"Great Opportunity" translates to "new and fun way for us to eff with you, your career, and/or your family" in Army land.
Some history.... Army Guy's current group is a significantly different experience for him from our last group. While my initial experience was on the better side, his was on the worse. To say it was frustrating, would be a huge understatement. While I was out making connections and feeling all warm fuzzy about it all, he was struggling to not go postal on his "peers". So I did the only thing that I know to do in hopeless situations...I prayed. I prayed for him to get some better understanding of what his command team was wanted (other then that whole long walk, short pier scenario), I prayed for clarity, I prayed for compassion, I prayed for understanding and most importantly, I prayed that all of this would get resolved before the Dreaded D. Mental note--when praying be prepared for left field responses.
Well it was resolved before Dreaded D (see above mentioned long walk, short pier) and while at the time it was insanely disappointing to several involved, Army Guy was assured this wasn't the last of his time in this group...they weren't just writing him off...they still had plans for him...they still wanted him in a leadership role. Okay. We'll just wait then.
Army Guy got moved out and up to a higher level of craziness 30 days out from Dreaded D. Which if you know anything about Army, you know that that means I also got bumped from my group of wives that I'd gotten to be pretty comfy with. Sigh. So here we were 30 days out and I suddenly had NOTHING to do. No FRG, no coffees, nothing. Answer-Roadtrip/Run away from it all. Roadtrip was awesome and just what I needed. But while I was out running amuck, Army Guy was discovering how much his new job sucked. Every day getting just a little worse then the day before and since he took his phone, he got to message me and tell him how much his day sucked. Every. Day. Being deployed is stressful enough on a marriage, but add to that a guy who is only happy when he's being shot at who was currently stuck in 4 hour Death by PowerPoint briefs, its just even harder. BUT there was always this small little candlelight flicker of hope for Army Guy...he was promised he'd get out of this job and back to being shot at. Even when Army Guy was having a complete crap day, we both held onto that little promise. It also meant I'd have something to do, somewhere to direct all of my Dreaded D energy. So it was a win-win for both of us. Meanwhile, Army Guy started researching jobs to do AFTER deployment and he found one he thinks he'll like. So now we have two little blips of hope. Whoo-hoo! Rough days were now saved with "well, this job is almost done, get into other job, redeploy, and go do this other cool program". Whoo-hoo!
"Great Opportunity" reared it's ugly head. Every 4 hour meeting that hubs was required to attend was described as a "great opportunity". When Army Guy got moved, it was a "great opportunity" to learn how staff works (ummm...staff works???). When Army Guy got stuck on the night shift, yet another "great opportunity". Evidently our current group taught Army the way of the Great Opportunity. So "great opportunity" gave Army Guy the job he currently has (the really,awful, horrible, no good, very bad job) for the rest of the Dreaded D at a less amenities offered location. Yah, no leadership opportunities as promised--light extinguished, all hope gone.
When all hope was gone before Dreaded D, it was hard, but being able to sit and chat face to face about it helped us work through it. When Army Guy got this new job, it sucked and adding to the fact that we could communicate face to face about it--I couldn't see what his face really said when his words were saying "its fine" killed me. It took me a few weeks to learn Army Guy's word clues, but we got it figured out. I could start to see what face he was making when typing. Army Guy would vent to me about the new level of suckiness for his job and I would share with him the random things that the kids were doing to lighten his day. We're finally in our groove--his job sucks, but at least we can still talk and he's not stuck wallowing in the suckiness of his job. Insert "Great Opportunity". So, when he moves to his less amenities location (while having the same sucky job), he loses cell phone coverage.
I'm soooooo over this Dreaded D, this group and this current time in our Army life.
At least we've got cool job hope right?!?!? It'll involve at the least TDY time for Army Guy on the west coast, so I figure that is a least a little compensation for this crap...a PCS move to said location with on post housing would just be awesome compensation....maybe I should start praying for that...
No comments:
Post a Comment