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Military.com Forums Air Force Discussions Air Force General Discussion BTZ Selections - Still poor choices?|
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Basic Training |
Another dirtbag Airman made BTZ in my squadron while other people who actually do their job and don't kiss butt didn't make it. What gives? I thought we were sorting out the real workers from the kissups. Apparently this isn't working out too well. I even saw said SrA-BTZ talk back to a SSgt and blatantly insult her in front of 2 MSgts who did nothing about the situation. Is the Air Force still moving towards promotion for the super volunteers or do you think soon it will start shifting to reward more appropriate people?
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Member |
According to you.
According to you.
As far as you know.
Appropriate? Appropriate as defined by who--you? Take heart - the AF isn't perfect -- Thank GOODNESS! Just think if it were neither you nor I could join.  I'm a firm beleiver we need both encouragement and slights to fuel our flight to greater hieghts of excellence! Most of us will be lucky leave the world --ahead-- of where we would be --if-- we all got everything we had coming to us!  cheers... |
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Member |
I agree completely here... Might be a personal vandetta against said BTZ selectee? |
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Member |
The board that meets to make BTZ selections weighs each airman against each other. It isn't your shop chief that is selling you, but your package. What they want is a well rounded airman and a leader. They are looking for the one that stands out. Sorry to say but if you just work (even work hard) and don't do anything else you will not stand out.
Examples: Airman Snuffy works hard in this AFSC. He excels above his other coworkers and is a asset to the Air Force. Airman Snuffy spends his off time with friends and doesn't support the flight outside of work and keeps to himself. Airman Ruff also works hard at work. He is also trying to get his college degree on top of his hard work ethic. Airman Ruff goes to all the squadron functions and is a regular at the Airman Council meetings. He sat on a committee that helped raise funds for a new snack bar, increasing moral. Airman Jones is asset to the Air Force. He puts in extra hours for the flight. Airman Jones volunteers his time on the Base Honor Guard team and is a active supporter for the local Habitat for Humanity. Airman Jones is currently eight credits away from a BS in communications and has completed his CCAF degree. Airman Jones is a by the book airman who knows his job inside and out. Now the board has to choose which is best. These are all based on some of the selections I have seen go out. What makes a lot of young airman upset is that some packages just look better then others. On top of that is name reconition. If you work in LRS and chiefs from Comm and Medical know your name from projects you have worked on or from knowing you from base functions then you have an advantage. That isn't making the airman a kissup, it is called networking. You are setting yourself up for success and doing your part on base. When I made BTZ along with another flight member we were told that we outclassed everyone else that was up. People knew us from the bottom up to the Wing-King by name. Through our efforts on and off base we became good examples of the Air Force core values. Before you go blaiming the world that you did not become selected for SrA Below the Zone, you need to know the background of every person that was up and see their package that was submitted. This message has been edited. Last edited by: mwrl, |
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Basic Training |
I do know, that's the funny thing. I have to go to this person multiple times a day to get them to do even a single task and they complain about it. They just volunteer for the extra activities like Airman's Council and that is what gets them awards, not the other troops that are left behind (while this person goes to meetings and parties) and does their work FOR them. It is pretty disgraceful.
Well yes, according to me but that does not make me a liar. I pulled this person's supervisor aside after the incident and told them that their airman's behavior was completely disrespectful and that supervisor told me that there wasn't anything they should do about it.
It has to start with someone standing up for what is right. Why do we let disrespectful and slack end individuals promote when others are covering their slack? At least the new EPR system has crossed out most of the off-duty volunteer work bullets and has more room for the work related issues. Someone somwhere had to say something about it. Now I believe the BTZ program should be looked at as well.
Ah, that's pretty close to calling me a dirtbag, I see what you did there! However I am not by any means a work skater and by promoting this individual too early it absolutely shows that the AF is indeed imperfect.
Oh, absolutely not. This person is not in my duty section/chain of command and I have already earned my NCO stripes so I have no vendetta or disgruntlement about it. Just merely surprised to hear the announcement. Wouldn't you be if there was someone you KNEW was playing people and the system? It puts down the good honest worker. |
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Member |
what can you do about it? Is there anyway to change an imperfect system? Yes it is all about the total person concept. It does suck for those that are hard workers but yet have special situations that prevent them from staying after work or volunteering- like both parents work and have children,etc. There is stuff out there, its on the supervisors to understand individual needs and try to mentor there troops accordinly. Now about the insult to the SSgt. If you felt that strongly about it, you should have said something right there no matter if 2 SNCO's were there or not. Sometimes its easier after the fact to say well I should have said this or that.
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Member |
Nothing has changed since I joined 14 years ago and I d**'t think it will before I retire.
We had an Amn make it BTZ w** was ** the h**or guard. Was never at work because he was always volunteering for something or other. So he makes BTZ ** a str**g package. The thing is, you can always get work bullets. As a workcenter we were always busy. So you s**w up for an **ur during something going ** and you can write it down. Well, then we got a SSgt in that was in our unit - went to be an instructor - and came back. So she comes in and gets super troop ** her crew. Great - she thinks she's got a top notch "can-do" Amn. She has PMI due and asks him to bring the terminal up and let it warm-up so they can do the PMI. He stares at her (in her words) like a deer in headlights. He has no idea **w to turn it ** and power it up. Yet - he made BTZ. Nothing has changed. |
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Member |
Yep. I even knew a guy that was step promoted to Tech and was **e of the 12 Outstanding Airmen a few years ago that was just like that. He had absolutely no clue **w to do his *** and he s***ed as a leader too.
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Member |
A few years ago I had a satcom buddy of mine get c**sen by leadership as "the **e". He w** all the awards, got BTZ, traveled the country competing ** boards to win even more awards. **e day over drinks we're talking about it and he said looking back he wish he hadn't d**e it. Didn't know squat about his *** and here he was almost half way into his 4 year enlistment. |
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Member |
Having just sat on one of these boards, I can say that your package is all they see. Very similar to a SR NCO board score. They can't tell from your package how you work on the flightline or in the office. They can't tell how poor you look in uniform or how polished your boots are. They can only see what your supervisor has written. Some supervisors and upper leadership do a great dis-service to their troops in this area. I can tell you the first thing we noticed when ranking the packages is education. Have you taken the time to start school after finishing your CDC's? That was a great discriminator for our board. Everyone is saving the world judging by the bullets written on job performance. Who is going above and beyond to help themselves and others? Who is on the dorm council? Who is doing AADD?
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Basic Training |
I wonder why some people think I got beaten by this guy? I made BTZ a good many years ago. I'm not having flashbacks I guarantee you!
caninedale: I don't think anyone is going to put anything negative on the BTZ package stuf, easier to just not write one! This is why I would LOVE to do it where the person actually goes before the board and answers the questions and you can get to see the people instead of the supervisor's fluff. It should be ***umed that people ARE doing their jobs, but sadly, this benefit of the doubt is hurting people. Bring back the face-to-face! |
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Member |
I wasn't implying they put negative stuff. Putting poorly written bullets is more what I was reffering to. I agree with your comment about meeting the board 100% Fox. A dumpy airman who doesn't care about his/her fitness and persoanal appearance can't hide behind a well written paper package if he has to stand tall in front of a board. I had to do it when I got BTZ in 92. They asked two or three PME type questions each and then I left. If I am not mistaken the Army still does this for promotion to some ranks.
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Member |
In my opinion the best thing the Air Force did was lose the board. All you get with a board is a lot of hard workers and those that give their time toward other factors left behind. The ARMY has a serious problem with their board system for this very reason. There are a lot of soldiers that get left behind because they can't p*** a face to face board. I believe the BTZ process works and the way testing is done over going to a board for a $100 pay increase. The BTZ selection should not take more then a few minutes. That is how it should stay.
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Basic Training |
I went in front of a board for my BTZ... But since this subject came up I'll tell my story. I realize everyone who doesn't get it kinda has an issue with the process but here we go: Those of us who were submitted for BTZ were pulled aside by leadership, all together, and told we were absolutely the best BTZ candidates they have seen in a very long time. So to start off, we were going to hvae some serious compe***ion from the start. A few months ago, my name came up to go serve a little time in the base Honor Guard. Leadership decided that it would be better that I pulled too much weight in my 3 man shop at Wing level, and decided to pull some other guy for it instead. I wasn't dissapointed, but I knew HG would have really looked good on my 1206 for BTZ. Anyhow, I continued volunteer work, college after school, CLEPS, sq booster club officer, deployment, achv. medla, and our 3 man shop won best Wing Information ***urance shop in the MAJCOM among other things that were in my package. PTL, CPR instructor, Amns council, GPC holder, and Sq rep for Meals on Wheels. The guy that got sent to HG instead of myself went on to win Honor Guardsman of the wing (he's a very sharp guy, no discredit to him) and long story short won the stripe. We're pretty good friends off duty, we showed each other our packages (lol). He had 3 college credits from a CLEP, and other than that I couldnt see anything that really st*** out to me. I was also told by a SNCO on the board I had the best board score out of all of us. It's just hard for me to know that compared to the BTZ selectees outside of THIS group of people we had, every single one of the a1cs in our group could have easily taken the stripe. It's almost like the squadron seems it HAS to give out BTZ stripes, and sometimes it seems like you cant name a good A1C at all, and other times you just dont have enough stripes to give out. |
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Basic Training |
Some time ago we have a supervisors' workshop on this very topic. Those who ran it blatantly said that the board ***umes that everyone who is submitted for BTZ is a stellar performer, and for the most part the work related bullets don't get much attention. They gave a few reasons for this, one of them was that not everyone has the same opportunity to produce an equal impact in their particular position, and the board didn't want to get into that can of worms. So, they had decided to judge primarily on those items which could most easily be measured against eachother, and were at the control of the applicant - volunteer stuff in the unit, on base, and in the community and also college pursuits.
Whether or not this approach is appropriate is debatable - but at least one way to avoid this debacle is for supervisors to stop nominating people who don't deserve it. |
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Member |
Holy cow, that would require supervisors to, ahem, supervise. Out of the question. |
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Member |
A lot of it also depends on the writer of the package... They had a better writer than you.
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Member |
Off Topic: The proliferation of **** in words is unnecessary. Can someone please turn that off?
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Member |
My problem with putting so much weight on the "other crap" is that award seekers will focus more of their time on the "other crap".
I am a worker bee. I don't fill all the blocks every quarter, so when I do, I don't mind putting together a package for my boss. But most of the time I just can't fit everything into one quarter. Why? Because I work my rear off. Out of my squadron, my workcenter has produced the most results. We are building our unit from scratch. I have had 3-4 people over the last 6 months and we have done the work of 16 (4 man UTC *s 4 UTCs). Each UTC is ready to deploy - we are inventoried and good to roll. It took some longer days to get it done - it took a lot of sweat and hard work. While we were doing all this work, my peers were doing nothing. Thus - right now they are in crisis mode being ordered to do what my guys did 2-3 months ago. But - they were getting a lot of the "other crap". Why? Because they weren't doing their job. But we HAVE to submit a name for awards/BTZs. So we pick a name based on what? We ask questions like "who did some school and volunteer work?" Not "who deserves it based on their job performance?" Face it - if everyone was "doing their job" than we wouldn't need EPRs. Everyone would get a 5 for job performance and knowledge and we'd be fat **** and happy. But not everyone does their jobs. In today's AF, they preach over and over "do more with less". We have seen that directly with our UTC manning levels. I use to be able to take out 4-6 people with a 100 van - not it's 3. How do you work 24/7 with 3 people? I have only 1 person on shift at a time. What happens when that night person has to leave the tent and take a leak, lunch, or whatever - unsecured COMSEC, link goes down, emergency...? So - DO MORE WITH LESS. Well, to accomplish that means working MORE. So with MORE time working, there is less time to school/volunteer. So it seems to me, from my first hand experience as both a rater and ratee - that those getting these awards are USUALLY the ones NOT working or excelling in their primary duties. So my work bullets can have some outstanding stuff in there - above and beyone stuff - but since I didn't take 3 credits this quarter, some guy who went to school and did nothing at work will get it. You can always put some work bullets in for things that happened while you were "around"...and they don't get looked at anyway. Of course - I already have 2 CCAF degrees. Any school I take now will be toward a BS degree. But my focus at the moment is on the job. My name is in the hat this qtr only because I had 3 AF training cl***es for my job in the last 3 months. If those cl***es hadn't of come up...my name wouldn't even be in the discussion - despite an outstanding quarter in terms of job/impact to the AF (test/eval of new satellite). Then again - as was said - it goes back to supervisor. If someone was spending more time doing the "other crap" then doing the job...or they are not great at their job...don't put them in. The flip side to that is when a Chief says we WILL have a nominee. "Okay - so, who has the most school/volunteer? "Amn Snuffy - but she doesn't deserve it really." "Okay - put a package together by COB." So then you get supervisors "grooming" their Amn by having do all these great school things and volunteer things. But they do so at the expense of doing their job. |
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Member |
Most of the weight in a BTZ package is duty-related. The 2 lower headers (self-improvement & community involvement) can be filled via off-duty volunteerism and education. No need to accomplish them at the expense of the job. And BTZ is not like a quarterly award, you have years instead of months to fill the bullets.
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