What was your biggest pet peeve in the military?

2016-05-01T09:24:19-04:00

Waiting in line only to be told it was the wrong line because the Army doesn't use placards sometimes.

Response by Cpl Private RallyPoint Member made May 1 at 2016 9:43 AM

2016-05-01T09:43:52-04:00

My biggest pet peeve was the 15 prior to 15 prior. I was okay with 15 prior but don't waste time and make us be 30 prior because I'm naturually going to be early anyways. That and people being late. That still bothers me to this day in the civilian world.

Response by SPC Brian Mason made May 1 at 2016 10:09 AM

2016-05-01T10:09:43-04:00

Waiting. The ENDLESS waiting. To be dismissed at the end of the day. Getting anything done, like paperwork. Deployments......last forever.

Response by CAPT Kevin B. made May 1 at 2016 10:12 AM

2016-05-01T10:12:39-04:00

SMs that don't care at any level. Don't care about doing their job well. Don't care about their fellow SM. Too much to do at high risk to have to deal with these oxygen thieves.

Response by SGT John " Mac " McConnell made May 1 at 2016 10:38 AM

2016-05-01T10:38:40-04:00

Hurry up and wait.... I never did like this !

Response by SGT David A. 'Cowboy' Groth made May 1 at 2016 10:55 AM

2016-05-01T10:55:16-04:00

Having to hurry up and wait for the vehicle picking us up in the field to go back to post.

Response by SFC Pete Kain made May 1 at 2016 11:38 AM

2016-05-01T11:38:40-04:00

Picking up butts on police call ( REALLY who throws them down) and the loud stereos in the barracks Come on have you not heard of headphones? Mandatory flue shots. Everything else is just a way of life

Response by SSgt Dan Montague made May 1 at 2016 11:38 AM

2016-05-01T11:38:48-04:00

All the damn surveys we had to take

Response by Lt Col Jim Coe made May 1 at 2016 12:31 PM

2016-05-01T12:31:11-04:00

Lack of even cursory understanding of what private sector businesses call
"customer service." Most military functions don't even understand that they have customers. Here's my favorite:
You show up on a Tuesday afternoon at 1400 to do business with the Personnel Office or Immunization Clinic. They have a sign on the door, "Closed for Training." Normal base business hours are 0730-1630 so you know you're been screwed and there's nothing you can to about it. You're going to have to come back on a different day and you trip just turned into a waste of time. No understanding of customer service at all!

Response by SFC Andrew Miller made May 1 at 2016 12:36 PM

2016-05-01T12:36:01-04:00

It didn't happen everywhere, but micromanagement. It happens far too often.

Response by SSG Dennis Grossmann made May 1 at 2016 1:11 PM

2016-05-01T13:11:35-04:00

Senior Leaders with a do as I say, not as I do attitude. The no drinking policy, the Army was the reason for my drinking. 2nd lieutenants fresh out of ROTC using the term " in my expierience".

Response by PO1 Brian Austin made May 1 at 2016 1:46 PM

2016-05-01T13:46:41-04:00

Hurry up and wait.
Lack of customer service in Admin and Disbursing, especially shipboard.
Creating "busy work", when the rest of the work centers were going on liberty at 1200 Friday.
Micromanaging.

Ohhhh the stories....lol

Response by SGT Philip Roncari made May 1 at 2016 1:54 PM

2016-05-01T13:54:44-04:00

Going through the monkey bars before entering the chow hall and then being told you had KP tomorrow and knowing you would be cleaning the grease traps how's that for pet peeves

Response by SSG Warren Swan made May 1 at 2016 2:17 PM

2016-05-01T14:17:23-04:00

"Standfast".....how in the hell does someone "Stand Fast"? "At Ease"...to a normal person that would mean chill out, but noooo.....and my last favorite "policing". People have your Soldiers POLICE up their gear. Who thinks this stuff up, and how do they manage to convince millions who've served these actually make sense?

Response by Jordan Gaudard made May 1 at 2016 7:44 PM

2016-05-01T19:44:03-04:00

Surprised no one has said it yet, but Mandatory Training. I wish hackers would take down the distant learning website and make sure it never resurfaces again. Why can't leaders train Soldiers anymore, and reduce the amount of online training to one or two a year.

Response by SGT David T. made May 1 at 2016 9:33 PM

2016-05-01T21:33:32-04:00

Let's just that Peter's Principle is quite pervasive in the Army. Take from that what you will lol

Response by MAJ Robert (Bob) Petrarca made May 1 at 2016 9:47 PM

2016-05-01T21:47:17-04:00

What WASN"T my pet peeve in the Army??? Do you want that listed alphabetically by year and in triplicate? :-)

DA Civilians who were allowed to treat us like sh!t and get away with it.
Hurry up and wait - I think almost everyone here listed that.
F--k up and move up - promoting completely incompetent Os to get them out of "harms way"
Mandatory fun and social events
APFTs - they just cramped my style, and my legs, and my arms... :-)
The whole deployment thing - man what was up with that?? Don't these other countries have armies??
Police call and picking up butts from the idiots who wouldn't field strip their smokes.

Response by 1SG Private RallyPoint Member made May 1 at 2016 10:13 PM

2016-05-01T22:13:09-04:00

As SSG Jordan Gaudard said, Mandatory Training. Especially repetitive and outdated online training. I mean really, SFC Jones still wearing Woodland Cammo? And why the heck can't the ASAP (Army Substance Abuse Program) training blocks be combined? It's ridiculous that you have to register for 13 or 14 individual courses to take that crap every year.

How about having pre-tests. If you can score 90% on the pretest, you are done..print your certificate and move out.

Response by Capt Daniel Goodman made May 1 at 2016 10:17 PM

2016-05-01T22:17:25-04:00

Candidly oftennnot knowing precisely what questions to ask!or whom to ask those questions I order to find out something I'd often need to know before making a decision, such things of course never happened willfully, obviously, though mainly because at 22-26 y/o at that point, I just quite honestly hadn't dealt with such a large corporately organized entity or been part of one, and, as a result often wound up quite frequently losing my way, or feeling as if I had, honest, that's all I'm trying to say, I was just ignorant of day to day realities as to how the svcs actually worked. My father tried to teach both myself as well as one of my brothers before we each went in, though, in retrospect, many yrs later, he realized he himself hadn't realized what was actually involved, it was more a classic case, my brother and I think, of him trying to vicariously relive his life through ours, which, we suppose, fathers often do, we gathered, just my thoughts for whatever they're worth, hope were of interest, many thanks .

Response by PO1 John Miller made May 2 at 2016 1:04 AM

2016-05-02T01:04:42-04:00

Higher (both enlisted and officer) who thought rules and regulations were for enforcing on their subordinates but not for obeying by themselves.

Response by MSgt Richard Rountree made May 2 at 2016 5:17 AM

2016-05-02T05:17:19-04:00

LOL, being put on the USAF 'fat boy' program when I consistently, throughout my entire career, outran every person in every unit I was ever in for our annual PT tests. I know the orderly room folks and my commanders/1st Sgts were just doing their job, but it was still B.S..

Response by PO3 David Fries made May 2 at 2016 6:23 AM

2016-05-02T06:23:15-04:00

Hurry up and wait. I never really saw it during my first three years doing hospital and school duties, but holy crap Marines have mastered it.

Response by SPC(P) Private RallyPoint Member made May 2 at 2016 7:06 AM

2016-05-02T07:06:48-04:00

POWERPOINTS. Once I become in a leadership role, I will make damn sure I will never "educate" my soldiers solely with powerpoint. Everyone (for the most part) can read, so you don't need to read the damn powerpoint line by line. Use it as a reference!

Response by SGT Chris Hill made May 3 at 2016 1:09 PM

2016-05-03T13:09:22-04:00

Officers who think they are above and beyond due to their commission and college degrees. Telling a SGT/SSG/SFC what to do when having little or NO experience in operations. While I was in, I got to know many officers and began to realize that most only had associates degrees, while I held a bachelors degree with 4+plus years more military experience than they did. Nothing in college prepares you for the army, it's only a minor glimpse into reality. If it wasn't for UCMJ, I can think of 4 officers I would have laid $500 to fight.

Response by SSG Laurie Mullen made May 23 at 2016 6:55 AM

2016-05-23T06:55:09-04:00

Picking up cigarett butts and then watching soldiers flick their butts out their POV windows while driving around on post.