outprocessing
By diana on Jan 30, 2011 | In capricious bloviations
why does it have to be like this
Outprocessing a duty station, under normal circumstances, is a hassle. Add to that, say, being an AFIT student* administratively** assigned to Buckley AFB in Aurora, but operationally*** assigned to the ROTC**** unit in Boulder, on campus.*****
* Air Force Institute of Technology, but assigned to a civilian university instead of the Air Force one in Ohio. There aren't many of us in the Air Force. We're crack slippers.
** Meaning, I supposedly get my military anything and training through Buckley.
*** Meaning, they are responsible for my whereabouts, have the right to task me, and write my training report.
**** Reserve Officer Training Corpse
***** All together, all this means no one considers hisself directly responsible for our...anything.
I'm not complaining about being an AFIT student. Oh no. I love it. It's been great.* I'm just a bit disturbed that when it comes time to outprocess,** there's little or no help to be found.
* I mean, I've had personal troubles, but this assignment has absolutely rocked.
** A necessity at the end of any assignment. It consists of necessary stuff, such as scheduling your "final out" briefing, and completely daft stuff, like locating offices on base you never even knew existed so they can confirm you don't owe them anything.***
*** Fun with footy notes.
So Thursday, see, after I take my test (I'm cramming through some military requirements right now), I call Buckley's personnel flight to ask what they can do about my ID card. It won't let me sign in anywhere--all military computers and programs are accessible through CAC cards*--and since my outprocessing work is predominantly online now, this could put a glitch in my travel plans.
* Common Access Card. Yeah, I know. It's like saying "PIN number."
So I call Buckley to tell them my card keeps saying my "credentials cannot be verified" no matter what I do or where I try to sign on. They say come see them and they'll take care of it. I say, "Are you sure you can't do this over the phone?" No ma'am.
I pull on some jeans and drive to Buckley, a mere 1.5 hours north. I sign in at Pass & ID. They call me up after a mere hour of waiting. The first thing they do is stick my card in their system to check my validation certificates. I tell them I was at Pass & ID just yesterday at the Academy and I already know for certain that my certificates were all good and current.
This is the only reason I need to be there in person, as it turns out.
They suggest I go visit someone somewhere else in the building. I ask if we can call said person. I don't plan to leave the office until I get an answer. I've already been run around enough.
Turns out, the problem is something along these lines: in order for my card credentials to be verified, they must match the "me" they have in their system. The "me" they have in their system has to be on a local .mil email address, which is attached to a global email account which I've never directly accessed and wouldn't be able to right now if my soul hung in the balance. The global email address I have (somewhere) cannot be linked to my .edu email address (they tell me*). Nope. They need me in their military system, but to do that, I have to go through all the necessary information assurance training, etc.
* Meaning, I call bullshit. It's a database. It doesn't care what addresses you put in it--they can be gobbledy gook and it'll still take them. There's a reason I know this.
About this time, I'm literally trembling from suppressed impatience and frustration. I breathe deeply. I ask the sergeant on the line if anyone else might be able to help me. He puts one of their more intelligent gurus--probably not coincidentally a civilian--on the line.
I ask this pleasant gentleman how, if a .edu address cannot be linked to the global address, I was able to ever log on at the Academy for three whole years. (In order to allow some forms of academic work, the education elements at the Academy had to switch away from the .mil domain, since .mil domains come with all sorts of restrictions and kooky rules; Academy faculty--active duty--have been on a .edu domain for years now.) He tells me to go talk to the people at the Academy, since they run the .edu system.
Another deep breath. "Just a minute," I say--trying to avoid leading with a crisp "Listen"--"They're only in charge of the Academy's .edu system. My current address--which AFPC* accepts as my official one--is colorado.edu."
* Air Force Personnel Center, the place at Randolph AFB in Texas where they lose your records.
"I see," he says. "So how does your ROTC unit in Boulder sign on?"
"Y'got me," I say. "They all have .edu accounts there, too. My guess is that someone has found a way to magic them access to the military domain."
Deep sign on his end of the line. "Do you have a point of contact there that I can speak to?" he asks.
"I know a couple of names." I give them.
He asks for phone numbers, because they aren't in the GAL*. I say google them. He tries. He asks if I have any contact info. I say no...I'm locked out the system, remember? It only takes a couple of minutes for me to remember that my phone has internet access, however retarded** it might be. I look up ROTC Boulder. Det 105. OK. And...he's right (whaddaya know?): none of these people has a number posted on the web. (The message? "Contact us! ...just kidding.")
* Global Address Listing; maintained for all .mil accounts worldwide. Supposably.
** Slooooooooowwwwww
He cannot proceed without I give him something. And I can't. I take his number and email, thank him for his time and patience, and tell him I'll be in touch.
Then I walk to the other side of the building (about 1/10th of a mile) where it looks like the military personnel flight is, because I want to talk with someone about my orders which I don't have yet.* Apparently, this side of the building is all administrative. I need to go back to the section with the lazy airmen.** Yes...the same place I just came from, more or less. I sign in at the same terminal (which asks stuff like "unit" then gives me a drop-down menu where my Detachment isn't extant. I choose security forces), but ask to talk to someone about PCS orders.
* Maybe it's just MEEEEE, but wouldn't you think that I should have my orders, which grants me the ability to set up outprocessing appointments, a month before leaving for tucking FURKEY? Well?!
** Not all airmen are lazy. But this place? It is packed with airmen who are goofing off and joking around in open view of the customers who are waiting exceptionally long periods of time to be seen.
A polite and professional TSgt (Tech Sergeant) meets me almost immediately. It turns out I spoke with her on the phone earlier that day. She takes me to her desk, reassures me I'll have my orders (sent to my email, she says--five'll get you ten they send it to my global .mil account, though) no later than Monday. Meanwhile, she prints off the list of stuff I need to outprocess and helps me out with a couple of names and numbers.
I drop by CATMs* on the way off-base, explain I will be going to Turkey in a month, and I need to requalify. They take one look at me and say, "M-9?"** I ask if they can possibly sign me up to do it at the Academy, since I live in the Springs. They say they can try, but they've had nothing but trouble trying to reroute anyone to the Academy. I ask them to at least call; they say Academy CATMs never answers their phones. (They are, apparently, the picture of customer service.) They correspond by email only. But they'll try. It's about a 3-day turnaround. I say nevermind...just schedule me here and now. I need to know I'm scheduled, and if that means I have to drive back up here, fine. They sign me up.
* Combat Arms Training and Maintenance, where you can get blown off by people who are really good shots.
** Enlisted folk fire the M-16; officers qualify with the M-9. I was in jeans. Apparently, I just look like an O.
I finally drive off base around 1:3o or 2. I've gotten almost nothing accomplished. I've given up on my ID card. I have what I need to outprocess (and I have the TSgt's number, so I can contact her if I have any problems), and I don't have time to dink around. The clock is ticking.
It wouldn't have been so bad, even with all the wasted gas and frustration, had I had a study volume to take with me so I could use all that down time wisely. I've been cramming on ACSC* at the rate of two volumes (~555 pages apiece) and subsequent tests per week. I quickly outran the physical books they mail me (which is supposed to be one in advance of the volume I'm currently working on). I now have to study using PDF files from their website. I could have printed out one or two of them, had I known what awaited me. Alas.
* Air Command and Staff College, the AF's way of saying, "You made major! Congratulations!"
OK. Back to work.
d
14 comments
Hi Diana,
Sounds like a less than productive day. Hope it gets better and the paperwork, cards and orders get sorted out.
Have you read the article in the Jan/Feb 2011 Atlantic, page 80 “Why Our Best Officers are Leaving"? (OK, Prof, what are the rules about putting a punctuation mark inside the quotation marks when they are setting off a title?)
Hang in there.
Lorraine
Sounds like the Air Force is like most corporations when it comes to getting things done: SNAFU!(You can put whatever word fits in the F spot, if it pleases you to do so!)
Don’t let it get your blood pressure up, or you won’t get to go at all! You’ve been with the AF long enough to know how they do (or don’t do) things. So just do what you can and let them suffer the consequences—that’s my advice, but you don’t have to follow it is you don’t want to! (You rarely ever followed my advice, anyway, did you?) lol
Love you!
You got it right, Lorraine. :)
No, I haven’t read the article. Sounds interesting.
d
Diana,
Bureaucracies live to serve themselves. We just feast on the crumbs. Or as Pogo said it, “We have met the enemy and he is us.” It makes me wonder if this is what brought the Roman Empire down.
It’s too bad your training books don’t come in epub format. I loves me my Nook reader, but its ability to show PDF files isn’t worth the paper they’re (not) printed on. There’s conversion software available but PDF graphics (which includes tables, sad to say) don’t translate.
An e-reader of some sort might be worth having anyway if you’re going abroad - you can carry 1000 books as easily as one, and lots of classics are avalable for free.
Speaking of firearms, what do you think of the M-9? Would you recommend it to a civilian? (I joined a gun club over the weekend as an excuse to spend even more money. I’m considering a handgun for plinking - no self-defense requirements. That’s what the Louisville Sluggger is for.)
Dave
P.S. Lorraine: I’d have tucked a question mark inside the quotes, since it looks like it’s part of the title, and tagged another one outside since you were asking a question. But I tend to err on the side of too much punctuation. When you’re writing software you can never have too many parentheses. D.
Ah. OK. I thought Lorraine was being facetious with that question. But since I know you both to be very talented and conscientious writers, and am now convinced the question was not tongue-in-cheek, here’s the answer:
Sample sentence:
Have you read the article in the Jan/Feb 2011 Atlantic, page 80 “Why Our Best Officers are Leaving"?
In this case, the title of the article doesn’t include a question mark; the question mark applies to the question Lorraine is asking and not a question embedded in the quotes, so the question mark goes on the outside of the quotes.
Sample sentence:
I saw a sign on the freeway that said “Where’s the beef?”
In this case, the question mark (someday, I swear, we’re going to make that a compound word: questionmark) is part of the quote itself, so it goes inside the quotes. There is no need for extra punctuation. We’re going to give our readers a little benefit of the doubt here.
The same rules apply with exclaimpoints.
d
Dave, I have a Kindle (and I LOVELOVELOVE it). I bought it last January when I realized that most of my classes required me to read classic texts which I could get for free at Amazon. ;) I’ve been collecting Books I Want To Read for months, along with books I pick up for classes.
They recently upgraded the software to be able to handle pdf files, but (like the Nook) they aren’t user-friendly at all. I’m sure they’ll improve their software soon enough, at which point I just need to download the upgrade. Until then…I quit trying to read pdfs on my Kindle, as the frustration : benefit ratio is too high.
s
Hi Diana and Dave,
Yes, it was a real question. I was always taught, “A comma before quotation marks and if the phrase or sentence within the quotation marks is at the end of a sentence the punctuation for such is inside the quotation marks.” Nowadays, I tend to try to err on the side of common sense, putting the ending punctuation where logic rather than a hard and fast rule would put it, well, most of the time. Nice to know there is precedent for this.
My husband works as a medical writer and has an organisation-wide style guide as well as those, both written and unwritten, for most clients, then we have Canadian, UK, and US style guides. Interestingly enough, most press in Canada tend to use American spellings on most words though, when written, Z is still “zed” and not “zee.”
Some rhymes just don’t work without it.
Lorraine
Ah. :)
I believe the rule for quotes is that a comma precedes them only if they are used to denote someone speaking (or in some cases, thinking).
d
Diana,
The rule I was given was to place a comma or period inside the quotation marks. Larger end marks like exclamation or question went outside, unless they were part of the quotation.
The reason was purely mechanics: when type was set by hand, the narrower punctuation slugs at the end of a sentence fell out more easily. So when typesetters had the opportunity they used the wider quotation mark to help restrain the wayward marks.
I don’t entirely buy it, but typography is such a mishmash of aesthetics, mechanics, and tradition that it’s plausible enough to silence the kids asking, “why?”
(For shorter names for the marks, Unix computer people have a lexicon of symbol names that are easier to say, like bang (!), mesh (#), squiggle (~), and splat (*). For some reason I want to use “quack” for “?".)
Dave
The rule I was given was to place a comma or period inside the quotation marks. Larger end marks like exclamation or question went outside, unless they were part of the quotation.
Exactly–for Americans, anyhow. (I don’t know about those crazy Canadians. :D) I was talking about the comma before the quotes.
Actually, I wouldn’t have used a comma before the quotes in this sentence: I don’t entirely buy it, but typography is such a mishmash of aesthetics, mechanics, and tradition that it’s plausible enough to silence the kids asking, “why?”
I couldn’t explain why. It just doesn’t look quite right to me.
Quack. I LIKE that. :)
d
HA! That is the best out-processing nightmare story I have ever heard. Kind of sad that it is a genre unto itself in the military.
“The bureaucracy is expanding to meet the needs of the expanding bureaucracy.”
Hi All,
I love Dave’s rationale for the periods going inside the quotation marks. It certainly makes sense.
Life has certainly changed with computerisation; typesetting is one of those things that have become much easier thanks to the chip.
Great lesson in punctuation. You know, it’s hard to get that once one has left school. Thanks.
Lorraine
DISCLAIMER: The “rules” I am talking about apply to American writing. I know the Brits put commas and periods outside the quotes. I don’t know what the “rules” are for Canadians. Probably a mix?
d
Diana,
I suspect the rules in Canada are the same as the real rule here: “whatever you can get away with.” They can probably just get away with more because they can claim mixed influences. (grin)
Do you use Calibre software with your Kindle? It’s a free ebook management & conversion program and it knows how to sync to an indecent number of readers, including Kindle. It’ll convert PDFs to other formats. In fact, I think what it generates for the Nook is better than the Nook’s native PDF rendering. But the problem with images and tables remains.
Dave
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