I don't think I'm authorized 'pet-peeves' yet because I'm not a Sergeant Major (that's a joke), but nothing screams, "I DON'T CARE ABOUT MY CAREER" more than an NCO looking toward the senior NCO ranks with 'generic' NCOER bullets.
Have you really not done enough in one or more of your evaluated areas to give SPECIFIC/QUANTIFIABLE comments about your or your rated NCO's performance? Or do not know how to put this into writing?
Or, bare with me, you're too lazy to care about you or your rated NCO's career to be specific about the previous year's accomplishments.
Note: I understand and can understand that there may be a 90-day+ change of rater evaluation that incorporates generic bullets.
NCOER
OER
Military Career
I review almost every NCOER that comes through the battalion. Unfortunately for the rated NCOs, I see A LOT of very bland NCOERs. I also see a lot of inflated Senior Rater numbers too. Remember that a 1/1 is for those rare "Super Soldiers" who excel at EVERYTHING they do and seem to do more awesome stuff than there are hours in the day. A 2/2 means the NCO is above average, but not Super Trooper. A 3/3 means the NCO came in to work, did his/her job, and went home. Nothing exceptional, but nothing negative either. 4/4 and 5/5 are, well, you know-- bad.
Honorable mention to one NCOER I reviewed-- apparently the Rater had nothing when it came to bullet comments, so (if memory serves) one of the bullets was, "... did not have any law enforcement violations on or off duty." I guess that might be valid, as the NCO is an MP.
My pet peeves with NCOERs:
o Spell Check! There is a Spell Check button right on the electronic form
o Using parts of the Soldiers Creed or Creed of the NCO as bullets (Really? That's all you have?)
o Giving an NCO a 2/2 when you noted he got a DUI
o Everyone is a 1/1
o Writing everything you can think of in Block IIId
o Waiting until 7-14 days AFTER the THRU Date to submit the NCOER
However, my biggest complaint is cut & pasted NCOERs. You know, when all your rated NCOs have the exact same bullet comments, right down to the same typos and grammatical errors. It is even worse when these come in at the same time; it's really obvious when I read the same NCOER three times, with just the Part I info changed.
I suggest (as does AR and DA Pam 623-3) that you use the NCOER Counseling Support Form (DA Form 2166-8-1). This way you are fulfilling your obligation as a Rater to counsel your NCO quarterly AND you will have a ready-made NCOER when the THRU Date gets close. You won't have to scramble at the last minute.
It's universal....raters who are too lazy, or not creative enough to write solid justifications for their subordinates. It drives me crazy to see an entire duty section get the same marks on their EERs with the same accompanying bullets.....12 people here who all did exactly the same thing in exactly the same manner at exactly the same time.
I hear that 'pet peeves' will soon be authorized for lower pay grades as part of a new feel good military ;-)
Secondly, I have never, nor will I ever advance the idea that the person being rated shouldn't drive the process with a solid contribution by submitting appropriate supporting documentation which supports their evaluation (as a matter of fact, I require all of my subordinates to write a draft eval w/ supporting evidence of their performance for my review prior to the deadline for submission which allows me to opportunity to craft a fair & accurate assessment). My underlying point was that it's unfair to the individual member for a leader to simply cut and paste the same bullets into a myriad of EERs. Each individual should be evaluated on the merits of their own efforts. Not subjected to a lazy rater who just goes through the motions and avoids developing a thoughtful and accurate assessment of the person being rated.
My point was not to avoid our responsibilities as leaders, but dedicate the appropriate level of effort required to do a good job. Not simply wander through the process haphazardly.
However, I have also known a few NCOs whose entire NCOER was nothing but that kind of stuff for a very solid reason: They didn't do anything worth mentioning. PT, 9-5, 30 days of leave, and a few times on staff duty. No schools, no civilian education, no leadership position, no projects, no additional duties, no accomplishments. Those NCOs simply existed to fill a slot and provide the bare minimum of supervision and communication in order to make the mission happen. I see no reason to make stuff up or dress up mediocrity as anything but.
These NCOs can DO more to fill up their NCOERs (and not just a month or so before the thru date, either)
There is no excuse for an annual however and I have ran across some in my day. I track everything in my laptops calendar of who did what and anything I took note of as being bullet worthy.
My first few NCOERs (like 5 years worth) had a lot of boilerplate. I had raters who refused to counsel me, and my bull-headed self decided I wasn't going to do their job for them - they could write my NCOER on their own like they were paid to do. After getting a number of 1/2 or 2/1 NCOERs with crap generic bullets, I just started writing my own and submitting it to my rater for correction. With one exception, I wrote every one of my NCOERs for my last 10 years in service. Not a single generic bullet on those ones. (I also never rated higher than a 2/2 before my rater got a hold of it, with a 3/2 thrown in for one of them. Of course, AFTER my rater got it, I was always a 1/2 or 2/1 with a couple 1/1s thrown in).
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