Fast forward one year into this job and I’m the Senior Major in this section. At this point, I’ve logged thousands of frequent flier miles, have a bag permanently packed by the front door from each trip and work on a crazy schedule that spans 3 different countries and numerous time zones.
I work the typical 0600-1800 Hawaii standard time, but as I’m winding down for the evening, my counterparts overseas are just showing up to work. They’d email me, I wouldn’t answer and then they’d text me. I’m managing Soldiers from across the US including Washington, Korea, Japan, Alaska, Hawaii and Guam. I’m synching operations and plans across all these time zones and my body is in a constant state of confusion as to what time it is.
After getting used to the time overseas, I’m forced to adjust back home. Going West of the International Date Line is easy, but its coming back the other way that’s harder.. Not many people can appreciate the urge of having to take a shit at 0300 because your body still thinks its still in another time zone. I tried all the tricks to adjusting my clock and none of them are easy – staying awake until you can’t do it anymore so you can sleep at a normal hour, sleeping with the blinds open so you naturally wake up to the sun, and coffee. Lots of fucking coffee.
I’m still young, and motivated and the job is in line with all of my natural strengths. I LOVE to travel, I LOVE meeting people from different cultures and backgrounds and living as indigenous as possible. The deeper into a village or training area I can be, the better. On the flip side, I also love me some 5 star hotels and embassy parties. There came a point where we were all arguing about which hotel to stay at due to the thread count of their towels and robes. I enjoy analyzing problem sets, organizing teams of people together in pursuit of a common goal, motivating them and executing the plan with laser like precision.
The problem was, no one at my unit in Hawaii knew who I was or what I was doing because I was always gone. The Army is a team sport, and if you aren’t suffering with the team – you’re basically shunned. As far as other sections were concerned, they were jealous of my section’s mission. They saw us constantly traveling to exotic locations, living in hotels and getting extra pay. All this may be true, but it was the nature of the job and required this lifestyle.
Comparing the responsibilities of that job versus that of a staff officer were wildly different. Whereas the staff officers were working the standard 0600-1800 in a garrison environment, I was doing that and more. I managed millions of dollars of equipment and funds, I planned, organized and synchronized the movement of hundreds of troops overseas in geographically disbursed regions throughout foreign countries. I was hiking through training areas in the jungle all day then drawing up the plans in the evenings. I negotiated with Embassy personnel, foreign militaries and the local populace on a regular basis and making real world political impacts seen on international news. Frankly there was no comparison on who did more work.
But we got shit on. My promotion boards to the next rank came and went. As if the job wasn’t punishing enough. I asked for even more work. This meant more time away. Surely if I took on more work, I would get promoted right? Wrong.
Have you ever been in a similar position? Working to get somewhere and getting nowhere? Does it feel like you’re on a hamster wheel with no reward in sight? The harsh reality is that your job will use you until it can’t use you anymore and replace you immediately whenever you tap out. Its on you to put yourself in a financial position to prepare for that reality should it ever arrive.