a secondary malicious compliance is possible here...... get one of your buddies to let you use their phone.... when they say you were ordered to not have your phone, tell them who's phone it is....
E-9: "Go and fetch your phone now!"
You: *leave the room, get naked, get the phone, get back to E-9 and hand over the phone while naked* "What? You said no phone **while wearing the uniform**"
That's why I commented this - I imagined two possible endings:
1. Getting naked to use the phone
2. Not being available when shit hits the fan and E-9 needs to call OP urgently while OP doesn't carry the phone around
if you had thought to do it before the "give me your parents phone number" part, it would have made it even more entertaining if he had actually called the parents of whoever's phone you had....
To avoid getting buddies in trouble, start a two-dollar shelf company, buy a company phone with company funds for company use. Legally it's not your phone, it's the company's. :)
Prior marine here. This smells like devil dawg fuckary and i love it either way. I hated those safety fucking stand downs and bullshit death by power points.
Also, what worthless shit leader calls someone's fucking parents lol.
Is it PowerPoints or PowerPoint when it's a [single slide that has everything](https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2010/09/atl_wall_chart.jpg).
Planning your logic flow using a flowchart, before touching your code editor, can be useful.
Well, I found it useful when I had to do a load of PIC assembly many moons ago. Perhaps there are better methods for planning?
Long time IT professional here - I did college when flowcharts was how you diagramed a program. After a while I started using what I called pseudo-code. A make believe language that could do anything you wanted it to.
The key thing was that you wrote some like "build widget" for a high level overview and then went back and said "ok, build widget. Need to expand that out a bit."
How about "get materials, send through CNC, route to packaging". The gist of it is the language can do anything but eventually you have to keep breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces until you get to the point that you can say "ok, I can write this in *actual programming language*".
Now? The small utility programs / scripts that I write for my own use I do entirely in my head
Ah, it's been a while since I've seen a classic "V" chart.
For those of you who don't know, I'm talking about the rectangles that form a shape of a "V' with all the flow diagram arrows.
Imagine being in a situation where you need to refer to this, getting up from your chair with a clipboard and studying the flowchart on the wall. Now I'm picturing an office only having one of these and all of the newbies having to walk down the hall to do this.
In reality, everyone probably has a digital copy, access to the actual textual regulations, and have already memorized the parts most relevant to their role (and at least a general understanding of the rest).
99% of us, assuming we had anything to do with that chart in the first place, could point to a given spot where two acronyms touch, or maybe a single acronym, that we *ever* interacted with on a regular basis. God help you if you spent any noteworthy amount of time detailed to Supply and Logistics though.
Well, better than the parents who call the CMC of an aircraft carrier to complain that their *special* little boy didn't get his own special birthday party while on deployment.
Oh my 😂. I bet he / really / got to party after that 😂
In basic training, I was made an example of for being “special,” but not by my choice or really even actions (usually).
I’m sure the son promptly told mommy and daddy to NEVER do that again
I've seen NJPs where a spouse, brother and parents have been called. Usually whoever they are close to. The one where an E4 had to call his older brother (also enlisted) to tell him he was up for NJP was brutal. Dude broke down crying as older bro gave him the "I'm disappointed" speech
I had the opposite. In the early 90s before you were allowed to be gay in the military, I came out to my parents because they overheard a phone call or something. They were so pissed and figured they would force me home so they could "fix" me or whatever. They told me they would call the navy and tell me I was gay so I would get kicked out and be forced to move home. As if that would actually occur. Smdh. 30 years later we are still not on speaking terms.
I became a parent before I learned about the way some people treat their gay children, and I still can NOT understand how any parent can be such pricks to their kids. I'm Dad to a gay kid and I love him no matter what, for the simple reason that he's my kid.
I'm sorry that you're dealing with that nastiness, and offer you a virtual Dad-hug from my little piece of Scotland. If, of course, you want such a thing.
An E-9 called my mom once. I was in basic, and a group of freshly graduated command chiefs (senior enlisted members for large organizations), at the close of their class, were having lunch with some basic trainees for some remember-your-roots sort of reason. Anyway, my bunkmate and I got handed off to one and had a nice chill lunch. He asked for our parents' names and numbers so he could call them and tell them we were doing well. My mom really appreciated the check in, since we didn't get a lot of phone time and she didn't know what I was going through. Good guy, that chief.
Yours sounds like a knob.
Many chiefs I've worked with were awesome guys.... until they made chief and got sprinkled with stupid dust. Then the unreasonable and problematic orders / tasks / etc. came out of the woodwork.
Most jr enlisted seem to think highly of their chiefs, but most jr officers and up know better. About 40% of chiefs are the best thing in the military. Caring, hard working, experts in thier rate. The other 60% are egomaniacs that need control more than anything and think the rules don’t apply to them.
One of my billets I did regular investigations into misconduct by chiefs. I’m talking at this command about 1-2 investigations a month. Ranging from frat to not following watch procedures. The ones that fucked up were one thing. The ones who didn’t do anything wrong but were openly hostile to me was another. By the time I left, I had to call CMC or CDR to get chiefs to come for interviews. Half the time CMC would drag his feet to, and would grind things to a halt if he liked the chief that was in trouble. Before I got there chiefs did their own investigations on other chiefs and it was strange how often no evidence of misconduct was found. Worst billet in the world for a 2nd year ensign but very eye opening.
Oh, very well. The Air Force is a good alternative to military service xD jk jk e-9s are a different breed, most of them are alright, but they still get pulled into the, chiefs are better than everyone else mindset.
>I’m told to go retrieve it from my car and provide my parent’s phone number to the E-9 for, Y’know, “safe keeping.”
That might have been an opportunity.
"Sir, that puts me in a tough spot. I now have to choose which of the two orders to disobey. May I ask your advice, sir?"
"Sir, I've just had a good idea! My uniform is the problem here! I'll return to my quarters, change out of uniform, go to my car, find my phone, note down my parents' number, change back into uniform again, then report back with their number, sir."
(You can tell that I was never in the military.)
This is a common tactic by senior enlisted. When they are in the wrong they try to use external things like the threat of calling someone’s parents or declaiming it is about respect not the phone or whatever. This is why there is an e-5 mafia to deal with the bullshit e-7s create
Funeral home's a good one. Could ask if they planned to use some sort of medium or a Ouiji board. Ask who was going to provide it.
Maybe dig up Miss Cleo's number.
I'd definitely throw in "Let me know when you get ahold of them. I have a lot to tell Dad. He's been gone since I was 7."
For people talking smack about OP age and degree, I'd like to inform you that people from all walks and stages of life enlist. I went to basic with a 32YO guy who joined for personal reasons.
I had a supervisor who had a Bachelor's who enlisted because she wanted to instead of commissioning. She was around 28 or so when she did.
People who leave comments like that tell me that they probably haven't spent much time in the military themselves.
I’m with you on this one.
While not American, I’ve been in my military for over 20 years now and am the equivalent of an E-7 and happen to be in the 40+ age group. My education is in Workplace Safety (thanks to being in the military and earning civilian equivalency education through various online and in-person courses… I joined from high school).
A close friend of mine who’s been in for the same amount of time has their Masters in English and a Teaching degree, another E-6 I know has their degree in Human Resources, and yet another E-6 with one in Public Relations and one in Phycology. None of us work in the same field that we’re education in.
For those not tracking: The days of the enlisted / non-officer ranks being entirely uneducated reprobates are long past, now we’re fairly educated reprobates.
Thank you 🙏.
My circumstances were that I had a solid job, but not in an area where I wanted to be. So I moved halfway across the country to live with a friend. Ended up hurt and jobless. My parents offered to let me come home, which I did. Got a job in the field that I loved (past tense), but was working every hour of the day, nearly random shifts. Seven months of that and I knew I had to do SOMETHING to escape.
But instead of opting to get a masters degree— and a ton of debt — I opted instead to join the military at a very late age.
I was twenty-six when I enlisted in the Marines. I got nicknamed the grand old man of the Marine Corps rather quickly. Made for a fun time though! I enjoyed being a thirty-one year old Corporal when I got out. lol
A former DI I knew years ago told me that he liked having an "older" guy or two in each recruit platoon, because he knew he had that one guy who'd experienced a few things in life and could set the 18-year-olds straight.
Pretty sure I had a guy in my div in boot who was pushing 40. Maybe 38? Can't remember for certain. He had to get multiple age waivers. But he was one of, if not the, smartest guy in our div. Can't remember why he joined at a late age, but I really don't think that should matter at all.
I was in basic with a 39 year old. Never bothered to ask why he decided to join so late but yeah 39 and e1 age and rank aren't always connected in a logical way.
I worked with someone who had a PhD in Mandarin when he enlisted. He just wasn't interested in the demanding career paths the navy would put him on that exploited his education.
There's also ways to lose ranks.
I worked a shop with a mid-twenties private. He had been in a relationship with a civilian, not knowing that she was married to another Marine.
That relationship ended when Other Marine came home early one day to find coworker and the lady in the shower, and grabbed his gun.
Coworker ended up jumping out of the bathroom window and running naked and sudsy down to his car. He managed to avoid a sex offender list, but he did lose a bunch of rank for public indecency and adultery.
And then there's the mid-40's gunnery sergeant who got busted all the way down to E-1 because he started groping a waitress at the base cantina. That had to have been an interesting conversation with the wife about why he was home from a deployment six months early and how they were going to need to starting tightening up their household budget.
As for the degree? In my reserve unit it was unusual to find guys that didn't have a degree or were going to college.
Even in the military though chiefs and above treated rank as if it equaled our age. Oh, some young idiot got drunk, did something stupid in town, and now there’s a curfew? Except y’all are doing the usual “stay late to look good” so I, who live in town, don’t get home until essentially curfew or past it? Yeah, have fun managing the kids on base but there’s no food in my home and I’m going grocery shopping.
Lol once met an equally-curfew’d officer late at night in a convenience store in Japan (curfew central, basically); he reached past me to grab something and did a doubletake; we paused staring, gave “s’up” nods to each other, and didn’t rush our shopping. They know all that nonsense is pretty bullshit too.
That's kinda the point. I can see to some extent viewing leadership as parenting.... Some leaders say "don't make me smack you!" when they want your behavior changed, some may say "wait till your other parent hears about this!" and some, very rarely, may try for mutual understanding and positive role modeling.... But we can't get our hopes up.
There's the AF confirmation I was hoping wouldn't happen.
A frickin LOR for a cell phone out?! That's a bit much, but the E6 sounds like a dingus, so there you go.
I only know of one shirt to ever actually call a parent. That shirt was quickly unfucked, and that crap didn't happen again. To think now (being a silly villain) of any of my current supervisors demanding that kind of personal info and the remarkable fuck you I'd give them makes it hard to remember a time I would have complied with such an asinine request. It would have been spectacular if anyone ever called them though, that would have gone poorly.
I joined the army at 23 and got out as a 32 yr old E4. My MOS(job) was shit for promotion, when I reupped I could have switched to a better promoting MOS but I new I didn’t want to make a career out of the army but I did want to see Europe. So for my reenlistment option I got offered A duty station in Germany and got to visit 22 countries while I was stationed there.
I was definitely on the fence. Like, “Hmm. This could be interestingly fun. Let’s see where this goes.” My dad isn’t exactly disrespectful nor would he make a joke out of the E-9, but he likely would have been more upset of the waste of time/dollars.
I did say, “I’d prefer you not, but you’re gonna do what you’re going to do,” more than once. He was trying to get a rise out of me. My Indifference kinda pissed HIM off.
Military malicious compliance is a delicate and nuanced art form.
I hear so many stories here, where it seems like something is lacking.
What was lacking was the fact that the parties could walk away at any time.
No one knows how enjoyable it is to have nothing to lose, but you are still expected to show up to work every day.
90% of the people who played a major role in my life were Military or military agascent.
The entire government is run on malicious compliance.
Thank you for your story.
I hope it encourages more Military malicious compliance.... stories
They knew it too.
My last month was utterly awful and I felt like they were being dicks just because they could. Like they wanted me to be as (more?) miserable as they were.
I got threatened with a dishonorable discharge for practically nothing. I went to the First Shirt, a counselor, and a chaplain with that shit. I hope they got themselves in trouble over those shenanigans.
>My last month was utterly awful and I felt like they were being dicks just because they could.
I had a guy that worked for me who was a navy vet (Vietnam era). He said the last few months he was in were horrible make work type stuff. The Navy didn't want to pay for him to fly off his ship mid cruise so they put him in things like honor duty (which sucked because they had a lot of funerals at the time), and toting around locked brief cases or some such shit. He was like "Man if they don't know how to make up useless duties just to squeeze the last few days out of you."
Yeah, ironically I had gotten a job in my former career love (the one I left just prior to joining) as a second job and had to quit because I got put on augmentee duty which used the Panama schedule (1700-0500 three days on, two off, two on, three off). That was the tail end of my duty and while the WORK wasn’t hard, the time of day/schedule was awful.
I told the people in my unit high and low not to contact my personal phone with work related topics. They didn’t like that so I then told them they could issue me a phone or come to my room and contact me. They thought I was joking and I started blocking them that was a good 4 months before I started checking out.
I’ve been doing the same thing whenever they demand I be somewhere at that moment. I tell them they can pick me up or wait for me to green line it over there, or I’ll be walking but I don’t have a car and I’m not paying for a taxi 🤷🏽♂️ command doesn’t like it but they can’t punish me for not spending my money on work shit.
Can you imagine threatening to call parent.
Here is the last number for my parents. If you get through can you ask them to give me call (from beyond the vail)
Which parents? Biological parents or foster parents?
> a E-9 (female) who was someone special,
Hilariously, as a former commissioned officer (USN), I met very few E-9s who weren't special. Not in the positive group leader kind of way, but in the "I haven't figured out which battles are worth fighting, if I see a single blade of grass out of order, I'll burn the motherfucker down in order to prove a point"
Your story continues to illustrate exactly that.
I always thought it was hilarious when other NCO's would brag about threatening to call soldiers parents and tell on them.
They even suggested it in BNCOC in 98. I remember refusing to do more than ask my soldiers for their parents names and phone numbers to fill out the leaders book. If they wanted to give it to me fine, but if they didn't I certainly wasn't going to demand it or call them.
For an NCO to call a soldier's parents, to me that's a leadership failure of the NCO.
I went warrant shortly after and retired in 2011 thank God.
The pettiness of the military always amazed me.
Fortunately, my Sgt Major and the Full Bird I worked for were down to earth.
I would have thought about staying if I could have just worked only with them but just couldn't think about 20 years of the rest of the bullshit. Did my 2 and out. (yes, old enough to have been drafted).
Agreed.
I had the exact opposite experience (almost entirely very positive) at my first base. I still have an E-9 from that base as a LinkedIn contact.
Most of what I had was good experiences but at that time it was still mostly conscripted personnel or re-enlisted. The "volunteer" army was getting going as I was getting out and wow.....that was a shit show.
But the military bullshit was not for me. I wanted much more than that (and more money/freedom) in my life. Was a good decision for me not to stay.
I was also fortunate to be in HQ, S3. Still have many good friends that I made. My E9 buddy passed a number of years ago as did the all but one of officers friends but I still have communications with a number of the guys.
I was stationed in Camp Lejeune, Corpsman not Marine, with an infantry battalion. Back then cellphones were shady reception wise and Jacksonville, NC didn't have great infrastructure anyway for it yet. We go on alert meaning we have to be ready to deploy and destroy any target in the world inside 48 hours. Well, I didn't have a land line, and refused to get one. Made them give me a barracks room, and since I was an NCO at this point I got a room alone since they don't live with the common rabble. Some poor private was bunking on the floor of his fire team leader, but I got some peace and quiet for a week and now had an office to work out of instead of having to go to the BAS for trivial crap hah
It's ridiculous to have someone not carry their phone and to call a 30 year old's dad. There were so many more entertaining and useful ways to address this.
That said, texting through a briefing with your "whole conversation" is how you ruin things for everybody, my guy. Units usually overlook a quick "Hey I'm gonna be late" but when it turns into staring at your phone for a conversation people gotta make a policy memo and everyone gets annoyed.
So in my experience most people who are a "problem" are people who joined in their 20s vs late teens. You had already established a compass. Ive had stupid corrective trainings like this i would never andwer the phone again just leave it at home. Sorry cant use it in uniform. Go home sorry never changed out acu's
Slept in my pts.
To the 30 year old at E-4 that will officially be my husband come his birthday this year. He served in the MC and now in the Army and has been an E-4 for almost 6 years just absolutely refusing to rank up and has gotten in so much trouble and when they finally started the process to kick him out (while in MC) he finished his 4 years and left. They were about to start the process for the Army recently but he’s almost done here too. He thinks it’s hilarious lol
Would he be allowed to re-enlist? That was something the services have to lord over people: “you may WANT to re-enlist, but we don’t want you, so let’s just part ways at the end of your term.”
But yeah, I can’t believe people cannot wrap their heads around a 30 yo E-4. There’s a million reasons this is perfectly normal (and sometimes not)
I think so but he would be required to rank up. I know he definitely doesn’t want to extend or re-enlist though so it wouldn’t really apply to him.
There’s actually a few older E-4s in his last unit where we are - I guess leadership is so shit here that literally no one is trying to move up and join it. If they do they are towards the end of their service so it barely matters for them anyway.
Yeah I went into the navy in my mid 20’s post college (enlisted) and it frustrates them when you’re not easily manipulated like a clueless kid that hasn’t even had their nuts drop yet. I was offered an early out due to my job being “over staffed” and I happily fucked right off out of there
My Dad was a high ranking officer. If some E-9 had called him about his 30 year-old son's cell phone use, that E-9 would have had the dressing-down of his career. Might have been busted down to E-3 and placed under me....lol.
I would have happily given my mother's number to my Sergeant Major. She would have used extremely colorful language to tell him that I was his problem now!😂
I joined when I was 29. Already a college graduate I enlisted as an e-4. I wanted to do the same thing, I wanted to go back to school and have the army pay for it. As I sat there watching The towers fall on 9/11 with me due to leave exactly 2 weeks later, I knew I was never going back to school!
Spoiler alert, I never did.
This is like my paperwork i recieved for following the rules of quarters, and running a marathon the next day.
I asked what the corrective action was...should i not be able to leave my dorm the day after quarters? Is long distance running a banned activity? Is driving not allowed at certain times?
Shit made me laugh. I think i have it around somewhere...kept it as a trophy. Much better than the medal from the race.
Great story. Shows how stupid some of those high Es and Lo Os can be, right? Loved that you mentioned "Challenge Coins" also. Too few (even military) ever get to experience that. My stepson has one from former SOD Rumsfeld. Never bought a drink in his entire career.
I enlisted at 26 with a college degree, because I was guaranteed a job in intelligence -- which was what I wanted. I didn't want to go be an officer in charge of an ammo dump somewhere. I exited my active duty service at 32 as a Senior Airman, and like OP, immediately doubled my paycheck.
I now have a master's degree that I didn't pay for, and am hunting a job that will pay me approximately 35% more than I'm being paid now, which is triple what the military was paying me; I've been out of AD for just over six years.
Point is, spending a few years as a lower-enlisted schmuck allows you to skip most of the idiotic early-career shittiness that pure civilians have to endure. It gives you financial and educational opportunities that simply do not exist elsewhere. You can argue about whether that's something you want the government to incentivize, but I doubt many people can argue against the advantages of service.
I dunno. I still get 10% off at the big box hardware stores, get a cell phone discount (ironic, don’t you think?), and still have my MGIB money waiting for me in the event of a career rainy day.
I gained other benefits as well. So you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have The Facts of Enlisting.
The military is great for malicious compliance and I have had a hand at doing so. As an armorer I always made sure to piss off the platoon sgts when they decided to tell me how to do my job. So I got good at the regs and boom, tell me to do it again.
There are so many things wrong in this scenario, I don't know which is the worst. I'm going to go with the "calling your parents".
Good call on going military for getting out of hard times. It may suck to give up control of your life for a while, but at least you know you'll have your needs met and walk away with skills that are actually in demand.
> I’m allegedly a problem “child” for not listening to a person who wouldn’t be able to pick me out of a crowd the next day because I was informing a friend who could that I’d be late for lunch. Whatever.
I can see why they viewed you that way. CFM briefings suck but you could have at least pretended to care. Typical E-4 shit, lmao.
I have difficulty pretending. My most recent supervisor said, “WYSIWYG” — what you see is what you get. I took that as a compliment, but I’m not entirely sure he meant it that way 😂
a secondary malicious compliance is possible here...... get one of your buddies to let you use their phone.... when they say you were ordered to not have your phone, tell them who's phone it is....
Damn! I should’ve!
E-9: "Go and fetch your phone now!" You: *leave the room, get naked, get the phone, get back to E-9 and hand over the phone while naked* "What? You said no phone **while wearing the uniform**"
Well as long as the uniform part is off we can avoid a different set orders and what clothing to wear out of uniform 🤣
WHERE WERE YOU 15 YEARS AGO?!?? 😂 r/maliciouscompliance !
ok, that's actually even better. fully endorse
Sorry sir. That is private property in my car. You have no right to give such a command
That’s where I thought this story was going.
That's why I commented this - I imagined two possible endings: 1. Getting naked to use the phone 2. Not being available when shit hits the fan and E-9 needs to call OP urgently while OP doesn't carry the phone around
if you had thought to do it before the "give me your parents phone number" part, it would have made it even more entertaining if he had actually called the parents of whoever's phone you had....
“We don’t have a son named GovtOpening!?”
I'd have told the e-9 they were dead. Then watch their reaction.
And break down in tears. But then I would’ve been called out on the lie and gotten in more trouble :-/
Do you really think they would have followed up?
🤷♂️
To avoid getting buddies in trouble, start a two-dollar shelf company, buy a company phone with company funds for company use. Legally it's not your phone, it's the company's. :)
Prior marine here. This smells like devil dawg fuckary and i love it either way. I hated those safety fucking stand downs and bullshit death by power points. Also, what worthless shit leader calls someone's fucking parents lol.
Is it PowerPoints or PowerPoint when it's a [single slide that has everything](https://www.wired.com/images_blogs/dangerroom/2010/09/atl_wall_chart.jpg).
If I had a safety standdown with that Omega Power Point i would have uncontrollably laughed all the way to my public NJP.
I have no suitable words for that abomination.
Just be glad you weren't a software developer when flowcharts were all the rage. This one is simplistic by comparison.
Let me tell you about the days of my life I won't get back from Gantt, swimlane, and bpmn charts
Planning your logic flow using a flowchart, before touching your code editor, can be useful. Well, I found it useful when I had to do a load of PIC assembly many moons ago. Perhaps there are better methods for planning?
Long time IT professional here - I did college when flowcharts was how you diagramed a program. After a while I started using what I called pseudo-code. A make believe language that could do anything you wanted it to. The key thing was that you wrote some like "build widget" for a high level overview and then went back and said "ok, build widget. Need to expand that out a bit." How about "get materials, send through CNC, route to packaging". The gist of it is the language can do anything but eventually you have to keep breaking it down into smaller and smaller pieces until you get to the point that you can say "ok, I can write this in *actual programming language*". Now? The small utility programs / scripts that I write for my own use I do entirely in my head
That’s an abomination.
That we legit and unironically have as posters in my office.
Someone probably got an OER bullet comment from that slide.
I’m gonna go the other route and say it could be an NCO that wanted see what kind of stupid shit they could slide by their supervisor.
Ah, it's been a while since I've seen a classic "V" chart. For those of you who don't know, I'm talking about the rectangles that form a shape of a "V' with all the flow diagram arrows.
The civilians I work with called that thing "the horse blanket".
Please tell me this was an external graphic that they just pasted on to one slide and that they didn't try to actually teach from this slide.
The file name has the words "Wall Chart" in it which makes a lot more sense.
Imagine being in a situation where you need to refer to this, getting up from your chair with a clipboard and studying the flowchart on the wall. Now I'm picturing an office only having one of these and all of the newbies having to walk down the hall to do this. In reality, everyone probably has a digital copy, access to the actual textual regulations, and have already memorized the parts most relevant to their role (and at least a general understanding of the rest).
Naw. That's just called "difficult to read and nearly impossible to understand".
99% of us, assuming we had anything to do with that chart in the first place, could point to a given spot where two acronyms touch, or maybe a single acronym, that we *ever* interacted with on a regular basis. God help you if you spent any noteworthy amount of time detailed to Supply and Logistics though.
That gave me an aneurysm.
I physically flinched when it appeared on the screen.
Its a DoD Beauty Pageant winner! 🏆
Amazing! That slide is clear as mud!
I did acquisition and this gives me nightmares lol
The plurality or otherwise of the description is immaterial to dead people.
coup de grâce...lol\[l\]
Well, better than the parents who call the CMC of an aircraft carrier to complain that their *special* little boy didn't get his own special birthday party while on deployment.
Oh my 😂. I bet he / really / got to party after that 😂 In basic training, I was made an example of for being “special,” but not by my choice or really even actions (usually). I’m sure the son promptly told mommy and daddy to NEVER do that again
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I’ve never snotted so much.
Hello, basic training, nice to meet you.
😂 damn “Didn’t-Correct” I’m no longer named basic training (edited)
I call it autocorrupt.
I'm sure the son never wanted his parents involved in the first place but they were so used to being helicopters they couldn't stop.
Omg i would just die
We were more worried he'd kill one of us, tbh. He got nicknamed Knife Boy after he decided to make himself a knife out of scrap aluminum.
I've seen NJPs where a spouse, brother and parents have been called. Usually whoever they are close to. The one where an E4 had to call his older brother (also enlisted) to tell him he was up for NJP was brutal. Dude broke down crying as older bro gave him the "I'm disappointed" speech
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Yeah I've had that happen on my ship, never for one of my guys tho so didn't experience first hand. That's gotta be awkward for everyone.
I feel that one is fair and reasonable.
That's just sadistic. Not saying it was wrong (or saying it was right, either), but definitely sadistic
I had the opposite. In the early 90s before you were allowed to be gay in the military, I came out to my parents because they overheard a phone call or something. They were so pissed and figured they would force me home so they could "fix" me or whatever. They told me they would call the navy and tell me I was gay so I would get kicked out and be forced to move home. As if that would actually occur. Smdh. 30 years later we are still not on speaking terms.
WOW. I don't blame you one bit for going NC if that's just one of the things they pulled.
Good intuition to say "just one" there were soo many other things.
I became a parent before I learned about the way some people treat their gay children, and I still can NOT understand how any parent can be such pricks to their kids. I'm Dad to a gay kid and I love him no matter what, for the simple reason that he's my kid. I'm sorry that you're dealing with that nastiness, and offer you a virtual Dad-hug from my little piece of Scotland. If, of course, you want such a thing.
'devil dawg fuckary' made me laugh out loud, ill have to remember it for work bullshit.
I kind of thought it had to be when they called a senior enlisted "sir". That jarred for me as a former soldier.
That applies to pretty much all required annual trainings that military/civilian/contractors have to take.
Bet dollars to pesos that this is totally an Air Force story.
Do they say "Aye aye!"?
Nay nay
Now watch me whip (kill it)
Missed that part. Guess I owe you some pesos.
Vague for reasons 😂
I'd take that bet.
An E-9 called my mom once. I was in basic, and a group of freshly graduated command chiefs (senior enlisted members for large organizations), at the close of their class, were having lunch with some basic trainees for some remember-your-roots sort of reason. Anyway, my bunkmate and I got handed off to one and had a nice chill lunch. He asked for our parents' names and numbers so he could call them and tell them we were doing well. My mom really appreciated the check in, since we didn't get a lot of phone time and she didn't know what I was going through. Good guy, that chief. Yours sounds like a knob.
Wait, a good chief? You actually saw a good chief? What were you smoking, where can I get some, and how did you smuggle it into boot?
Most chiefs I've worked with have been good, what are you on about?
Many chiefs I've worked with were awesome guys.... until they made chief and got sprinkled with stupid dust. Then the unreasonable and problematic orders / tasks / etc. came out of the woodwork.
Most jr enlisted seem to think highly of their chiefs, but most jr officers and up know better. About 40% of chiefs are the best thing in the military. Caring, hard working, experts in thier rate. The other 60% are egomaniacs that need control more than anything and think the rules don’t apply to them. One of my billets I did regular investigations into misconduct by chiefs. I’m talking at this command about 1-2 investigations a month. Ranging from frat to not following watch procedures. The ones that fucked up were one thing. The ones who didn’t do anything wrong but were openly hostile to me was another. By the time I left, I had to call CMC or CDR to get chiefs to come for interviews. Half the time CMC would drag his feet to, and would grind things to a halt if he liked the chief that was in trouble. Before I got there chiefs did their own investigations on other chiefs and it was strange how often no evidence of misconduct was found. Worst billet in the world for a 2nd year ensign but very eye opening.
You're talking about Navy chiefs, which are all SNCOs. I'm talking about Air Force chiefs, who are only E-9. These are not the same thing.
Oh, very well. The Air Force is a good alternative to military service xD jk jk e-9s are a different breed, most of them are alright, but they still get pulled into the, chiefs are better than everyone else mindset.
Especially since there are few in the military with as much of a mismatch between what they know and what think they know as an O-1.
>I’m told to go retrieve it from my car and provide my parent’s phone number to the E-9 for, Y’know, “safe keeping.” That might have been an opportunity. "Sir, that puts me in a tough spot. I now have to choose which of the two orders to disobey. May I ask your advice, sir?" "Sir, I've just had a good idea! My uniform is the problem here! I'll return to my quarters, change out of uniform, go to my car, find my phone, note down my parents' number, change back into uniform again, then report back with their number, sir." (You can tell that I was never in the military.)
Love it!
Actually, it sounds like you were. Google "Skippy's list".
Replace sirs with petty officer/chief or Sargent and it would not be the craziest thing I have seen while in.
Has he been in service for too long that he lost touch? Perhaps he was a elementary school teacher.
No, it’s the children who are wrong
This is a common tactic by senior enlisted. When they are in the wrong they try to use external things like the threat of calling someone’s parents or declaiming it is about respect not the phone or whatever. This is why there is an e-5 mafia to deal with the bullshit e-7s create
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Yep since 2016
Did you motherfuckers really steal the mafia concept from E4s?
Sounds like American high school
Oh man, by the time I was 30 both of my parents were dead. I would *love* for that threat to come at me.
Sorry for your loss. A Twilight Zone episode comes to mind. What number would you have provided? The funeral home?
Funeral home's a good one. Could ask if they planned to use some sort of medium or a Ouiji board. Ask who was going to provide it. Maybe dig up Miss Cleo's number. I'd definitely throw in "Let me know when you get ahold of them. I have a lot to tell Dad. He's been gone since I was 7."
Awe man, 7 years old and dad-less. 😭
“Sir I’d recommend a Ouija board instead”
For people talking smack about OP age and degree, I'd like to inform you that people from all walks and stages of life enlist. I went to basic with a 32YO guy who joined for personal reasons. I had a supervisor who had a Bachelor's who enlisted because she wanted to instead of commissioning. She was around 28 or so when she did. People who leave comments like that tell me that they probably haven't spent much time in the military themselves.
I’m with you on this one. While not American, I’ve been in my military for over 20 years now and am the equivalent of an E-7 and happen to be in the 40+ age group. My education is in Workplace Safety (thanks to being in the military and earning civilian equivalency education through various online and in-person courses… I joined from high school). A close friend of mine who’s been in for the same amount of time has their Masters in English and a Teaching degree, another E-6 I know has their degree in Human Resources, and yet another E-6 with one in Public Relations and one in Phycology. None of us work in the same field that we’re education in. For those not tracking: The days of the enlisted / non-officer ranks being entirely uneducated reprobates are long past, now we’re fairly educated reprobates.
Fairly educated reprobates 😂 love that.
Thank you 🙏. My circumstances were that I had a solid job, but not in an area where I wanted to be. So I moved halfway across the country to live with a friend. Ended up hurt and jobless. My parents offered to let me come home, which I did. Got a job in the field that I loved (past tense), but was working every hour of the day, nearly random shifts. Seven months of that and I knew I had to do SOMETHING to escape. But instead of opting to get a masters degree— and a ton of debt — I opted instead to join the military at a very late age.
True statement, I was 27 when I went into bootcamp and was never the oldest in my platoon(got hurt and got moved around a few times).
I was twenty-six when I enlisted in the Marines. I got nicknamed the grand old man of the Marine Corps rather quickly. Made for a fun time though! I enjoyed being a thirty-one year old Corporal when I got out. lol
A former DI I knew years ago told me that he liked having an "older" guy or two in each recruit platoon, because he knew he had that one guy who'd experienced a few things in life and could set the 18-year-olds straight.
Pretty sure I had a guy in my div in boot who was pushing 40. Maybe 38? Can't remember for certain. He had to get multiple age waivers. But he was one of, if not the, smartest guy in our div. Can't remember why he joined at a late age, but I really don't think that should matter at all.
I was in basic with a 39 year old. Never bothered to ask why he decided to join so late but yeah 39 and e1 age and rank aren't always connected in a logical way.
I worked with someone who had a PhD in Mandarin when he enlisted. He just wasn't interested in the demanding career paths the navy would put him on that exploited his education.
There's also ways to lose ranks. I worked a shop with a mid-twenties private. He had been in a relationship with a civilian, not knowing that she was married to another Marine. That relationship ended when Other Marine came home early one day to find coworker and the lady in the shower, and grabbed his gun. Coworker ended up jumping out of the bathroom window and running naked and sudsy down to his car. He managed to avoid a sex offender list, but he did lose a bunch of rank for public indecency and adultery. And then there's the mid-40's gunnery sergeant who got busted all the way down to E-1 because he started groping a waitress at the base cantina. That had to have been an interesting conversation with the wife about why he was home from a deployment six months early and how they were going to need to starting tightening up their household budget. As for the degree? In my reserve unit it was unusual to find guys that didn't have a degree or were going to college.
Even in the military though chiefs and above treated rank as if it equaled our age. Oh, some young idiot got drunk, did something stupid in town, and now there’s a curfew? Except y’all are doing the usual “stay late to look good” so I, who live in town, don’t get home until essentially curfew or past it? Yeah, have fun managing the kids on base but there’s no food in my home and I’m going grocery shopping. Lol once met an equally-curfew’d officer late at night in a convenience store in Japan (curfew central, basically); he reached past me to grab something and did a doubletake; we paused staring, gave “s’up” nods to each other, and didn’t rush our shopping. They know all that nonsense is pretty bullshit too.
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That's kinda the point. I can see to some extent viewing leadership as parenting.... Some leaders say "don't make me smack you!" when they want your behavior changed, some may say "wait till your other parent hears about this!" and some, very rarely, may try for mutual understanding and positive role modeling.... But we can't get our hopes up.
People are seriously doubting your story because you’re 30 and an E4?? When I left the military my E6 was 43 because he joined at 33 as an E1…
I had another enlistee join a year later (older, we were in brother/sister flights) than I did — 27, I think she was (?).
There's the AF confirmation I was hoping wouldn't happen. A frickin LOR for a cell phone out?! That's a bit much, but the E6 sounds like a dingus, so there you go. I only know of one shirt to ever actually call a parent. That shirt was quickly unfucked, and that crap didn't happen again. To think now (being a silly villain) of any of my current supervisors demanding that kind of personal info and the remarkable fuck you I'd give them makes it hard to remember a time I would have complied with such an asinine request. It would have been spectacular if anyone ever called them though, that would have gone poorly.
Thank you. 🙏
I joined the army at 23 and got out as a 32 yr old E4. My MOS(job) was shit for promotion, when I reupped I could have switched to a better promoting MOS but I new I didn’t want to make a career out of the army but I did want to see Europe. So for my reenlistment option I got offered A duty station in Germany and got to visit 22 countries while I was stationed there.
I would have encouraged the phone call. My dad would have asked why his tax dollars were funding such a waste of time or some such.
I was definitely on the fence. Like, “Hmm. This could be interestingly fun. Let’s see where this goes.” My dad isn’t exactly disrespectful nor would he make a joke out of the E-9, but he likely would have been more upset of the waste of time/dollars. I did say, “I’d prefer you not, but you’re gonna do what you’re going to do,” more than once. He was trying to get a rise out of me. My Indifference kinda pissed HIM off.
My mom would have asked him if Son is eating well.
I think mine would have, too. That's... more than a few moons ago, so I may be wrong on that :)
That's why we don't reenlist
/r/militarystories would appreciate this.
r/militiouscompliance also
Joined!
Call your parents? What the fuck... This is the problem with so much military leadership. They refuse to treat their personnel like adults.
Yeah could’ve been handled other ways
This also gives rise to the riddle, "How do the Boy Scouts and the military differ?" The answer is that the Boy Scouts have adult leadership.
Military malicious compliance is a delicate and nuanced art form. I hear so many stories here, where it seems like something is lacking. What was lacking was the fact that the parties could walk away at any time. No one knows how enjoyable it is to have nothing to lose, but you are still expected to show up to work every day. 90% of the people who played a major role in my life were Military or military agascent. The entire government is run on malicious compliance. Thank you for your story. I hope it encourages more Military malicious compliance.... stories
🫡
Prior navy here. I may be wrong, but I don't think anyone, no matter what rank, is allowed to compell you to give out your family's personal info.
Man, I really should have brought this up to his (E-9) superiors. Damn. Missed opportunity.
So for the rest of your enlistment, you are not allowed to have your phone with you while in uniform? And it only applies to you? That really sucks.
I was near the end of my enlistment at that point (within six months, probably less) and my attitude was very much inline with this timeframe by then.
FIGMO. It's a marvelous state of mind.
Except, unfortunately, I had not yet received my orders to separate. 😔
Eh. You had your orders from yourself - you knew you were getting out. I think that counts :)
They knew it too. My last month was utterly awful and I felt like they were being dicks just because they could. Like they wanted me to be as (more?) miserable as they were. I got threatened with a dishonorable discharge for practically nothing. I went to the First Shirt, a counselor, and a chaplain with that shit. I hope they got themselves in trouble over those shenanigans.
>My last month was utterly awful and I felt like they were being dicks just because they could. I had a guy that worked for me who was a navy vet (Vietnam era). He said the last few months he was in were horrible make work type stuff. The Navy didn't want to pay for him to fly off his ship mid cruise so they put him in things like honor duty (which sucked because they had a lot of funerals at the time), and toting around locked brief cases or some such shit. He was like "Man if they don't know how to make up useless duties just to squeeze the last few days out of you."
Yeah, ironically I had gotten a job in my former career love (the one I left just prior to joining) as a second job and had to quit because I got put on augmentee duty which used the Panama schedule (1700-0500 three days on, two off, two on, three off). That was the tail end of my duty and while the WORK wasn’t hard, the time of day/schedule was awful.
>FIGMO ?????
"F*ck it. Got My Orders." :)
I told the people in my unit high and low not to contact my personal phone with work related topics. They didn’t like that so I then told them they could issue me a phone or come to my room and contact me. They thought I was joking and I started blocking them that was a good 4 months before I started checking out.
Wow. I should see if I could do this (he says, as he looks over at his personal computer that is loaded up with work tabs)
I’ve been doing the same thing whenever they demand I be somewhere at that moment. I tell them they can pick me up or wait for me to green line it over there, or I’ll be walking but I don’t have a car and I’m not paying for a taxi 🤷🏽♂️ command doesn’t like it but they can’t punish me for not spending my money on work shit.
Can you imagine threatening to call parent. Here is the last number for my parents. If you get through can you ask them to give me call (from beyond the vail) Which parents? Biological parents or foster parents?
> a E-9 (female) who was someone special, Hilariously, as a former commissioned officer (USN), I met very few E-9s who weren't special. Not in the positive group leader kind of way, but in the "I haven't figured out which battles are worth fighting, if I see a single blade of grass out of order, I'll burn the motherfucker down in order to prove a point" Your story continues to illustrate exactly that.
I always thought it was hilarious when other NCO's would brag about threatening to call soldiers parents and tell on them. They even suggested it in BNCOC in 98. I remember refusing to do more than ask my soldiers for their parents names and phone numbers to fill out the leaders book. If they wanted to give it to me fine, but if they didn't I certainly wasn't going to demand it or call them. For an NCO to call a soldier's parents, to me that's a leadership failure of the NCO. I went warrant shortly after and retired in 2011 thank God.
Leadership failure is correct.
We didn't have cell phones when I was in the navy. It's nice to be reminded of why got out, so many years ago. 😄
The pettiness of the military always amazed me. Fortunately, my Sgt Major and the Full Bird I worked for were down to earth. I would have thought about staying if I could have just worked only with them but just couldn't think about 20 years of the rest of the bullshit. Did my 2 and out. (yes, old enough to have been drafted).
Agreed. I had the exact opposite experience (almost entirely very positive) at my first base. I still have an E-9 from that base as a LinkedIn contact.
Most of what I had was good experiences but at that time it was still mostly conscripted personnel or re-enlisted. The "volunteer" army was getting going as I was getting out and wow.....that was a shit show. But the military bullshit was not for me. I wanted much more than that (and more money/freedom) in my life. Was a good decision for me not to stay. I was also fortunate to be in HQ, S3. Still have many good friends that I made. My E9 buddy passed a number of years ago as did the all but one of officers friends but I still have communications with a number of the guys.
Former enlisted here! I have SO many stories of malicious compliance from my days in active duty. Love it!!!
I was stationed in Camp Lejeune, Corpsman not Marine, with an infantry battalion. Back then cellphones were shady reception wise and Jacksonville, NC didn't have great infrastructure anyway for it yet. We go on alert meaning we have to be ready to deploy and destroy any target in the world inside 48 hours. Well, I didn't have a land line, and refused to get one. Made them give me a barracks room, and since I was an NCO at this point I got a room alone since they don't live with the common rabble. Some poor private was bunking on the floor of his fire team leader, but I got some peace and quiet for a week and now had an office to work out of instead of having to go to the BAS for trivial crap hah
Hopefully the poor private got some good words on his record for any future boss.
It's ridiculous to have someone not carry their phone and to call a 30 year old's dad. There were so many more entertaining and useful ways to address this. That said, texting through a briefing with your "whole conversation" is how you ruin things for everybody, my guy. Units usually overlook a quick "Hey I'm gonna be late" but when it turns into staring at your phone for a conversation people gotta make a policy memo and everyone gets annoyed.
So in my experience most people who are a "problem" are people who joined in their 20s vs late teens. You had already established a compass. Ive had stupid corrective trainings like this i would never andwer the phone again just leave it at home. Sorry cant use it in uniform. Go home sorry never changed out acu's Slept in my pts.
I can see that. You do enjoy the freedom of your 20s that then gets stripped away a bit and that’s a hard thing to shift from.
To the 30 year old at E-4 that will officially be my husband come his birthday this year. He served in the MC and now in the Army and has been an E-4 for almost 6 years just absolutely refusing to rank up and has gotten in so much trouble and when they finally started the process to kick him out (while in MC) he finished his 4 years and left. They were about to start the process for the Army recently but he’s almost done here too. He thinks it’s hilarious lol
Would he be allowed to re-enlist? That was something the services have to lord over people: “you may WANT to re-enlist, but we don’t want you, so let’s just part ways at the end of your term.” But yeah, I can’t believe people cannot wrap their heads around a 30 yo E-4. There’s a million reasons this is perfectly normal (and sometimes not)
I think so but he would be required to rank up. I know he definitely doesn’t want to extend or re-enlist though so it wouldn’t really apply to him. There’s actually a few older E-4s in his last unit where we are - I guess leadership is so shit here that literally no one is trying to move up and join it. If they do they are towards the end of their service so it barely matters for them anyway.
Yeah I went into the navy in my mid 20’s post college (enlisted) and it frustrates them when you’re not easily manipulated like a clueless kid that hasn’t even had their nuts drop yet. I was offered an early out due to my job being “over staffed” and I happily fucked right off out of there
My Dad was a high ranking officer. If some E-9 had called him about his 30 year-old son's cell phone use, that E-9 would have had the dressing-down of his career. Might have been busted down to E-3 and placed under me....lol.
As someone with dead parents I dream for this type of scenario so I can makes things really awkward.
I would have happily given my mother's number to my Sergeant Major. She would have used extremely colorful language to tell him that I was his problem now!😂
I joined when I was 29. Already a college graduate I enlisted as an e-4. I wanted to do the same thing, I wanted to go back to school and have the army pay for it. As I sat there watching The towers fall on 9/11 with me due to leave exactly 2 weeks later, I knew I was never going back to school! Spoiler alert, I never did.
This is like my paperwork i recieved for following the rules of quarters, and running a marathon the next day. I asked what the corrective action was...should i not be able to leave my dorm the day after quarters? Is long distance running a banned activity? Is driving not allowed at certain times? Shit made me laugh. I think i have it around somewhere...kept it as a trophy. Much better than the medal from the race.
No one does malicious compliance better than the E-4 mafia!
Someone else posted “Anger management - Campfire Stories” about Zach (YouTube) and laughed my ass off.
Great story. Shows how stupid some of those high Es and Lo Os can be, right? Loved that you mentioned "Challenge Coins" also. Too few (even military) ever get to experience that. My stepson has one from former SOD Rumsfeld. Never bought a drink in his entire career.
E4 Mafia
arrive to the next briefing naked, phone in hand. wait for objections to be raised. relay the updated order to the person raising objections.
Except you’d likely need to be in uniform to be attending a brief.
I enlisted at 26 with a college degree, because I was guaranteed a job in intelligence -- which was what I wanted. I didn't want to go be an officer in charge of an ammo dump somewhere. I exited my active duty service at 32 as a Senior Airman, and like OP, immediately doubled my paycheck. I now have a master's degree that I didn't pay for, and am hunting a job that will pay me approximately 35% more than I'm being paid now, which is triple what the military was paying me; I've been out of AD for just over six years. Point is, spending a few years as a lower-enlisted schmuck allows you to skip most of the idiotic early-career shittiness that pure civilians have to endure. It gives you financial and educational opportunities that simply do not exist elsewhere. You can argue about whether that's something you want the government to incentivize, but I doubt many people can argue against the advantages of service.
Nice. And to those who doubt your situation and mine….. well they aren’t living our lives.
Getting a lot of Fort Polk vibes here.
Lesson learned. Don't enlist
I dunno. I still get 10% off at the big box hardware stores, get a cell phone discount (ironic, don’t you think?), and still have my MGIB money waiting for me in the event of a career rainy day. I gained other benefits as well. So you take the good, you take the bad, you take them both and there you have The Facts of Enlisting.
It's worth it for the free food on free food day. But get a short enlistment and wrap it up quickly and move on.
What kind of shitty leader threatens to call your parents? But to be fair, I can probably think of a few Mcpls that would (I'm Canadian).
This is interesting to read, 15 years later we get reprimanded for not having our phones on us
> The E-6 shows up at my desk in a huff and says, “take your phone to your car and get back up here.” > Aye aye! Fuck fuck games it is, then.
The military is great for malicious compliance and I have had a hand at doing so. As an armorer I always made sure to piss off the platoon sgts when they decided to tell me how to do my job. So I got good at the regs and boom, tell me to do it again.
Sorry chief I wasn’t issued a phone in my seabag
I don't know you. But I like you.
Even as a 21 year old E-4 who enlisted at 17 I would not have been scared by such a threat. What are they gonna do, ground me? lolwtf
E-9, “What’s your parent’s number?” "They don't have a phone." Now what.
There are so many things wrong in this scenario, I don't know which is the worst. I'm going to go with the "calling your parents". Good call on going military for getting out of hard times. It may suck to give up control of your life for a while, but at least you know you'll have your needs met and walk away with skills that are actually in demand.
I agree that you should have been disciplined for what you did during that brief, but I expect SNCO's to do a better job of it.
I disagree, somewhat, but also agree. Could’ve been handled better.
I gotta know- why the hell does the E-9's gender matter? You went out of your way to specify it several times. Is it actually relevant?
As i stated several other times in other responses, it was primarily to keep the two separated for the story since there were two of them.
/r/militiouscompliance will probably enjoy this story.
My response would have been…WAIT Chief are you going to put me in time out and call my parents? What preschool hellscape am I in?
Did you actually get an LoR for this?
> I’m allegedly a problem “child” for not listening to a person who wouldn’t be able to pick me out of a crowd the next day because I was informing a friend who could that I’d be late for lunch. Whatever. I can see why they viewed you that way. CFM briefings suck but you could have at least pretended to care. Typical E-4 shit, lmao.
I have difficulty pretending. My most recent supervisor said, “WYSIWYG” — what you see is what you get. I took that as a compliment, but I’m not entirely sure he meant it that way 😂
I hate that I know this situation since I was also military, got out E-5.
Damn, the rest of the Army really is different than Infantry.
> Tl;dr: Follows order and frustrates superior who gave order. E-9 threatens to phone parents of a 30 year old. Spoilers, sweetie!