Single mom now facing medical release from military
- Thread starter Halifax Tar
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CountDC said:
Yup. The RCMP has had to recently completely revamp disability management. The organization is much more beholden to accommodation policy and attentive to DTA law than the CAF, and it does not have UoS. This has definitely shifted a great deal of burden onto those who are fully operational. There are a TON of members being accommodated on medical categories (very similar TCAT/PCAT system) who perform generally useful roles, but can't kit up and take calls. Most of this oerhead has to be borne by the mid to large sized detachments so that the little 3 or 4 man posts keep fully operational members- but it's resulted in communities being policed by less than two thirds of the numbers they should have. Not pretty.
The military is obviously quite different in some ways, but one of those ways is that because of how... selective our chains of command can be in how they actually apply law and policy, we are going to continue to face serious complaints over failures to accommodate, and the impact on operational troops is just going to get worse.
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I'll probably get flamed for this... but I think we're overlooking the necessary dose of reality here...
1. Circumstances change, and competing priorities... compete. The employer can only manage your personal circumstances so much. At some point one may be forced to make the hard choice. That's called life. What's the old saying... life is what happens when you're busy making plans?
2. She should have no expectation that reclassifying to another occupation will result in her never having to deploy. It that's her goal, then she's proceeding under a significant misapprehension. She should not expect that others pick up her share of the load by deploying in her place.
3. I know this sounds harsh, but her child is apparently six. That means she's probably got at least eight years of service, and is still not at OFP. There's only so long the CF can hang on to people, regardless of how tragic their circumstances might be.
4. I'm not unsympathetic to her plight, but I can't help but feel that perhaps she didn't hear what she wanted to, and is now blaming others for not solving her problems. There comes a point in life where you must take control of your own issues and get on with it. Where you accept that you are the architect of your own success or failure. I'm willing to accept that there may have been issues with her CoC, but still...
5. I have my asbestos underwear handy...
1. Circumstances change, and competing priorities... compete. The employer can only manage your personal circumstances so much. At some point one may be forced to make the hard choice. That's called life. What's the old saying... life is what happens when you're busy making plans?
2. She should have no expectation that reclassifying to another occupation will result in her never having to deploy. It that's her goal, then she's proceeding under a significant misapprehension. She should not expect that others pick up her share of the load by deploying in her place.
3. I know this sounds harsh, but her child is apparently six. That means she's probably got at least eight years of service, and is still not at OFP. There's only so long the CF can hang on to people, regardless of how tragic their circumstances might be.
4. I'm not unsympathetic to her plight, but I can't help but feel that perhaps she didn't hear what she wanted to, and is now blaming others for not solving her problems. There comes a point in life where you must take control of your own issues and get on with it. Where you accept that you are the architect of your own success or failure. I'm willing to accept that there may have been issues with her CoC, but still...
5. I have my asbestos underwear handy...
Mike, I think point 4 is the most relevant. Accommodation should really be for two main purposes. The first is to retain skills and experience. Retaining a 20 year vet for a few years provides a benefit to the CAF. It is my understanding that this person was unqualified, so what skills and experience can the CAF benefit from? The second point is to retain people who have been injured on the job in order to make their transition to civilian life easier. The classic example being accommodating a person until they reach 10 years of service and can draw a pension. While it is possible she got pregnant on the job (it's happened before), it isn't an injury caused by her service.
Everything beyond that is, or should be, an exception to the rule. If she was a competitive candidate for VOT and someone sabotaged that, that is a whole other can of worms. That person(s) should be on charges and her application considered as if it had gone through originally. That kind of stuff happens far too often still and based on my experience the officer world (especially MARS) is worse than most.
Everything beyond that is, or should be, an exception to the rule. If she was a competitive candidate for VOT and someone sabotaged that, that is a whole other can of worms. That person(s) should be on charges and her application considered as if it had gone through originally. That kind of stuff happens far too often still and based on my experience the officer world (especially MARS) is worse than most.
gryphonv
Sr. Member
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I went through MARS training around the same time this lady was starting there. I knew her but didn't know her personally.
I have to admit MARS is one of the hardest trades to transfer out of, especially if you start passing courses. I ran into a point during trades training that I was having difficulty in passing. During my TRB my instructor who told me one thing, flipped flopped on what they said they were going to say to the Board and blindsided me with something else.
I was already thinking about requesting to get out of the trade. This solidified my feelings. During the TRB they offered me retraining and I requested to be ceased trained and processed with a COT. The board wasn't too pleased by this and told me if I switched all I would be offered is Combat arms (even though they had no knowledge on what I may or may not be offered.) They were trying to scare me into accepting their recommendation to be re coursed.
Long story short I stuck to my decision and transferred out. It was a COT which are a lot easier to process than a VOT. But if they gave me that much trouble during a COT I know how hard it would be to VOT out of MARS.
I never regretted for one day leaving MARS. I was fortunate I failed one part of trades training, at the time I didn't know that, but looking back several years later I know how lucky I was.
I have to admit MARS is one of the hardest trades to transfer out of, especially if you start passing courses. I ran into a point during trades training that I was having difficulty in passing. During my TRB my instructor who told me one thing, flipped flopped on what they said they were going to say to the Board and blindsided me with something else.
I was already thinking about requesting to get out of the trade. This solidified my feelings. During the TRB they offered me retraining and I requested to be ceased trained and processed with a COT. The board wasn't too pleased by this and told me if I switched all I would be offered is Combat arms (even though they had no knowledge on what I may or may not be offered.) They were trying to scare me into accepting their recommendation to be re coursed.
Long story short I stuck to my decision and transferred out. It was a COT which are a lot easier to process than a VOT. But if they gave me that much trouble during a COT I know how hard it would be to VOT out of MARS.
I never regretted for one day leaving MARS. I was fortunate I failed one part of trades training, at the time I didn't know that, but looking back several years later I know how lucky I was.
Blackadder1916
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ModlrMike said:
Close, according to her LinkedIn page https://ca.linkedin.com/in/laura-nash-4a7a519 she has seven years, six months service. And then there is a little more of her story on the webpage for her business https://houseboots.ca/pages/the-story
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They're Uggs. Man Uggs. They're Muggs. yuckers.
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Blackadder1916 said:
Side business means nothing. I could name a dozen women in the CAF right now who also work through MLMs and other means on the side.
I'm glad someone with experience in the trade spoke up. I've not had first hand experience in that but have a few friends that have. Much better for someone to tell their story directly.
daftandbarmy
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Dimsum said:
I suppose they qualify as operational clothing in the RCAF though, much like Billy Bishop used to strafe the Hun is his Jammies
Blackadder1916
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daftandbarmy said:. . . like Billy Bishop used to strafe the Hun is his Jammies
And how the Hun got in his jammies, he was never able to properly explain!
Halifax Tar
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I had to let my daughter go because of my job in the Canadian military
http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/single-parent-military-1.4169806
Whenever I am asked if I recommend military life to other women, my answer is always categorically: no.
This usually surprises people who know me because I am a vocal feminist, a bit of a tomboy and a six-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). I believe to my core that sex and gender do not, and should not, limit what you can do in life. But women and the armed forces just don't mix.
More on link
Interesting article
http://www.cbc.ca/news/opinion/single-parent-military-1.4169806
Whenever I am asked if I recommend military life to other women, my answer is always categorically: no.
This usually surprises people who know me because I am a vocal feminist, a bit of a tomboy and a six-year veteran of the Canadian Armed Forces (CAF). I believe to my core that sex and gender do not, and should not, limit what you can do in life. But women and the armed forces just don't mix.
More on link
Interesting article
Good article, basically she explains that if you join UOS is the guiding principle of your employment, not your family, not your mood, nor race, gender or political affiliation. Recruiters should be telling the full truth. Accommodations can be made but not right out of the gate. One of the most effective things we could do to make the C of C more responsible for it's human resource decisions is to include Regular Force positions in unit budgets.
McG
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I think you would find such a move would quickly work in the opposite direction you want. Currently, COs support retaining people because they know career manages cannot fill positions if they fall vacant (we don't have enough people). So a broken person becomes better than no person, and it costs the unit nothing. As soon as you create a dollar value opportunity cost for a CO to retain somebody, you will start to find units that take the money and dump the human.Lightguns said:
Back in the day, being a recruiter was being able to manage people's expectations. Many would only hear what they wanted. We had to be very careful how we worded things and we never made any promises. It was very frustrating dealing with people that wouldn't listen despite being told something. The worst, from my time recruiting in Ottawa were spouses of serving members hoping to be posted in Petawawa to be with their significant other. They almost all wanted to be clerks, supply techs or postal techs. They would all ask about being posted to Pet. They would all be told the same thing that they could be posted anywhere they were needed. They would keep asking if it could be Pet. If a recruiter made the mistake of saying yes it was a possibility but not a guarantee, the only thing they heard was the yes part and would tune out the the rest.
This happened a lot with other things as well. So when I read these stories and the mention what a recruiter said to them I take it with a grain of salt. I nearly lost it once with an applicant that argued with me about the fact that med tech support never deployed to the field. It turned I to a one way conversation very quickly but he was never convinced about anything I said or showed him. He just never wanted to go to the field and convinced himself that he knew better.
This happened a lot with other things as well. So when I read these stories and the mention what a recruiter said to them I take it with a grain of salt. I nearly lost it once with an applicant that argued with me about the fact that med tech support never deployed to the field. It turned I to a one way conversation very quickly but he was never convinced about anything I said or showed him. He just never wanted to go to the field and convinced himself that he knew better.
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FSTO said:
I think part of the problem with the naiveté might be that we just aren't in the news the way we were when we were doing a combat mission in Afghanistan. And so people quickly forget what it means to be in the military. For the average Joe coming off the street they likely don't understand that, just because we don't have one massive deployment going on that they are familiar with (nobody cares that we have a bunch of smaller ones) we are still always on the go with courses and exercises and whatever.
And as Remius said, sometimes people just hear what they want to hear when they're being told what the job is all about.
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