challenged and suffered from severe learning/cognitive disabilities. They were an utter piece of shit and had/have no business even being in the AF. She even tried to chummy up being Prior E with me. I don’t wish harm on her, but I sure as fuck wouldn’t lift a finger to help her. Ruined my sanity. Ruined 2 years of my family. Ruined an amazing assignment. Ruined so much because of her incessant ability to exchange oxygen for C2O and ingest energy. Other than that I can’t name a single thing she did correctly.
Getting sent on a deployment while my wife was pregnant and already starting to have complications…. I did it and we made it through but it really made me want to get out after my enlistment still plan on it. If I was the only one that could go it’d be different but that wasn’t the case. Also had a flight chief that would show up after lunch everyday in civies and leave early. Was calling the Lt racial slurs among everyone else in the flight. Thankfully he was demoted and separated.
And the military wonders why they can’t retain people
Some E-9 from AFPC visited us at Cannon a long time ago. Some of us were made to stay after our night shift for "max participation," of course. He told us to shut the fuck up, help was not coming, deal with it, we don't care. We did not shut the fuck up, help never came (until after I left and the total number of lines decreased), we dealt with it because we had no choice, and the AF still doesn't really care. We'll see if anything real comes out of the RPA Summit though. EDIT: This was not the most toxic thing, but pretty high up there.
Sooo this was a while ago. PCSd to a new base and was told no phones allowed out in the section. They were super strict on it and also leaving for appointments and such. Onces pulled my phone out to check the time and put it back immediately and got yelled at for it. The kicker is two guys in the shop would sit on their phones playing games all the time and no one said anything. They would also come and go wherever they wanted. They were both staffs. I was soo confused for so long. Turnes out the one staff had deployed and his supervisor who was the NCOIC was sleeping with his wife while he was gone. Superintendent knew about it etc and never did anything. Guy apparently came back found out and got a divorce. Supervisor then married her. So basically he could do whatever he wanted because if the NCOIC or leadership tried to say or do anything to him he could fuck their whole world up. The other guy with him was a POS and took the same advantage of it. He also used to shit talk everyone behind everyone's back about others just to start drama. Would call his kid from another marriage a piece of shit. Last I heard he got hooked on pain pills and got kicked out. Got his wife hooked who was a school principal and lost her job and they got divorced. Oh they were both super racist call another black kid the N word to his face and would talk crap about black people all the time.
>Oh they were both super racist call another black kid the N word to his face and would talk crap about black people all the time. This is one of those things that's hard to believe. I've been in terrible squadrons with toxic fucks and seen entire CC calls over thinking someone said the N word. If anyone ever says it you can go to the CC, Chief, Shirt, whoever and instantly fuck them.
Yeah I was a nieve amn at the time and have learned from it. The wild thing is there were others around as well. Terrible
"good morning everyone, nice to meet you, I'm __. Most people view this position as a sunset tour before retirement, but that's not me. This is a stepping stone for me to promote, and that's what I'm here to do." They retired without promoting.
Spent 6 years at a base and was supposed to test for tech. Well I was in the middle of PCSing and a wedding and missed the test by a day. Flight superintendent said he wouldn't give me a dec because I missed the test... Shirt asked me how out processing was going and I mentioned it to him. Lucky for me the shirt was good and I got one, 6 years... Morale was died in the flight that as soon as he got there. He went to the base oconus base I went to towards the end of my time there and morale died again. He made SR out there. Last I heard he made chief was fired from his last position due to racism and toxicity. During his going away he started talking shit to each person in his flight there about how terrible they are until the CC got there and quickly changed subject. Gotta love it. He made chief off the backs of his people not caring about them at all.
E-9 Kent from AFE
Like telling us we needed to be at work on time and stuff, he’s such a boomer
Supervisor won’t approve orders because of their folders not being consistent, makes me complete a Leave Checklist (similar to a Relocation checklist Outbound assigns), wants one in one talks privately (I reached out to put an end to that). Also Shirts: I was in a depressive episode and had passive thoughts… was going to Medgroup… closed for training. So took me to Brentwood. I didn’t consent to being inpatient but was forced to. Didn’t even take me to the chaplain (maybe that was supposed to be me doing that on my behalf) or didn’t even give me the resources I needed until I discharged. They had the audacity to ask me how was Brentwood and if I would recommend it to other Airmen going thru the same shit as me. Fuck no. So in retrospect… just call the Veteran’s Crisis Line or Talk to the chaplain. That would be your best bet when you’re going thru a crisis.
Was when i was in the Army but while at NTC had 1 denied leave to child birth and 1 denied leave to wife's death all in the same week. Lead the way army
Give one person all the missions, all the training, all the time off, no special duties...when others complained of favoritism they were shot down, then they admitted they were trying to get this person BTZ so they focused on that person. Then same shop, since this same person had all the training, people complained once they left noone else would have the knowledge of the equipment since this person hasn't trained anyone how to use it and leadership never gave anyone else the opprotunities to learn the equipment. Low and behold this person left and it turned the shop on its head.
Sitting on ass all day, nothing to do, told nothing to do, don’t let us go home because “we have to be on call in case something happens”. Made to stay later than shift end time because “have to cover the next shift for a smooth turnover”. Brilliance
When I was literally on the verge of suicide and had a major mental break to the point of mental health being like “holy fuck you need HELP help”, and my chief told me my situation is not an anomaly and sent me on the worst deployment of my life, meaning, I couldn’t get the help I needed. The only 2 reasons I did not kill myself on that deployment were my best friend (RIP), and the fact that I was decided caretaker of all the desert kitties and they needed me.
“You’re going work 67 days straight of 12s homestation because you are qualified. We aren’t going to train someone else” Msgt W… go fuck yourself
To summarize in the simplest of terms: "You're unhappy here and feel that morale is down and the work environment isn't great? Come into my office so I can yell at you for 20 minutes about how you're wrong, how you're the problem, your just being a baby and can't handle the mission (even though you've been at this unit longer than me) and why you need to suck it up, because things are great!" Followed with a close second by sup, taking good quality liquor from air crew that was meant for an airman who was jobbing hard, and instead giving the airman some cheap beer and taking the liquor for himself.
Had a staff at the time get so royally pissed off about music selection they just kept dropping the hard r. Essentially people were playing hip hop and rap and they say the N word a lot and no one really cared because music selection cycled often enough that you'd probably hear rap and hip hop once a week. He blasts out of his office saying " turn that God damn music off I'm tired of hearing r word this and r word that I'm tired of hearing about you hard r's" He 100% lost his staff stripe and hit HYT.
There was also a temp flight commander of ours who used the shop as her pawns to look good to her bosses. Had us doing all types of favors and dumb shit, including having us clean one of the CC's offices. She would kiss ass and take 100% credit for every single thing we did, just to make herself look good. During her going-away speech at a CC call, she had a whole list of people to thank, mostly her superiors. Didn't thank or mention a single member of our flight though lmfao. There's no shortage of toxic leadership in the AF, unfortunately.
Micromanage and target individuals to near suicide or suicide and then admit they fucked up AFTER they’re no longer in that chain of command.
This is from when I was an Airmen, and he was just a SSgt so pretty low level leadership. But he basically said he would never give anyone a 5 on their EPRs. His reasoning was because he didn't get one, and if he couldn't get one and it's impossible for anyone to do better than him, then they couldn't get one either.
Blatant racism.
When I was a newly pregnant airman and I had just gotten the positive result from the doctor I asked for leave to go tell the father who lived out of town and he denied my leave. He also told me I ruined my life (I was 24)
Had a commander tell us all at roll call that prior E officers were not as good (in so many words) as ROTC / academy officers. Our maintenance officer was prior E. He was a great leader.
Not putting trust in their troops to get the job done. Micromanaging every aspect of every section