So how did we, as a unit, inherit Captain Cockeyes?
I blamed at lot of it on the internal promotion system of large institutions in my last post since it is far easier to pass someone up the chain rather than deal with them outright (even though that's the most humane thing to do for both the individual as well as the organization). We allow bad leaders to remain in positions of authority and jeopardize the careers of those in their charge because we fear conflict. We avoid sitting someone down and saying, "You just don't have what it takes and probably never will, so try to find something more suitable to your skillset."
Now there is a kindler, gentler way to say all that, but at the end of the day we just need to stop wasting everyone's time and energy and fire the ineffective (and dangerous) leader. Kick him out! You're doing him a favor and letting everyone move on with their lives (HT to Jim Collins)!
Ok, now that we got the high-level reasons out of the way, how did we literally get stuck with someone so oblivious to his own behavior that he was shitcanned from his job in Afghanistan and sent all the way back to England on the taxpayer dime?
Simple:
Four months before our deployment there was a series of opaque incidents that forced the (unfair and untimely) removal of our current supervisor, Captain Awesome. Not only did Captain Awesome have a wealth of experience and knowledge, but he actually mentored me on how to be a decent, respectable maintenance officer.
Like woah! I know? Crazy! Right?
All I know is that there was a perception held by one individual, LtCol Tri-too-hard, that there was something going on between Captain Awesome (male, married) and another Captain (female, single). All unfounded, but Captain Awesome still had to leave the unit and go to timeout (the Wing AFSO21 office, because that's how much we value innovation in the Air Force...it's the support section for officers AKA the innovation ghetto).
This left us without an officer for both pre-deployment training in Las Vegas as well as the actual deployment across EMEA to Afghanistan. LtCol Tri-too-hard and his flunkies, in their infinite wisdom, did not see this as a problem and decided to replace Captain Awesome with the most "qualified" individual for the task: Captain Cockeyes.
Now I bring attention to the word qualified since it is a relative term. The Air Force, like most bureaucratic corporations, largely applies this word to someone based on their records. And so we come to live and die by the phrase, "Well, on paper he looked like the best (whatever) for the (very important, no fail mission)."
In the case of Captain Cockeyes, it was his graduation from AMMOS that sealed the deal.
NOTE: I will never understand why we, as an institution, value this school so much since the only thing it seems to produce is a bunch of douche bags who only went there to further their own careers and never share any of the secret-squirrel knowledge they learned over the course of eight months. My apologies to the two officers who don't fit this assessment, but you are the .0001%. Sorry.
So just as perceptions got us into this mess (i.e. no leadership just weeks before a transcontinental pre-deployment to Vegas), perceptions of Captain Cockeye's competence got us mired even deeper into an already irreversible death spiral just before a real-world deployment.
So what exactly happened in Vegas?
Well my friends, you're in luck, because what happened in Vegas didn't exactly stay there...
Video clip: I wasn't talking to you Deeds, I was talking to that squirrel (mountain goat) over there!
I blamed at lot of it on the internal promotion system of large institutions in my last post since it is far easier to pass someone up the chain rather than deal with them outright (even though that's the most humane thing to do for both the individual as well as the organization). We allow bad leaders to remain in positions of authority and jeopardize the careers of those in their charge because we fear conflict. We avoid sitting someone down and saying, "You just don't have what it takes and probably never will, so try to find something more suitable to your skillset."
Photo: This works too...
Now there is a kindler, gentler way to say all that, but at the end of the day we just need to stop wasting everyone's time and energy and fire the ineffective (and dangerous) leader. Kick him out! You're doing him a favor and letting everyone move on with their lives (HT to Jim Collins)!
Ok, now that we got the high-level reasons out of the way, how did we literally get stuck with someone so oblivious to his own behavior that he was shitcanned from his job in Afghanistan and sent all the way back to England on the taxpayer dime?
Simple:
Four months before our deployment there was a series of opaque incidents that forced the (unfair and untimely) removal of our current supervisor, Captain Awesome. Not only did Captain Awesome have a wealth of experience and knowledge, but he actually mentored me on how to be a decent, respectable maintenance officer.
Like woah! I know? Crazy! Right?
All I know is that there was a perception held by one individual, LtCol Tri-too-hard, that there was something going on between Captain Awesome (male, married) and another Captain (female, single). All unfounded, but Captain Awesome still had to leave the unit and go to timeout (the Wing AFSO21 office, because that's how much we value innovation in the Air Force...it's the support section for officers AKA the innovation ghetto).
This left us without an officer for both pre-deployment training in Las Vegas as well as the actual deployment across EMEA to Afghanistan. LtCol Tri-too-hard and his flunkies, in their infinite wisdom, did not see this as a problem and decided to replace Captain Awesome with the most "qualified" individual for the task: Captain Cockeyes.
Now I bring attention to the word qualified since it is a relative term. The Air Force, like most bureaucratic corporations, largely applies this word to someone based on their records. And so we come to live and die by the phrase, "Well, on paper he looked like the best (whatever) for the (very important, no fail mission)."
In the case of Captain Cockeyes, it was his graduation from AMMOS that sealed the deal.
NOTE: I will never understand why we, as an institution, value this school so much since the only thing it seems to produce is a bunch of douche bags who only went there to further their own careers and never share any of the secret-squirrel knowledge they learned over the course of eight months. My apologies to the two officers who don't fit this assessment, but you are the .0001%. Sorry.
So just as perceptions got us into this mess (i.e. no leadership just weeks before a transcontinental pre-deployment to Vegas), perceptions of Captain Cockeye's competence got us mired even deeper into an already irreversible death spiral just before a real-world deployment.
Video clip: SMH...
So what exactly happened in Vegas?
Well my friends, you're in luck, because what happened in Vegas didn't exactly stay there...
Video clip: ...herpes and bad leadership.
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