What are your pet peeves regarding DA Form 4856 and 2166-8-1 counseling forms and sessions?

I think that the sad part is that no one understands the importance that these documents can actually have. It seems like a check in the box for most people, subordinates and leaders alike. I know that I never once was given a support form; never once saw one used frankly. But month after month we all did our counselings just like we were supposed to do. Strangely enough, the effect that these documents can have is huge! I used to use counselings on everything, good and bad. The paper trail created used to be enough to put a guy through an article 15 if he was a shitbird, or get a guy to his E5 board if he was a superstar. I think that if they are used correctly they are a powerful tool, but many people in the army, NCOs is what I am speaking of mainly, don't have the finely tuned writing skills that they probably should and thus stray away from having to write. And Joe just wants to go home at the end of the day instead of having to read and sign a load of counselings.

Technically the 4856 is supposed to be written during the counseling session. In reality it is written beforehand and while I always allowed room for discussion in professional growth counselings derogatory counseling is strictly by the bullet points. Of course there is the section where the soldier can add their comments. The rare good job counseling is something I also wrote up with no input from the soldier, but that is really just me saying good work and if you keep it up I'll recommend you for a waiver to the PSG and PL. The NCOER support counseling is something I've never received before. Only one of my NCOERs were even written by someone other than me. The only part that wasn't written by me were the senior rater portions and the check marks for how successful I was. One time the CSM red penned the NCOER I wrote for myself and my PSG handed it back to me and told me to rewrite it with the CSMs corrections.

I think I got counseled one time using the NCOER support form. I generally have written most of my NCOERs too.

4856 - this is how I did them and I wrote on another post. I used the headings from the old NCOER and then had three bullets below them on what they did that month. Then I had an assessment and I would talk about what they did well and what they needed to improve on. Then the plan of action. I admit I rarely have done the part on the bottom where we are supposed to follow up. I did it on negative counseling forms for one soldier.

I have never used blanket statements or products or software for counseling.