quote:

This policy appears to be another myopic change that ignores the rule of unintended consequences!

Mark;
I know you didn't mean it personally, but I take a little offense to that. Having been heavily involved in the discussion process that lead up to this change, I can assure you that there were folks involved in the process that pointed out all of these issues and all of the potential and real consequences and impacts. It was a very deliberative process used to reach the consensus and conclusions.

As an aside - Google Marcus Hanna. Although there is some sea time there one could say generally, he had no Sea Time with us.


Mark - by the way, my example stated he had recently turned around, so his marks would NOT affect his score as only very recent marks are counted.

quote:

Originally posted by Mightyz90_93:
87;
Actually, I was hoping you would ask that! Sure, we can do that one too. Now, how would YOU write the policy so that YOU could get it, but the person I described doesn't?

allowing a member to decide how many acrued sea/surf/award points they wish to use in each competition and don't use those points if they don't make the cut would be 1 idea, MC.

Throwing in some more questions that reflect what the CG values (sea/surf time) into the SWE might also help. Asking what about what repair locker leaders do during main space fire for example. Or questions that experienced u/w EOW's, QMOW's or OOD's would know by nature but people who've not been to sea would have trouble multiple quessing. i.e. what does "see you on the 2" mean? Or what's the max RPM's you want on the MDE's?

just brainstorming here, MC. My point is, if the CG really does value the sea service its members do, why would it devalue sea service's benefit to individuals who undertake it?

v/r

I'm not sure I can agree with the idea that the CG is somehow deciding that these awards awarded previously are "worthless."

The CG isn't saying that at all. You still wear them (that's the most important thing to me!). No one says you didn't earn them. All the organization is saying is that there comes a time and place where level of importance of the award no longer reflects one's ability to hold the next higher paygrade.

As I stated before, I received an LOC as a non-rate 18 years ago for inspecting a bunch of PATON. Great! I am now competing for YNCS. What on earth does my ability to inspect PATON in south LA have to do with what kind of YNCS I might make?

Marcus Hanna received his Medal of Honor for his service in the army, not for his service in the Coast Guard. Yes, he was a Coastie that had received the Medal of Honor, but not for what he did while serving in the Coast Guard

quote:

Originally posted by Mightyz90_93:

quote:

This policy appears to be another myopic change that ignores the rule of unintended consequences!

Mark;
I know you didn't mean it personally, but I take a little offense to that. Having been heavily involved in the discussion process that lead up to this change, I can assure you that there were folks involved in the process that pointed out all of these issues and all of the potential and real consequences and impacts. It was a very deliberative process used to reach the consensus and conclusions.

As an aside - Google Marcus Hanna. Although there is some sea time there one could say generally, he had no Sea Time with us.


Mark - by the way, my example stated he had recently turned around, so his marks would NOT affect his score as only very recent marks are counted.

MC,
I am fully aware of who Marcus Hanna was! I am also aware that his Medal of honor was NOT for his service as a Lighthouse Keeper but rather for his service in the Massachusetts Infantry!

As to you taking "offense" to my myopic comment well I assure none was intended but that does not change the accuracy of my comment. If the stated intent of this policy is to encourage sea time then, as been pointed out by several here, it is having an opposite effect. If you as a Chief were to counsel a junior member could you honestly now tell them that going to sea is going to help them advance?

Marklf

If would have no problem counseling a junior member, encouraging him to go to sea to assist with his advancement. However, I can now tell him that he will need to continue to explore options later to ensure his advancement. His sea time is now like his marks: only certain criteria will be considered. It doesn't go on forever.

I think this will have the opposite affect on sea time. I think this will encourage people to go to sea. If I went to sea ten years ago, I can now sit on my butt and count those points forever. Now, I have to realistically consider my competition and decide if I need to go back. I can't count on those points from ten years ago. I have to have gone recently.

quote:

Mark - by the way, my example stated he had recently turned around, so his marks would NOT affect his score as only very recent marks are counted.

Sorry I missed this,
If he had in fact "recently turned around" then what is the problem? Now you have a top performer who also has performed an heroic act! Sounds to me like someone that the Coast Guard should want to advance! Or do you think that he should be punished for "low performance" even long after he "turned himself around"?

Marklf

quote:

Originally posted by honis22:
It's simple, you cannot. No matter how you rewrite, change, or do anything different, there will always be people out there who think that it is unfair. Some of them probably legitimately so. However, everyone in the Coast Guard should by now know that everything changes over time. Sometimes drastic and other times so miniscule that no one notices. That being said, the change has been made, there is nothing that I know of that we can do about it. (except maybe complain to each other on the forum, which can be satisfying in some ways) After all, every one of us have been taught to always be ready, so get ready, change is coming and its time to adapt and move on. As a person getting underway on his third boat and possibly making E-7 in the process, I am a little bitter. After all, I set my career up so that this would be my last underway tour before retirement. Isn't eight years at sea enough in the end. Well, not anymore. No use crying over it. Just break out the Vaseline and move on, its not the first nor the last time the USCG hierarchy is going to think of something "great" to "even the playing field". "After all, its only fair"

starting to get that impression too. Gonna go into the proverbial bobblehead mode, yes sir, yes sir, 3 bags full sir, I'll go get the vasoline sir. Signing out of the forums to plan how I can get my career onto land where I'll be better able to get competitive study time.

Always kinda wondered what cell phone duty is like.

I suppose one of these years it will get tiring to be on the wrong end of someones "legacy". I just hope I will be able to advance again before retirement. I don't reallly see too many stars over the horizon. It's going to be really hard to compete with the E-7's and E-8's for advancement for at least ten years unless they all get ****ed off and retire.

quote:

Originally posted by MarkLF:

quote:

Mark - by the way, my example stated he had recently turned around, so his marks would NOT affect his score as only very recent marks are counted.

Sorry I missed this,
If he had in fact "recently turned around" then what is the problem? Now you have a top performer who also has performed an heroic act! Sounds to me like someone that the Coast Guard should want to advance! Or do you think that he should be punished for "low performance" even long after he "turned himself around"?

Marklf

The point of that scenario was should a guy who has received an LOC, an ACH and a COM as a first class the last two or so years be competing on an equal footing (from an awards perspective) with a guy who has not gotten an awards for 14 years (other than some good conducts)? I have no problem saying NO, that deed 14 years ago has no bearing on their ability to be a Chief. The recent performance of the other guy, to me at least, has more merit.

[QUOTE]Originally posted by Mightyz90_93:
Mark;
I know you didn't mean it personally, but I take a little offense to that. Having been heavily involved in the discussion process that lead up to this change, I can assure you that there were folks involved in the process that pointed out all of these issues and all of the potential and real consequences and impacts. It was a very deliberative process used to reach the consensus and conclusions.

QUOTE]

MC I am sure it was a very lengthy discussion, however when the group discussing it has reached the pinnacle of enlisted advancements, you tend to wonder how many of the near sighted consequences are considered.

21 people took the test for "9" in 2008. The cut ended up being three. There are still 18 people that will have signifigantly more points than I will. Using three a year, I will not be competitive for advancement for 6 years. To me that is a long time for the playing field to be so skewed. As far as encouraging our junior people to go to sea, with the multiple supplemental lists currently being used, sea time points are useless, so why bother going?

Again MC, this isn't personally directed, I just feel that this change was unncessary and in the interim (who am I to decide if 6 years is long or not) just hurt more people then it helped.

quote:

Originally posted by 2494906:
If would have no problem counseling a junior member, encouraging him to go to sea to assist with his advancement. However, I can now tell him that he will need to continue to explore options later to ensure his advancement. His sea time is now like his marks: only certain criteria will be considered. It doesn't go on forever.

I think this will have the opposite affect on sea time. I think this will encourage people to go to sea. If I went to sea ten years ago, I can now sit on my butt and count those points forever. Now, I have to realistically consider my competition and decide if I need to go back. I can't count on those points from ten years ago. I have to have gone recently.

As has been pointed out by others, when you are realistically considering your competition which would be more beneficial to you...going to sea now and picking up a point or two or staying ashore and having more time available to you to study so that you write a higher test? Another consideration about sea duty is that, at least in my experience, operational units such as cutters tend to eval people a bit tougher then do shore units which can also have a negative effect on your chances for advancement. So can you really counsel a junior member that going to sea will help him/her advance?

Marklf

quote:

Originally posted by Mightyz90_93:

quote:

Originally posted by MarkLF:

quote:

Mark - by the way, my example stated he had recently turned around, so his marks would NOT affect his score as only very recent marks are counted.

Sorry I missed this,
If he had in fact "recently turned around" then what is the problem? Now you have a top performer who also has performed an heroic act! Sounds to me like someone that the Coast Guard should want to advance! Or do you think that he should be punished for "low performance" even long after he "turned himself around"?

Marklf

The point of that scenario was should a guy who has received an LOC, an ACH and a COM as a first class the last two or so years be competing on an equal footing (from an awards perspective) with a guy who has not gotten an awards for 14 years (other than some good conducts)? I have no problem saying NO, that deed 14 years ago has no bearing on their ability to be a Chief. The recent performance of the other guy, to me at least, has more merit.

What E6 gets an LOC, an ACH and a COM in two or so years? I can't even get a COM for an E5 promoted to E6 sailor of the year. I don't know what awards board is giving out three awards in two or so years, especially a COM, to an E6 but it sure isn't in Hampton Roads.

quote:

Originally posted by honis22:
I suppose one of these years it will get tiring to be on the wrong end of someones "legacy". I just hope I will be able to advance again before retirement. I don't reallly see too many stars over the horizon. It's going to be really hard to compete with the E-7's and E-8's for advancement for at least ten years unless they all get ****ed off and retire.

...the only other advice I can give you is "Take a deep breath, relax, exhale. (repeat four times)" You can and will advance again. You are not the only person who will have their scores changed. If you were counting on your sea time and old awards as the only way you could advance, you are likely selling yourself short. Especially at the upper paygrades, awards generally meant almost nothing in the advancement process as it was. The averages were very close to the max, meaning it might be a one or two question difference, that is all.

quote:

What E6 gets an LOC, an ACH and a COM in two or so years? I can't even get a COM for an E5 promoted to E6 sailor of the year. I don't know what awards board is giving out three awards in two or so years, especially a COM, to an E6 but it sure isn't in Hampton Roads.

OK, since you didn't see the intent of going to the extreme, I'll give you a more realistic example: Should that Sailor of the Year who say you were able to get an Ach Medal only get 1/3 of the points as my guy who got the medal 14 years ago? Is that performace 14 years ago THREE TIMES as 'vaulable' to the CG and it's advancement system as your SOYs performace?

quote:

Originally posted by Mightyz90_93:

quote:

Originally posted by honis22:
I suppose one of these years it will get tiring to be on the wrong end of someones "legacy". I just hope I will be able to advance again before retirement. I don't reallly see too many stars over the horizon. It's going to be really hard to compete with the E-7's and E-8's for advancement for at least ten years unless they all get ****ed off and retire.

...the only other advice I can give you is "Take a deep breath, relax, exhale. (repeat four times)" You can and will advance again. You are not the only person who will have their scores changed. If you were counting on your sea time and old awards as the only way you could advance, you are likely selling yourself short. Especially at the upper paygrades, awards generally meant almost nothing in the advancement process as it was. The averages were very close to the max, meaning it might be a one or two question difference, that is all.

So if it might be a one of two question difference then the playing field was level. So we made a change that actually tilted the scales one way in an attempt to make the playing field level?

With all due respect Master Chief, I will be looking at beating Chief John Doe with maxed out points from before Jan 2010 by twenty points on the service wide. While studying does help, I wouldn't advance without a score above a 130 and a marks multiple high enough to put me over the top. I am not saying impossible, but highly improbable.

Forgot to mention the fact that time in grade and service is going to also make a larger impact.

quote:

Originally posted by Mightyz90_93:

quote:

What E6 gets an LOC, an ACH and a COM in two or so years? I can't even get a COM for an E5 promoted to E6 sailor of the year. I don't know what awards board is giving out three awards in two or so years, especially a COM, to an E6 but it sure isn't in Hampton Roads.

OK, since you didn't see the intent of going to the extreme, I'll give you a more realistic example: Should that Sailor of the Year who say you were able to get an Ach Medal only get 1/3 of the points as my guy who got the medal 14 years ago? Is that performace 14 years ago THREE TIMES as 'vaulable' to the CG and it's advancement system as your SOYs performace?

Sure it should count, because my SOY most likely has other awards that would count as well. Does a sailor's demonstrated acts for which he/she is awarded recognition as an E5 mold who they will be as an E7? Does a sailor's performance as an E4 not carry over into their performance as an E6? The majority of the time the answer is yes. Why shouldn't your hard work and dedication throughout your career not help you throughout your career?

It does, in OTHER parts of the final multiple computations.

I assume you are referring to the marks multiple. I'm not going to open that can of worms as this is a different discussion, however since it is possible that you could have a set of E4 marks, competing for an E6 servicewide, do those get discarded as well? Those were not earned in the current paygrade either.