Does anyone else feel less than adequate in their employment since leaving the service? Or that something is amiss and completely unsatisfying? For me it's due to a number of reasons.
For starters I've noticed that I'm WAY behind my peers when it comes to education and certifications, but I excel more than anyone when it comes management and supervisory tasks. Surprise, Surprise. Unfortunately, being a good leader doesn't always qualify you for leadership positions, pay raises, and upward mobility. And that my friend, really sucks. Years of experience and insane amounts of responsibility amount to nothing on the outside.
Give me clear and defined goals, the resources and training necessary to complete the task, and honest feedback at the end (and throughout) so I can improve or sustain what I'm doing.
The military work environment and systems parallel their civilian counterparts in a lot of ways, but are still nothing alike. For one, there's one thing in the civilian world that really drives and motivates business and that of course is money. Not to say that money doesn't play a factor in military operations, as it most certainly does. The thing is, money isn't the motivating factor to accomplish something in the military, the MISSION is. Money or not, the mission must be accomplished-budget be damned.
There are many other differences in civilian world, but again it all comes back to money. I particularly love the last minute end of quarter, end of fiscal year emergencies when managers are suddenly interested in what everyone's doing, screaming about the bottom line (and how reports are going to look two weeks from now) when they should be consistent and pushing this sort of thing all year.
~Your lack of planning doesn't constitute my emergency~
I know my employers success is indicative of my own success, but still. It just all seems ridiculous to me. Those graphs and charts don't motivate me in the slightest. It's the mission that motivate's me.
Give me clear and defined goals, the resources and training necessary to complete the task, and honest feedback at the end (and throughout) so I can improve or sustain what I'm doing.
HONEST FEEDBACK is huge. It drives me nuts when the boss sugarcoats things during annual employee reviews just so they don't hurt someones feelings. That accomplishes nothing! How can you expect improvement out of someone if you don't tell them what they need to work on or what their expectations are?
Alright, I think I've beat this dead horse long enough, but I had to get that off my chest. Sorry about that. Please, carry on.