STUDENT 1 (Richard):

Hello Everyone,

The scariest part of working in a hostile environment is when I was in charge of the night shift operating a 4 million gallon aviation fuel tank. There were 4x C-5 Galaxies and 10x C-17 Globemasters ongoing for rotation mission, and I get to do my original routine for security checks, and closeout inventories. Then the mission started as the first aircraft landed in Bagram. After the third C-5 and second C-17 have just completed their fill, a fluctuation flow on my side was happening, and I had to call for assistance to do some investigation since I cannot leave the building unmanned.

Several minutes later, a radio call announced, “Break, Break, Break,” and I have to shut down my system because there was a massive leak that almost overflowed a pit. The pipe leak was discovered and had worn-and-tear gaskets and O-Rings. With the discovered broken nuts and bolts, the pipe needed realignment. Such an incident had caused a delay in the last C-5 and 8x C-17 for 20 minutes over the 8-minute limit. What makes it worst is that, during the night shift, it was the busiest time and the external service was usually unavailable to supply me with repair kits like O-Rings and Nuts and Bolts. Our company was still waiting for those orders to arrive so I have to shut the system for the next 10 hours or so.

The good news is that there are other options and I had to rely on my instincts and take courage to take charge because my management and supervisors were just about to sleep, and making this phone was not my favorite, but it was necessary to communicate along with my night shift area manager.

I had to report what had happened while I took charge to find options on keeping the rotation aircraft to fly on schedule. Making the call to the control center and my other counterparts on the East Side was the easiest to do. But calling the other contractors assisting with this mission was not the easiest thing to do because it caused them to fall behind and it was not their job to fill those aircraft. After midnight or so, they usually have a big cargo to offload the fuel for receipt. With the incident, we had to stay extra 3 hours on top of our regular labor hours. The next day, we had to stay additional 6-8 hours on top of our regular labor hours for briefings, setting up equipment, coordinate with the firefighters to ask for permission to entering confine space, and maintenance operations.

Although it was the scariest and exhausting part of my career, I have a manager, and supervisors to support me. This is one of the times that made me realize that I have a great immediate manager and team. They were not just a good manager and supervisor but also were leaders. Some people from the other departments had a negative history with them that they were lazy, and they had a way of telling people something that would make them angry for their incompetencies when he was the hypocrite.

On the other hand, I realized this was not true because the moment I called him about the incident, they got up from their beds and came to work. Although I was going to expect that they would scrutinize me until I say it is my fault, he advises me to calm down. He would even sit down with me with the operations manual to reevaluate how much I knew about my job. After work, I had to stay and asked me, “Why do you do what you do? What do you have to do first before calling me? How are you going to fix the discrepancies that you have no control over during the dark hour? Who are your resources to help you fix the problem and who do you report to in case I was not here?” Where else do you have to file the report?.” I never assumed anything before getting to know what I am getting into and knowing who I am working with. I should have asked these questions because, in reality, they just like to tell the truth and truth usually hurts but you learn pretty fast and that is what makes an individual a great worker.

STUDENT 2 (Chris):

Class,

Under performance is always an issue in our society, the great thing about to civilian sector is if someone does not perform his or her duties correctly, employment is terminated. Things are a bit more difficult in the military, at least from my experience. In the military firing someone is not as easy as issuing him or her a layoff notice and telling them do not come back tomorrow. The process is long and drawn out, includes multiple levels of approval and requires documentation of several repeat offences. This situation allows for under performers to remain in the military for longer periods, without repercussions.

A Major, in my current unit, and myself, recently discussed my example of an underperformer. This person is a Captain and for the purposes of this forum, I will call him Tom. Tom is a 35-year-old Captain, which already speaks volumes of his performance levels. Tom has the ability to accomplish any task assigned but nothing more; he will do exactly what as ordered with little to no increased efforts. Tom has spent his entire career barely scraping by and dodging deployments and difficult assignments. He is lazy and has no desire to do more than the bare minimum.

In my opinion, the only course of action with an underperformer like Tom is to begin a paper trail to expedite his service termination. Tom is consistently afforded opportunities to excel, yet he continues to remain lazy. Truth of the matter is, one cannot make someone want to improve. He or she either wants to do better or not, the choice is up to them; seeking self-improvement is an individual responsibility. Thanks for reading my post; I look forward to your feedback.

V/R,

Chris

STUDENT 3 (Ted):

Hi All,

After reading this week’s lesson and the article in the forum, I thought about am under-performance experience I had at my first base. I was a new enlisted member in the Air Force and my job was a weapons loader. In my job, no matter the location, we work in groups of 3 or 4 depending on the aircraft you are on. There are certain positions who can take the team down due to lack of knowledge, experience, or initiative what ever the case may be. When this happens, you see it in the team as a whole. We have what’s called load competitions which is where we compete against other loading crews at the same base for bragging rights. Well, in one of my first load competition experience I had a team member who wasn’t pulling his weight or, under-performing if you will. It tool for the other members of the team to assist him and pick up his slack for us to finish the load in a timely manner. We didn’t win that competition and it but extra stress on all members of the team. When asked what can be done to combat this growing problem, I must say a few things I wish I would have said back then. I was a new and lower ranking airman so I kept it to myself but since you asked. I would have to say to combat issues like this as leaders we have to call a spade a spade. In other words when members are not performing as they should those issues should be addressed right then and there. Letting things go uncontested hurts the team and the individual. You can help someone by correcting them and not hurting their feelings. At the same time we must all be open to constructive criticism.

-Ted