Thursday, July 30, 2009
Promotion
I've had a few "big news" items in the last month, but I suppose the biggest one was my selection for promotion, which was news but really wasn't, but was still big.
Here's the deal: for quite some time I've been planning to retire from the military in 2009. After 20 years of service I can retire with a pension (not something I can live on completely, but every little bit helps), health care (no small thing) and some other benefits. Before I went to Singapore I'd actually submitted one job application here in the States, and I was looking around Singapore and Hong Kong at job possibilities.
Last February, all that changed. While in Singapore I got word from my office back home that the rating I'd gotten on my promotion recommendation from my big boss was almost certainly going to get me promoted when a board of officers met in March. While there was a slim chance it wouldn't happen (last year, 98.9% of the people with the same rating were selected for promotion), I had to assume it would. This created a dilemma for me. On the upside, I could move into a more senior position where I might have more of an impact than I do in my current assignment, and of course it's nicer to retire as a colonel, both in terms of money and prestige. On the downside, there's a very good chance that they'll move me into an assignment away from DC, and I really want to stay here. (or at least, I don't want to go to some of the places they might send me!) Also, it means I'll be staying in until at least 2013.
So, what to do?
The advice from friends was pretty consistent: stay in for now, take the promotion, and see where they plan to send me. If I absolutely don't want to go where they want me to go, I can retire (though at my current rank, not as a colonel), and I haven't lost anything other than a few months. If it's a good assignment, then yay me!
That's the path I chose, and at the end of June the board results were publicly announced and it was official: I've been selected for promotion to colonel. This is a big deal -- less than 2% of the people in the Air Force hold this rank. The promotion itself takes time -- they can't suddenly have a few hundred new colonels (the sudden influx of new people like that doesn't work in any organization) so it won't be until next year, possibly as late as May, before I will "pin on." Still, it's nice to know it's coming.
And as for the assignment? Well, they make assignments for all colonels in the spring, which means I probably won't know until next spring where I'm going, and I'd likely report there in the summer. There's always the chance of an "out of cycle" move, where an opening suddenly occurs and needs to be filled. That almost happened to me last week, and it would have been a great job, but in the end they were looking for someone with different qualifications. Still, the people making assignments know that I'm here, know that I want to stay in DC, and know that I'm available for a sudden move if need be.
For now, I wait. I've spent a lot of time doing that in my career, a little more won't kill me.
Here's the deal: for quite some time I've been planning to retire from the military in 2009. After 20 years of service I can retire with a pension (not something I can live on completely, but every little bit helps), health care (no small thing) and some other benefits. Before I went to Singapore I'd actually submitted one job application here in the States, and I was looking around Singapore and Hong Kong at job possibilities.
Last February, all that changed. While in Singapore I got word from my office back home that the rating I'd gotten on my promotion recommendation from my big boss was almost certainly going to get me promoted when a board of officers met in March. While there was a slim chance it wouldn't happen (last year, 98.9% of the people with the same rating were selected for promotion), I had to assume it would. This created a dilemma for me. On the upside, I could move into a more senior position where I might have more of an impact than I do in my current assignment, and of course it's nicer to retire as a colonel, both in terms of money and prestige. On the downside, there's a very good chance that they'll move me into an assignment away from DC, and I really want to stay here. (or at least, I don't want to go to some of the places they might send me!) Also, it means I'll be staying in until at least 2013.
So, what to do?
The advice from friends was pretty consistent: stay in for now, take the promotion, and see where they plan to send me. If I absolutely don't want to go where they want me to go, I can retire (though at my current rank, not as a colonel), and I haven't lost anything other than a few months. If it's a good assignment, then yay me!
That's the path I chose, and at the end of June the board results were publicly announced and it was official: I've been selected for promotion to colonel. This is a big deal -- less than 2% of the people in the Air Force hold this rank. The promotion itself takes time -- they can't suddenly have a few hundred new colonels (the sudden influx of new people like that doesn't work in any organization) so it won't be until next year, possibly as late as May, before I will "pin on." Still, it's nice to know it's coming.
And as for the assignment? Well, they make assignments for all colonels in the spring, which means I probably won't know until next spring where I'm going, and I'd likely report there in the summer. There's always the chance of an "out of cycle" move, where an opening suddenly occurs and needs to be filled. That almost happened to me last week, and it would have been a great job, but in the end they were looking for someone with different qualifications. Still, the people making assignments know that I'm here, know that I want to stay in DC, and know that I'm available for a sudden move if need be.
For now, I wait. I've spent a lot of time doing that in my career, a little more won't kill me.
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