Long road to an interview...but I got it!

[RTaylor]

Hey all,

This is my first post here, but I've been perusing the boards for a while, reading stories, tips and so forth. Been quite enjoyable and quite a bit of help in getting my recruitment processes started up. Thanks  ;D

Anyways, I finally landed my interview for tomorrow (December 20 / 2007 ), after applying and waiting for nearly a year, filling in this paper and that form and so forth.

My adventure began years ago when I made the stupid mistake of leaving the reserves (West Novies) to go to college. Being young at the time, not knowing where my life was heading it seemed like a great idea. I had hurt my leg pretty badly during QL3 at the time (infantry training) and it always brought me pain for the longest time. I hid if for a while in a haze of addiction to painkillers which I ended up overcoming...I never lost family or friends over it but people saw me as a pill popper. The shame is the miltary provided me these pills any time I went in to get them. I kicked habit after a couple of months, before it could become detrimental. At this point I decided to enroll into college and leave the military.

Great idea? Wrong.

I went through 2 years of college, gaining weight and losing my nice physique. I went from 185 pounds to 200, then completed my 2nd year of college. I choose Human Services with a 2nd year in Addictions Counselling. Pretty nifty eh?   It helped me understand quite a bit in my life and that I'm grateful.

I left college, moved back to the Annapolis Valley with my fiance and found a few odd jobs till I landed in the educational system as a Educational Assistant (due to my experience and education I worked with kids that had issues incl. drugs). Was nice for 2 years, then my job came to a screaming halt because the new student I worked with committed suicide. My position was erased, as well as his 14 year old life. Very upsetting for a while. At this point, I had more or less given up on exercise and was 245 pounds.

After that I went to work in a furniture factory then at a call center, hating every moment of it. In that time I got married to my high school sweet heart (been together 11 years , married for 6 and not regretting a moment). I have a 3 1/2 year old son and another young one on the way. Also own a house (nice place in a nice area) and my wife got an amazing job.

I couldn't be happier, except for 1 nagging thing. I really missed the army. Every time I updated my portfolio I'd see my old cap badge, my commendation for participation in the Swissair Flight 111 recovery, and my old pictures of one of the most memorable times of my life. (note : I visited the Swissair Flight 111 memorial last summer, I suggest if anyone here did recovery and has not been there to see it please do so, I didn't realize how upset and proud it made me to see it)

A few years ago I tried to re-enlist. This was after I had lost my school job. I exercised every day, but have always had problems gaining muscle mass. I attribute this to growing up on welfare as a kid and not eating for 2-3 days at a time because of lack of money. I did the step test, sit ups, grip test and was doing the push-ups when BAM, my arm and wrist was alive with a massive pain...I had sprained my wrist badly. 2 more pushups was all I had to do but I couldn't do them at all.

So I gave up on the idea, and here I am 2 1/2 years later. My brother in law enlisted back in March and it was then I learned that they removed the physical from teh start of the recruitment process to actually being part of the Basic (the 90 days fat camp is what I call it  > ). Due to sitting on my behind in a crappy call center on horrid shifts I've gained a bit of weight...evened out at 235 pounds but since I've been back in the groove I've toned up a bit and have lost some weight. I feel good.

It's been the ray of hope at the end of a tunnel. I've had to get rid of a criminal record.Let me give some advise on this. If you have one, write a letter when you're done the process detailing that you are trying to enter the Canadian Armed Forces and that your record is holding you back from being enlisted. It made my application (once completed) go from a 14-18 MONTH wait to having it in less than 3 weeks. Now I feel clean.

I guess that's my story, a bit less than some, a bit more than others. I just hope that even if I can't get into the next Basic that's going on I can at least get into the Physical Fitness training course, because I know for a fact that I'm going to end up in it anyways...my current job leaves me tired, exhausted and no time to exercise besides the walks I take at lunch (about 1km) and the weights I use in the morning and the pushups I do before I hit the hay.

Does anyone know if they'd enlist me right into the fitness training so I could get ready for the next basic training? Either way I'm going to inquire about it...it'll happen anyways but doing it that way might save some time.

Thanks for reading all.



Edit : My trade picks are Combat Eng / Weapons Tech / Intelligence.  I'm going to hassle them to become a Medic when I have my interview though although Combat Engineer seems very interesting.

 

[kincanucks]

op:

 

[aesop081]

You had me going for you until this part :

I just hope that even if I can't get into the next Basic that's going on I can at least get into the Physical Fitness training course, because I know for a fact that I'm going to end up in it anyways...

Thats a great attitude to have.

:

 

[Slaw]

my current job leaves me tired, exhausted and no time to exercise besides the walks I take at lunch (about 1km) and the weights I use in the morning and the pushups I do before I hit the hay.

Sorry but I have to say something here.....you think the job you have now leaves you too tired and exhausted to exercise??  What do you think you do during BMQ?
I'd sub the weights in the morning to a run...light jog at lunch or fast paced walk, and in the evening do some strength training exercises or better yet go to a gym in the evenings...you might get tired but I can for sure tell you from experience having a routine going for a few weeks you'll have more energy then what you started with.

Goodluck with your interview but I hope you take some of the people on here's advice before you go to Basic.

 

[RTaylor]

I forgot to clarify some things in my OP.

The reason I haven't been able to get running alot lately is because I work from 2PM to 1AM. I leave 1 hour early to get there and get home at 2PM...it sucks. In the morning I wake up at 10PM (or if I got stuck at work I try for as close to 8hrs as possible). I'm home alone with my 3 1/2 year old so I can't leave the house to go jogging which rots. I got 3 hours to get up, start a fire, clean the house, tend to my boy, get my supper ready for work, lunch made for my son, wife and I, shower, and so forth. Not a lot of time.

It's odd that at a job where I sit all day I can feel exhausted when I get home, but I do. Having people ream you all day long over the phone, then having your employer threaten your employment all day long, it gets to you. We're not even allowed to stand and move around when taking calls. It's way over the top. Lately we've been told and handed out a memo (which has found it's way to the local MP, CBC and the Chronicle Herald) that if we're scheduled for Christmas or New Years if we take either off we're fired. Pretty lame, the place is chock full of threats.

Matter of fact, not long after writing the original post a team lead came over and started to threaten me about my job. I was watching training videos on the computer that are mandatory and he started to ream me over it. I told him that I'll be in the forces soon with a real career so he can take his job and cram it up his anus because I am doing nothing wrong. Then I looked over at the weasel face that complained and told him if he opened his mouth about me 1 more time I was going to ram my fist down it. Good lord it felt good to shut some people up. :threat:  I went to management about it (told it all) and they told me that people shouldn't be harassing me while taking calls or watching training videos and they understood why I had a 1 time snap    ( They've been trying to get me into a supervisor position but I refuse to take it w/o a pay raise, and they either threaten or brown nose me )

I know what I'm in store for for the military, I have no delusions. I've been through basic, just not recently, and I've done the Infantry training. When I talk about the Physical course I'm being realistic, there's no reason to be delusional. I may be downplaying myself quite a bit as my brother in law who is in basic now thinks that I'll be able to do it with no problems (I can bench 200pounds and haul 80 around on my back w/o an issue and I was jogging 2.3km back in the summer when my wife was home on medical leave due to invasive surgery) . I may just be down on myself because push ups have always been a major issue with me, no matter how much I work on them and I was extremely nervous about my interview.

In addition to losing weight (scales tell me I've dropped from 245 in Aug. to 215 now, go me!) from maintaining a much healthier diet (which is very hard to do and get started on especially at a work place where fatty snacks are on hand all the time) I'm going to modify my exercise routine. Skip rope 6 days a week, vary from a long steady session for 2 days then change to a intense fast as I can go for 1 then back again for 2 then intense then 1 day off and do the same with push ups and weights. Endurance one day then push myself till I can't go every few days. In my opinion I have 4 weeks or so to really push myself, now that I have alot more to look forward to it's all good.

I did my interview today and it went exceptionally well. I was told that I may get in the training course right after hte New Years and was told that even if I can't do the pushups that if I can pass the run test / grip  and sit ups I'll be good to go. I never even thought but he suggested that I skip, and lo and behold my brother just happened to have a professional skipping rope (yeah I never knew there was such a thing) so instead of a run, which I can't do in the morning because I'm the only one around to look after my son, I can skip. It's a pretty intense exercise so I've been told and a great alternative if I can't get out running.

The officer was amazing, his story pretty well paralleled mine. Left reserves, went to school, dead end jobs and rejoined the forces at 30 years old. He even worked for the same employer just at a different site, we compared stories lmao. Best interview ever, he even tried to push me towards a few tech jobs that were currently supposed to be closed because of my aptitude testing. I kid you not. Even mentioned why I was applying with all my college, etc behind me...I told him because civvie jobs suck and my credentials aren't seen as highly in Nova Scotia as they are elsewhere (7 credits away from a BA in Community Services), that and my wife and I live in a very small area without a lot of variable employment. Either way, I was rather pleased because I never expected any form of praise in the interview. At all.

So I'm off to bed now, not feeling so much a gloomy gus as I am hopeful now. I really do get negative and critical of myself. Thanks for reading, and enjoy that popcorn kincanucks 

 

[armyvern]

Thanks for reading, and enjoy that popcorn kincanucks 

This was the best part of that whole epic.

 

[RTaylor]

;D

 

[Loachman]

Effort usually pays off, as it seems to have done for you. Many people aren't willing to put any effort into anything.

Keep it up, and you should achieve your goal.

There's got to be a story behind your username, but I'm not too sure that I want to hear it.

 

[RTaylor]

I got bored at work one day...and well...for some reason I asked them to change my name in the chat to Whizzleteats. Right out of the blue it came during a really bad day for everyone and suffice to say it cracked em all up.

I come up with some pretty silly stuff and am well liked at work so I get away with being a fool. the place is still a dive though.

 

[Loachman]

Well, that was a boring explanation. Probably a good thing.

 

[RTaylor]

Well...it also occurred during my and a friend's discussion of "The Donkey Option" but it may not be appropriate for public chat boards. I was tired of the calls so I hit my disconnect button in the middle of some American giving me the 3rd degree over 2cents worth of state taxes or some crap like that and me and my friend hauled out some food and started to chat.

If you would really like to know where Whizzleteats comes from...well...I got  got up, looked over at the guy next to me (not my Donkey Option friend) with no clue who he was and started to rub my nipples through my shirt then I pinched them and told him he could call me Whizzleteats.

Why would I do something like that?

Because sometimes in order to keep your sanity you have to let it off of it's leash.

It was later on that evening when I asked to have Whizzleteats as my nifty new chat name.

 

[Loachman]

The boring explanation was better.

 

[RTaylor]

Nah, when I did it I accompanied it with a pretty stupid face and was making sounds to go along with it ...was a 1 man show of the which was never seen before.

I was just keeping it real.