What's your funniest "The Military Just Came Out Of Me" moment in the workplace?

Several years ago at my post-Navy civilian job, my boss asked me where he could find a certain office. Without thinking I responded “take the ladder topside and go halfway down the passageway.” His look was priceless.

My civilian post-retirement job is part of a major city library system, about as far away from the military as it gets. I constantly drop into using Brevity Code Words on the phone. And when I hear someone say, "M as in Mary" i about lose it. It puzzles me how clarity of speech and assertive professionalism on the phone surprises people. I miss being able to understand people the first time, lol. But i know sometimes i take it too far. One day my audio/visual supervisor asked me to call the sorting department about a new order we'd put in, we needed them to cancel the first form and send a second one, along with other information previously requested about the order. he listened in as i left a voice message. i hate leaving messages, so i default to the language i'm best at. I said something like, "Sorting Supervisor, A/V, transmitting in the blind. Breakoff last acquisitions notice, resend to my end. Request words. Local time 12:06 hours. Out."
made sense to me, haha!

Another good one. “This one time, at band camp…,” I was a marching band director having a frustrating band camp rehearsal when I decided I needed my band’s undivided attention for a moment. There was another band holding their camp rehearsal 250 yards away facing a different direction. When I, using my well trained “command voice,” called my band to attention, 6 kids from the downrange band also snapped to.

I was working as a mechanic in a local garage. Guys were laughing at my two handed hand signals guiding them onto the alignment hoist. That is until one laughingly explained it to his brother who is also an Army vet, his brother goes “those are tanker ground guide hand signals!”

I was tired, still working through my first coffee as I rolled into work. My boss and a coworker were in the comms room and I poked my head in to see what was going on. My boss muttered something and asked me to monitor a blinking light in the rack, so I did. A few minutes later he came back and saw I was still there, sipping from my thermos. He told me he had been joking, and I shrugged, got my things and walked out. He apologized for not being clearer in his initial sarcasm and asked how long I would have stayed there. I told him he had not provided conditions under which I was allowed to leave my post. Was the first, or last time they forgot to tell me when I was to "give up" on something and were surprised by the results.

Knife hands. Every day. Every time I point at anything.

It took years after leaving the army to stop swearing like I did

PO1 Ricky Allen My youngest son was trained on: "I can't hear you". That was in the era of Larry Bird who was very soft spoken!

That would be walking into a cell where 5 inmates were fighting and yelling "At Ease" in a very authoritative voice, yes it worked they had no idea what I meant but in the echo chamber of the cell they all stopped to look at me.

After being at a military school for a month was walking down the hallway at work trying to get into the office so I wouldn’t be late. A couple people were walking really slow talking in the middle of the hallway so I couldn’t pass. They looked back, saw me, and then kept on talking and walking slow and I yelled “bear to the right!” In a loud voice. They jumped and moved.

Another one was one day on the phone with a vendor and they kept asking me to repeat a name. Finally in the middle of our work room I spoke the name loudly in the military alphabet and said “do you copy?” And everyone looked at me like I was nuts.

I’ve also used knife hands a few times with patients and coworkers.