I read the same thread by Nords posted awhile ago and wanted to kind of continue the conversation.
We both pretty much agree that we can't decide.
... if I go civilian I want to fully go civilian and not have to worry about deployments, base closures, or guard work as my civilian counterpart job would be long hours as it is.
-If we left the USAF, I would likely be trying to get in with the FAA which can be a grueling task and could take a year after separation.
... we can then apply for unemployment and also use emergency funds to help us to get a point of employment. The big draw to leave is to settle in a permanent location, no deployments, and better pay once hired and certified.
-If we stayed we could start investing that money and future money for retirement with the ultimate goal being possible full retirement at 42 by LBYM and saving as much as possible over my service time. This would be the biggest draw to staying. The FAA would require me to be in until roughly 50 for a pension adding 8 years to my ER and the pension would be close to the same dollar amount as the military.
I guess I'm just not sure if my wife and I and future family can last 20 years. I have heard mixed things from people who have stayed and left.
I really need to make a decision to stay for 20 or not at this first active service commitment point because I want to devote my time toward one of the two routes to get the pension as quickly as possible. Also, if I stay and later decide to leave, the FAA has an age 30 restriction on hiring for ATC. So basically in 3 years is my crossroads to figure out which route to go.
I believe I would enjoy both jobs more, maybe civilian ATC a little more but maybe not enough to add 8 years to retirement (again, indecision).
I'm having a hard time understanding that you're applying what I said in
that other post. You realize that I'm saying "persistence" is not always a good thing, right?
I don't have a dog in this fight, but I don't want to be responsible for persuading someone to get out just because that's what I wish I'd done.
I want to be responsible for persuading someone to get out
because I encouraged you to do more creative thinking than I did. I also want to be responsible for persuading someone to stay in
because I encouraged you to do more creative thinking than I did. Considering the amount of creative thinking I did back then on my own retention, you'll have an easy time of exceeding my achievements in that area.
One of the reasons you're hearing mixed reports about staying or leaving is because it's a highly individual decision. If there's one thing anyone can learn from E-R.org, it's that we can't agree on hardly anything. (Of course there's some disagreement on this subject.) Yet somehow we almost all end up at our ER goals, even though we ferociously argue that everyone else is doing it wrong.
If
everybody says something bad about a particular situation then I'd avoid it. But if I heard mixed news then I wouldn't avoid it just out of fear of the unknown. I'd collect more data.
If your assignment officer called you up and said "Hey, ATC, we 'need' you to make a decision to stay for 20 at the end of your first active service commitment!", would you feel that was reasonable? If you don't want it to be done to you, then why do it to yourself? Committing your time toward only one of the two routes to a pension means you're also discarding one of the two routes. Instead you could stay on active duty one tour at a time... and then get out when the fun stops. Avoid making any more retention decisions for any longer time period than absolutely necessary.
Here's the path you want to avoid: "eliminating all risk". Minimizing risks is fine, but eliminating all risk practically guarantees that you'll end up with a suboptimal result.
One of the reasons I stayed for 20 was spouse collocation. We lived in fear that if I left active duty then she'd be sent on an unaccompanied tour to Diego Garcia for a year. So instead of risking a year of potential misery, I darn near guaranteed that we'd both be miserable for 10 years longer than I needed to. The reality was that I could've started a Reserve career (or a civilian one) or been a stay-at-home parent. (Maybe I could've written a book.) She could've taken her chances... or started a Reserve career... or a civilian one. But instead we declared the DGar option completely unacceptable and discarded any alternative that had even a small risk of that outcome. We did so without considering how much more miserable our "eliminate risk" decisions could make us.
In our defense, we were overworked & exhausted new parents. But that's another thread.
If we'd inverted the decision process, and realistically assessed all the 80% probabilities instead of avoiding one 20% probability, then we might have made a different decision.
You seem to really really want to work for the FAA. Yet you're also telling us that the FAA is grueling and could take a year, and you can only do it before you turn age 30. You'd need to risk a substantial portion of your net worth, not save for retirement, perhaps file for unemployment, and put your future on hold while awaiting their decision with bated breath. They'd want you to work for eight years longer than a military career. You're sellin' the hell outta that job, although presumably they wouldn't deploy you or shoot at you. Once you're in the FAA, is it really all that rewarding and fulfilling? Or is it more the comfort of knowing that you'd have steady, reliable, [-]no-risk[/-] predictable employment?
Your plan appears to be to jettison active duty, jettison the Reserves, and risk it all on the FAA. I'm having a hard time seeing where the FAA is reciprocating your sacrifices by showing you the love, but let's put that aside for a minute. In aviation terms you appear to be susceptible to target attraction, so force yourself to evaluate the alternatives. I could understand wanting to work for the FAA if they were offering your a 15-year guarantee with bonus pay and benefits. Sure, the job would suck sometimes but at least they'd want you to be there. I'm not seeing those sentiments from the FAA. I suspect you are probably going to see those sentiments from the USAF.
Do a thought experiment and assume the FAA says "Um, no, not really." What's your Plan B? "Try harder"? Seems to me that you're already trying as hard as you can. What would you fall back on?
Assume that the FAA says "No, never!!" Then what's your plan B? In other words, if you couldn't have the FAA under any circumstances then what would you do?
Would you prefer to have a job where they actually like you and want you to work for the company? Is it possible that you're in such a job right now, and all you have to do is agree to do it somewhere else for 2-3 more years? Maybe get a graduate degree, develop your other skills & interests, start a family, and just enjoy living your life for a while? Then, when someday a headhunter makes you an offer that REALLY shows the love, you could decide whether to stay in or get out.
Keep in mind that none of this is a test of your commitment to the FAA. Personally I don't care either way about your future with the FAA. I care that you give yourself a chance to think through all the permutations, invert all the decisions with devil's advocate thinking, and maximize the probabilities instead of eliminating the risks.
If you two can't make a decision then I wouldn't make a decision. "Getting out" requires a hard, clear decision. "Staying in" only requires picking whatever "choices" the assignment officer can come up with.
Once you're done with the active-duty retention decision then take another look at the Reserve/Guard decision. I'd say that somewhere in the first five years of a Reserve/Guard career you could be asked to deploy. However I doubt it'd happen in the first year, and maybe not even in the second. A lot of other things could happen during those times, and for those months you'd have a backup source of income as well as a supplemental contact network. You could network your way to a mobilization at a command (near your home instead of in Afghanistan), or you could be on ADSW for months (instead of on a deployment list) and still go home every night. While you're drilling or on AT you could stumble across an opportunity as a contractor or a civil servant. You could even go back on active duty. If the possibility of a year overseas was absolutely positively unacceptable (there's that "eliminating all risk" issue again) then you could go to the IRR.
Some other thoughts to consider:
- Base closure: The "low-hanging fruit" is gone. The highest risks of base closures are where the Reserve/Guard opportunities really suck in the first place. You wouldn't choose to drill in an area whee the base might be closed because there wouldn't be any drill billets at it in the first place. Not worth worrying about.
- Guard work vs civilian job hours. You're gonna work long hours. That's a given. Your choice is whether you work long hours at one career or whether you work long hours at two careers. The surprising conclusion of this analysis is that you can't work more than 168 hours/week. Working at both a civilian & Reserve/Guard career will suck no more time than a straight civilian career-- and maybe less! Your civilian employer should say "I'm not going to ask ATC to spend more hours on this mindless thankless soul-sucking task because he's already sacrificing enough for us by balancing a civilian career with the Reserves." Instead they're going to give that bag job to someone else. If they give it to you anyway then you've just been given a clear signal that you don't want to work at that company. The Reserves/Guard gives you a chance to work for your own future without hanging all your hopes on just one career.
Whatever thing you do, if you're only doing that one thing then it will expand to fill all your free time. Having a Reserve/Guard career alongside a civilian career forces you (and your employer) to make better work/life balance decisions-- and you end up with a better life.
- "Go fully civilian"?!? Do you get extra money for that "commitment"?!? Does being fully Catholic require you to become a priest? One of the advantages of the Reserve/Guard is that you can be a civilian most of the time while still getting to be military some of the time. If that can't be balanced then you can go IRR and still have options. But going fully civilian means you have no military options, and it's awful hard to sign back up once you slam that door shut.
Whichever decision you end up making, I hope you'll continue to discuss the process on the board. No matter what you decide, someone else will learn from seeing how you made your decision.