Episode Title: The Late For Changeover Show 1 May 2024
Date: May 1, 2024
Let’s go badge and grab your badge, because you are late for changeover, the weekly space news and variety show. I’m your host Marty Smith and I’m joined by Mr. History Eric Perron. Good to be back.
Our man in the closet, Jake Wall. Who’s mad? You see something like military groupie or something? It’s the only thing I can come up with that rhymes with bags. Oh, I like it.
Our favorite teapot, Kevin Valkum. Go Blue! And our newest addition, Juan Lopez. Woo! Come on.
We’re here to bring you the latest headlines and updates pertinent to all guardians and to the other branches below us. So take your seats, get them formed and have a laugh as we present late for changeover. Late for changeover.
How are you guys doing? How are you guys doing? It’s the first morning man. I know, I know. So now you get it.
Why? You know, it’s like D’Angelo Russell, man. We’re going to show up. We’re paying you to make baskets.
Marty Show and guests. And it’s all a favor to me and I know that and I appreciate that. But the band’s going to make it.
You’re going to get paid one of these days. It’s a good time. Oh hell, I feel like I already got paid.
I got my late for changeover hat. I always get your patch. Put it on.
Yeah, man. I want to give you if you show up at the ski tube, right? I’ll give you a hat one. Okay.
Teapot got a mug. Love it. You know, for his.
He’s not drinking out of it though. He’s drinking out of a glass. Who knows where it’s at.
I think my wife drank it yesterday for coffee. All right. I saw I ran across a story in stripes.com about this Army soldier who competed in a Korean Netflix reality show called the physical 100.
Have you guys? Yes. Yes. You knew I would watch something like so Major Gibson Kim of the four eleven contracting support brigade at Camp Humphrey.
Love you. Was among a hundred contestants on Netflix is nine episodes. Second season of physical 100, which aired on March 19th.
He made it all the way to like the top 20 and the event that he had to do was drag a large 330 pound cylinder down the lane that includes a small hill and a reservoir. And that’s where he got beat. That’s where he left.
So the major lead, he made it into the top 20 and then he got beat. That’s a pretty cool show, man. They’ve got.
I watched. I watched that show. Now I started these kind of reality shows way back when when survivor was on.
Right. And survivor was interesting, but you could tell where, uh, you know, like these cliffhangers and the drawn out shit. And after a while he was like, Oh man, they’re just trying to make they’re trying to take 15 minutes of film shit and maybe last for an hour.
Right. I thought that was bad until I watched this show. Now, granted it’s Korean, but they have dubbed English voices in it and the English voices are so tame and it’s so if they’re really saying this, Koreans, you got to work on some slang, but if they’re not, and it’s just the dubbing because they’re like, Oh my God, that’s insane.
And they sound just like that. Like a guy in the studio. This is crazy.
This is rad. It’s like rad. But Korean says rad.
And the first, so the first episode of the second season, hundred competitors, they took half the episode to introduce all hundred. Oh my God. And you watch them on with it.
Right. When they got into the competitions, they would show a couple of the matches, but they didn’t show them like they would show 10 seconds and then slow motion and then a replay and they just just show the event. Just let me see the whole thing.
Right. But no, it’s just all cut and spike. It got so much.
I made it to the third episode. I was like, I can’t watch this anymore. I kept fast forwarding it.
I was like, enough, enough, enough, enough. I was impressed with some of the physiques though, man, because you got marathoners, bodybuilders, wave vectors. Everybody on that show was ripped.
I mean, that female bodybuilder with just bowling balls for shoulders. Like, holy shit. Look at this.
So, and they got some big celebrities. They got some K-pop people. So I guess it’s not, I’ve never seen that one, but I did the like porn.
So making them afraid is where I’m at. They show, they show more natural bodies. So it’s just like, you know, it’s like a little bit.
Like, she could just wait it out. I used to buy the episode so we could watch it on crew was Steve Austin’s broken skull ranch. Did you ever watch that? That was bad-ass man.
That’s cool. He would have it on his land, right? And he’d get, you know, six guys, eight guys, whatever. And every one of them, they’re fighting each other.
Like almost every, every event. Yeah. But, and he is so country.
He’s like, God damn boys. But it was entertaining to watch man. Cause he had guys and girls, right? So he had a group of guys and a group of girls.
All female competition. All the whole competition. So it was pretty, it was pretty good.
All right. Are you guys doing all right? Welcome back from Arizona. Welcome back from your friends last week.
Juan second episode. Nice. Jake Holden steady in the closet.
Glad you’re all here. Oh yeah. We’ll hide it all.
We’ll hide from the audience. All the infighting. So we’ll just make, make believe that we’re all good to go.
I like it. It’s not, there’s no fighting in this quarter. It’s all just, you misrepresent that a little bit.
They don’t know that though. They don’t know behind the scenes, right? So, uh, all right. Uh, let’s go for the news.
I actually made banners this time. So this first story, look at that first story from space news.com. Space X is making progress on Starship in space refueling technologies. NASA says space X is on track to demonstrate in space refueling a Starship next year, a critical technology for returning humans to the lunar surface using that vehicle.
So I haven’t done enough research, but you know, Artemis is NASA’s new, I think Apollo program. Artemis is, is the whole moonshot program I think and beyond, but space X is like providing the vehicle to get there. Sure.
Um, so it’s, uh, NASA’s just kind of like, yeah, we’ll provide the bodies. Let’s, uh, we’re not getting involved in any of the equipment this time. They’re too busy, uh, selling swag.
That’s true. That’s true. I almost bought a classic NASA shirt instead of the Mojave Space Center.
I don’t know why we need in space refueling. Are we just going to blow some shit up with some Just wait to your cop stories at the end. All right.
That’s because Okay. Now you’re wrong. That’s how they do it.
NASA deputy associate administrator for the moon, the Mars program. Um, uh, meet cash. Uh, try out cash.
Shit. Trio. Because, uh, Uh, said space X achieved one step towards refueling a Starship with the demonstration on the latest Starship test flight on March 14th.
During that flight, space X performed an in flight propellant transfer demonstration under a NASA program or NASA contract. Uh, space X plan to transfer at least 10 metric tons of liquid oxygen from a header tank to the main tank within the Starship upper stage while in space. 10 metric tons.
That’s huge. A lot. That’s a lot, man.
Uh, the next major milestone is a demonstration plan for 2025 where two starships will dock in orbit with one transferring propellants to the other. I hate that. I hate that dock has been stolen from us.
With one transferring propellants to the, we can’t, we can’t have nice things anymore. All take it away. Docking.
In that mission, a target Starship with this might not get any better. Now that I just brought that up in that mission, a target Starship will launch first and go into orbit followed three or four weeks later by a chaser Starship. The two vehicles will dock with the chaser transferring propellants to the target.
After the demonstration, the two starships will undock and deorbit. The spokesman said SpaceX has some work ahead of that test, including understanding. I read it fine before this podcast, but now we could go sexual with.
Hold on. Hold on. It’s going to go that way unintentionally.
The spokesman said SpaceX has some work ahead of that test, including understanding the slosh of propellants in the tanks as Starship maneuvers, as well as the amount of settling thrust needed once the vehicles are docked to ensure propellant flows between them. That’s an hour ago. That was fine.
That whole paragraph was fine. It sounds like it’s dittling. Dittling.
That was a rough one. That was a college mind. That’s a rough one.
Hey, let’s see. Propeller transfer. The idea of dealing with the momentum of a liquid sloshing around is pretty entertaining now.
Well, you know what? On one note was the Martian, right? Remember in the movie, the Martian when they launched that relief mission and they didn’t take into account that the, what some of the rations liquefied and then it created that side to side momentum. I mean, all that stuff’s real. I mean, you know, it’s real considerations, but they’re actually trying to figure this out before they have to do it.
So that’s pretty cool. It’s kind of, it’s kind of ominous here, this next paragraph. Propeller transfer technology is essential to SpaceX’s plans for Starship missions beyond low Earth orbit, including the human landing system version of Starship that will be used to land astronauts on the moon, starting with the Artemis 3 mission currently scheduled for no earlier than September 2026.
So two and a half years ago or two years from now. Multiple Starship launches will transfer propellant into a depot in low Earth orbit that will then be used to fuel the HLS Starship sending it to the moon. So we’re just going to have a floating truck up there, right? Yeah.
Massive fuel bladder. Yeah. Yeah.
With all that debris. Hey, a bunch of solar sails flying in and around that fuel tank. It’s like going to dodge some shit up there now, man.
That’s crazy. What could go wrong? I thought it was interesting, some of the technologies that they’re trying to work out that we’re not aware of before they really make this push. So I hope they have the funding to do it.
We don’t run out of money. Yeah, you got to pay those good brains. Oh, yeah.
You got to pay them. You got to pay a lot for docking. I mean, if they’re worried about docking, I’ll be bringing in some other experts.
I think there’s some other people out there outside the box thinking could help. Yeah. I mean, I would do besides docking.
Sorry, guys. He’s lost for words. You mean maneuvers besides docking? Is that what you asked? Oh, now he’s bailing out.
All right. I thought you were being serious. Let’s move on from the sloshing docking propellant tanks.
Wow. Good news for the VA. Not really.
I’m going to start every VA. That’s pretty good, actually, Marty. That was pretty good.
That was good. I was like, oh, really? Yeah, right. Every time we bring up the VA, it’s not good news.
But this is local, right? So this is the big VA. This is just the Aurora VA. This was from the Denver Post, who’s been breaking a bunch of stories on the Aurora VA over the last year, year and a half.
So prosthetics chief at Aurora VA improperly canceled 1,000 orders without telling veterans. Amazing. The head of the prosthetics department, Aurora’s Rocky Mountain Regional VA Medical Center, improperly canceled 1,000 orders without contacting veterans who sought artificial limbs, hearing aids, other devices to help them live more functional lives.
Sunaina Kumar Gabel, director of the VA Rocky Mountain Network, which includes the Aurora Hospital, confirmed the Denver Post reporting from last November that first uncovered the prosthetics order deletion scheme that left vets without necessary equipment. Multiple whistleblowers told the Post in November that the prosthetics chief, Norma Mestis, instructed lower-level staff to delete these orders as if they had never come in to help alleviate a substantial backlog. Wow.
So she could report better numbers, man. Yes. So she could report better numbers.
Yeah. We’re all on time with all our work orders. All of those 10.
To delete those 10. That’s right. That she even deleted orders personally.
But don’t worry, because Norma Mestis, she’s now working at the Grand Junction VA, but she’s in an administrative role, pending the conclusion of a federal investigation. Oh, good for her. Norma’s probably a GS.
GS has never get fired, man. That’s the only way to get them out, as a congressional freaking reviewer. All right, we’ll just transfer.
We’ll transfer. Move them. Yeah, move them to another position.
If you can prove fraud, it’s still that difficult. Fraud is fraud, man. That’s the line, right? You’re committing fraud.
Yeah, it should be. Except for government employees. Well, think about the poor vet, who’s got to now reorder his prosthetic limb, measurements, and I’m assuming all the things that go with it.
What kind of time period are we looking at for him? Well, first of all, they’re like, hey, give us a call in a month. And he’s like, okay. And he waits a month.
And meanwhile, Velma over here deleted that shit. Yeah, Norma. Day one, Norma over here.
But she deleted it, and that vet’s doc probably doesn’t even know. He’s like, yeah, we should have been here a long time ago. I don’t know what’s going on.
Because I’m assuming, Marty, measurements, links, functionality. It takes a few weeks to do that stuff, but they’re not doing it on site. Yeah, they’ve got to send off for it.
But I don’t even know if they’re doing it on site. Is she canceled as soon as it came in? Now he’s waiting another six months, getting in line. You’re just, I mean, it’s in arrears reporting, right? So she’s like, okay, we’ll cancel this, and then we’ll see what our numbers turn out for in June.
And it’s all a numbers game. But it gets worse. It gets worse because all these other stories about the Aurora VA.
So these revelations came as Aurora VA has been mired in turmoil for the past six months. Last October, leadership removed the Eastern Colorado Systems Director Michael Kilmer and his chief of staff, Shilpa Runkta, while citing vague operational oversight and culture concerns. The following month, the Denver Post revealed the prosthetic scandal, as well as numerous reports from staff spilling out on an environment of fear and retaliation that spanned multiple departments.
So these department heads are getting hit because senators and congressmen are standing up and they’re like, hey, what’s going on with this prosthetic thing? Right? So that flowed back down. And these department heads are like, any of you have a problem with this. You’re out of here, right? So the reprisals and the fear is understandable.
The removals and subsequent reporting by the Post prompted congressional oversight from U.S. Rep. Jason Crow, an Aurora Democrat and former Army Ranger who demanded a thorough accounting of the prosthetic deletions. Leadership in December also reassigned the nationally… Now, this is sad as we keep going through this.
Leadership also reassigned the nationally renowned director of the Aurora VA’s Suicide Prevention Center after union officials detailed to the Post quote, emotional, mental, and psychological abuse toward its staff. Oh, man, it just gets better and better. But don’t worry because that director, Lisa Brenner, she remains in a temporary position outside the center as the VA’s internal investigation wraps up.
So she’s still employed, so don’t worry about her. She’s good. Her and Norma are still good.
So they’re taken care of while the staff is like… So it’s okay for them to still stay employed, still keep going. But you know what, if you’re missing a leg, that’s cool. You can play scops.
I can’t even say. Anyways, you’re having to hop around with one leg. But whatever.
Or the staff is scared to death of you. But that’s okay. That’s all right.
They’re still employed. You know what’s going to happen next? Mass shooting at the VA. Kind of like the old post office shooting.
I agree with them being still employed until they’re proven guilty. Well, and if you get in the mindset, if you were working there and you’re like, this chick threatened to fire me like every day for the last six months, and she’s still employed even after I filed a complaint. And that’s the whole thing.
And that’s the part that drives employees crazy. If they ain’t fired her, I’d be like, okay. There’s somebody watching out.
There’s some adults in the room. But they keep her employed and they’re like, motherfucker. Yeah.
Well, it’s like we said though. It’s so difficult to fire a GS. Oh, absolutely.
I’m assuming that’s what she is. I don’t know why. It’s like a freaking… They got to go see a jury and everything almost.
It’s crazy. Well, especially when it’s this obvious. Yeah.
It’s black and white, man. It’s right there. Listen to this last one.
Additional red flags came when a number of people in executive leadership departed in rapid succession last year. Just a bunch of people are like, hey, I’m going to get another job. You too? I wonder why.
After staff meeting… What’s going on? Yeah. Log on right to USA Jobs’ same year. I appreciate it.
Staff meeting you with both. How many PTO days I get? I’m burning them all, baby. I’ll be… There’s someone that we know that I know that works at that VA and he’s always looking for ways to get out of there.
He just says that it sucks. But he never told me details. He’s doing all the IT stuff.
But now that I’m listening to this, if everybody’s feeling threatened, they’re walking on eggshells. Why the hell do you want to be there? But he’s invested in there because he did a little bit under 10 years in the military about his time back. So it’s just like he’s kind of stuck like, okay, do I just quit or move on? So some people are stuck there because they want to build up that retirement.
There’s a lot… Yeah, you got a lot riding on it. It’s not a job. You can just kind of quit and come back.
It’s a livelihood, man. Yeah. Okay.
Lastly, in the Aurora Hospital’s Intensive Care Unit, leadership initiated a fact-finding mission in the wake of the Denver Post reporting last month. That detailed allegations of staff of unsafe practices in the Intensive Care Unit, including nurses taking on more patients than is generally deemed acceptable. Whistleblowers also said leadership in one case instructed providers to give a patient an unknown tincture provided by a family member.
Come on. You can’t make this up. That’s ridiculous.
The VA environment is so bad because I really think that some of the upper-level managers have ideas of how we can streamline this thing, right? But maybe their hands are tied, or maybe they’re just like, no, we’ve got to keep going this direction because this is what we breathe. Congress or whatever. And then you got people who are… And they put downward pressure on these subsequent managers who are just like, I’m going to get fired if I don’t make these numbers and if you don’t help me, you’re going to get fired so all of a sudden that environment is just horrible.
Just terrible, right? And at the bottom of it all is the vet. Yeah. Who’s being stepped on.
Yeah. Or forgotten or ignored or canceled order. All to make numbers.
And like you said, he’s still hopping on one leg. God damn it. Dying in the bed in the hallway, man.
I feel awful because the VA’s been nothing but good to me. It’s just this… It’s been so good. I am glad I didn’t get my hip done at the VA, obviously, because that would have been… But for primary care and in general questions, they’ve been really good.
It’s unfortunate that it’s gotten to that up north. Colorado Springs hasn’t been bad, honestly. No, and I agree with you.
You said that before, Teapot, and I agree with you. They’ve treated me okay, but I’m not a high-maintenance guy for the VA yet. Twenty years I might be, but not right now.
And just to see some of those guys in there with their wife pushing them in the wheelchair, any delay on any of that shit could be fatal. You talk about the nurse thing, that’s actually pretty common right now. Nurses are stressed pretty thin, but you got me with that tincture thing.
I’m like, what nurse? What healthcare provider? I’m like, yeah, yeah. I don’t know what this is. I’m going to go ahead and… It’s just like… It’s probably somebody like he brought this in.
I don’t recommend it. They’re like, give it to them. If that’ll keep them happy, then give it to them.
But tincture, I can make a tincture. I just need the bottle. I just need the little brown bottle, right? Right.
Yeah, that’s pretty lousy. I don’t know. I hate to have those VA bashing sessions because it’s such an easy target.
However, this is the Denver Post, and when you go into the level of mid-management or lower supervisors are afraid. Well, and the tenure of bashing the VA didn’t just start this month last year. Right.
This has been going on much years. How long ago was that? You brought it up real quick, Eric. How long ago was that when they were like, oh, people dying in the hallways? Always.
Wasn’t that five, eight years ago? Yeah, it hasn’t been that long. Yeah. So they were redoing the whole concept of the VA, trying to put processes in place where vets weren’t left in the hallways unattended in a bed.
Well, I still tip my hat to one of the best things that the Obama administration did was the expansion of using civilian or non-military docs, civilian docs, as long as they sign up for Tricare and all of that, but the ability to just now go there because, God, it wasn’t that long ago where you had to go to base. You had to go to post. And that was under the Obama administration.
So I give them big credit for doing that because that made things a lot easier. Now, trying to find a doc that takes Tricare because most of them are like, oh, those fuckers don’t pay. I’m like, ah, shit.
How slow am I this month? All right, man, come on. I’ll take you. Yep.
It’s like, oh, I got this hip thing. Well, let’s start with physical therapy. There’s some of those.
Seven times a charm, baby. Here we go. Tricare’s the light.
Okay, I am curious about this next story, what you guys think about this next one, right? So this is also Colorado. And this is from military.com. Fourth, I’m not even going to say it, it says Army Division bars leaders from bothering their soldiers after work hours. But it is the 4th Infantry Division at Fort Carson.
So Major General David Doyle, commander of Fort Carson, issued a memo last week barring leaders from texting or calling subordinates between 6 p.m. and 5 a.m. with some caveats, including communication for health or safety, right? In his memo to the division, Doyle noted that after hours communications keep soldiers on edge and in many cases aren’t necessary. The new policy is also punitive, meaning leaders who do not abide by it could face legal or other disciplinary ramifications. Unbelievable.
Now, I know where you’re going, because my natural thought was like, oh, they’re so soft, right? But, Eric, here’s my counter. You’re not going to convince me otherwise. No, no, no.
This is the fucking thing I’ve ever heard. This is my devil’s advocate to you, right? Eric, we didn’t have cell phones, right? We didn’t have email, right? Agreed. We had a landline.
Correct. All right. Now, if you had a cell phone, and I can reach you any time, and I think part of the problem, or part of this issue comes up because I think you got lazy supervisors and stuff was like, oh, I’ll just text them now.
Yeah. I’ll just text them. Did you get this done? You know, it’s just like, you know, it’s unnecessary text.
It becomes a natural managing tool. Unfortunately. This thing during COVID, during COVID, our commander, she was sending out text messages and taskers, and she had no stop.
So myself and Kim Reed, we called her. It’s like, hey, man, if duty hours are 0730 to whatever, and you’re sending text messages to the masses all the way to 10, 30, 11 o’clock, then you’re not respecting their private time. And I know Eric is shaking your head, but this is during COVID.
So just because there’s COVID, now we’re going virtual doesn’t mean that you use text and you send messages anytime you want. I hear you, but I’m going to take it a bigger step. All right.
When you sign the paper that I will defend and whatever else it says, it didn’t matter what time it was. It didn’t speculate the duty hours were 07 to 05. If I need to contact you, if I need to account for you where you’re at, it’s due.
It’s a mission critical though. But Eric is mission critical. Your CBT’s done, and did you do your TPS report? I’m gonna say fuck off.
I mean, nobody’s dying. That’s good. Yeah, there’s a good point.
I mean, there’s, I hear what you’re saying, Eric, and I’m all with that. But at the same time, can’t you see how that could be abused by a leader going, well, did you get your boot shine today? I’d be like, fuck off. I thought we were going to war, and you’re calling me about that thing.
It was abused back then. You’d get landline calls. If you answered those landline calls.
But there was tricks you can stand by though, because people say, hey, you’re on sex trips. I mean, if you were on alert, if you were on something like that, yeah, you couldn’t refuse it. You got a phone call.
I know cops, when we went home, they would tell you, stay by your phone. If I need you, I’m calling you tonight. Yeah.
Well, yeah, heads up. Six ring standby was for operational purposes, right? We were on standby for something. Yeah.
This constant micromanagement or in your disrespect of your time isn’t for any significant operational anything. All right. It’s for stuff that could wait till tomorrow.
Nobody’s going to die. Nobody’s going to get hurt. Nobody’s doing is like, hey, make sure to do this tomorrow.
What? Okay. Tell me fucking tomorrow morning. I’m just talking big picture.
Strategic picture. Oh, I think I absolutely. Right.
Real world asking. None of us have a qualm. If it gets abused, so the way I see it, if it’s being abused and by the time something serious happens and people just got conditioned to ignore this shit, then whatever text message comes, they’re just going to ignore it.
But if you know that it’s actually coming and you actually get a text message at 10 30 and you see that it’s from Sergeant, whoever. Sure. Oh shit.
This is serious. Like they wouldn’t be texting me at 10 30. It’s the whole crying wolf theory.
Yeah, right. So much. I’m not answering.
I get it. I mean, I mean, Eric and the rest of you, everybody’s had an end of week meeting with some supervisor or some commander or some ex or deal or something. It’s just like.
We’ve already answered these questions. You know, these questions that you have stop. We can we can do this Monday morning or whatever it is.
That guy back then is the one who’s incessant texting or posting or something. And you have to you have to respond to it. Even if it’s on Facebook or something like, oh fuck, I get it.
What is it? That was worthless. Again, you’re in the military. You signed up for that part, of course, where it’s for me, what we’ve talked about over the past two or three years, Marty, with the recruitment, the retention, the caliber of person coming into the military now has changed drastically from even you guys coming in.
The mindset is not the same. Sure. I mean, they’re recruiting different people, but at the same time, at the same time, they are increasing the ops tempo and this and this goes into it without like any wars.
We’re just like, oh, we got to go on deployment again. I’m like, okay. And Marty brought something up.
They’re recruiting different people. Eric, that includes their leadership. They have no respect for your time and your wellbeing.
I can see that as well. Right. They want answers right fucking now on trivial questions.
Yeah. They’re the Googles. That leader, that generation is still up, right? They’re the Google.
Give me the information now. That’s a reminder to them as well. Hey, you’re absolutely that shit is so unnecessary that it can wait till Monday.
I get that. But, but I thought of one for you, Eric. And all of you chime in.
Who’s the, who’s that one who just made staff? Who’s the go-getter who wants to, you know, I want to impress the ops super or whatever. So I’m a, I’m a nervous staff now, but now I’m in charge of some people. So I got to make sure my shit’s squared away.
So now I’m going to over-communicate a million times because I’m nervous. And you’re just like, relax, relax. No, no, no.
I need this answer now because I got to get back to it. It’s like it’s six o’clock on Friday night. What are you doing? It’s a cover my ass emails and cover my ass emails.
Yeah. Yeah. So imagine that.
Multiply from when we were in. Right. Because you don’t have the soup saying, hey, look, look, look, ease up on these guys.
Take it easy. Yeah. But they’re too, they’re too nervous.
They’re too worried about themselves. You know, well, and unfortunately all the new platforms and fricking emails and fucking cell phones have made it overwhelming. I believe that too.
Well, and if you go on the WTF moments or you go on to that Facebook page with, uh, what is it? Airman NCO, senior NCO. I like WTF moments a lot. And they post, you could find, you know, 15 posts where some, some soldier or some airman will post like some memo he was given or some email that mass email that went out to everybody.
Like, can you believe this guy? You know, that kind of thing. And you read it and you’re like, yeah, that was dumb. He should have waited.
He should have waited until the next day or so. He didn’t need to send that out. Right.
Well, and then, and then that, that doesn’t take investigating. It’s not like the Denver Post is looking to those emails. It’s there.
It’s live. They’re just, yeah. Right there.
Um, so. It’s such a big change for me. It’s a different way to think.
Yeah. It’s a different way to think. I’m with you.
I’m with you. But at the same time, you and I probably had, uh, leaders who understood the responsibility of like, okay, he’s off. Well, when you say, you know, when you say Marty can this wait until the next day, right? Yeah.
You know how many times I had supervisors, even commanders that will walk around the shop. It was like four 30. And that’s the first question they will ask.
Can this wait till tomorrow? And they’ll say, Oh yes. And they’ll say, then get the fuck out of there. Like, why are you that’s, but that’s the commander.
That’s not your section leader. Yeah. You’re going to give him an answer.
Regardless. You get down to that tech or staff. Who’s like, I don’t give a shit.
You’re doing it. You’re cleaning this because we got an inspection coming Monday. You know, it’s just like, are you fucking serious? I never really had like staffs and tech sites that were kind of like, uh, I think I was my supervisor.
He just yelled at you for the Michigan. Yeah. That’s it.
That’s it. Like to be a fly on the wall for initial leadership classes for some of our young lieutenants who, who are, they don’t get any leadership classes. I asked many of those lieutenants and like, tell us.
Yeah. Yeah. Come on.
Hey, when, when, when job requirements now this is designed in the military, people ask for soft skills. The fact that you have to. To prove that you have soft skills.
What does that say about this generation? They’re seeking out people that, oh, can you talk to people and can you stay away from your cell phone? Do you know how to get up out of your desk? That’s an issue. I mean, it’s there’s probably going to be leadership etiquette courses on how to get out of your fricking desk and talk to people. You know who would have a great conversation with this is general petty.
Oh yeah. Well, yeah. Absolutely.
From a training and leadership standpoint. I agree, man. He’s going to be on May 21st.
May 21st. He’s coming on. He’s going to do another battle analysis while teapots in Disney.
I told you guys this before. I know. I know.
I know. I know. I’m not that Disney world by the way.
There’s a push. Oh, oh, you’re going to Florida. There’s a push in the corporate world to hire more Gen X managers because their ability to handle both the older and the younger generation.
What a bullshit. I’m just telling you right now, man, I’ve heard it a few times, man. But it may be, it may be a push, but the hiring manager is still going to write or hire by the job description.
True. But I just tell you Gen X type skills for managers are in demand. All right.
Okay. Let me, let me finish this up. The, the move comes amid a historically high cadence of deployments and training rotations for soldiers, despite no major ongoing wars.
All right. That does suck. It’s like when, you know, the National Guard guy, he was like, Hey, they’re calling the guard up.
You know, can you believe that they had discussions? Senators had discussions about calling the guard for like the Columbia protests and all that stuff. It’s like, it’s not your call. It’s the governor’s call.
Governor’s call. Jesus. So why are you discussing the National Guard? Like it’s this reserve thing that you could just pull out.
Right. Fort Carson policy is akin to a similar set of rules established by the army’s 10th mountain division of Fort Drum in 2022. Relationships with phones, particularly with the rise of work from home culture has made it easier for work to bleed into personal time.
Some civilian companies have started to codify policies, restricting when managers can contact employees outside typical working hours. A law was proposed in the California state legislature on April 6th that would create a soul called quote, right to disconnect and quote effectively giving employees legal protection to ignore work calls, emails and texts after hours. In 2017, France passed its own right to disconnect law that gives workers and companies with more than 50 employees the right to sever digital communications from employers outside of regular business hours.
Portugal, Belgium, Australia and Ontario, Ontario, Canada have also since passed similar laws. I know where you’re getting at. They’re like, oh, these, these guys, right? These younger generation.
However, looking back, that would be nice to know if I’m off, I’m off. I mean, shit, that would be nice, right? I know if you’re on a six ring or if you’re on something like that, okay, I’m not off, right? I’m, I’m still on alert, but to be called, which maybe it happens very frequently, you know, to be called and go, Hey, I just called a check on this. And you’re like, I’m truly torn with this one.
I got to tell you, I really, yeah, that’s good. That’s good. This, this came into effect for me personally, just at this new job, because we had like a text group.
Yeah. That was just a snide comments. And then all of a sudden it turned into a, Hey, who’s at this? Who’s at that? Who’s doing this? Who’s doing that? Oh, I know.
Work checks. Really? And I got sick and tired of it. I was like, all right, that’s 0.5 OT.
Oh, nice. Nice. What do you mean? And I go, you’re contacting me with bullshit after work hours, 0.5. Any questions.
Right. He goes, it’s just a text. I go, any response equals 0.5. So I’m like, okay.
The balls on the man in the closet. You don’t need this job. like that’s how fortunate we are we don’t need this job and even if we were like to get fired from this job or just quit this job there’s a dozen other space their jobs around that might not be perfect but we’re still not slinging burgers if you’re still fighting for a clearance personnel so is everyone else yeah there’s a lot of other opportunities out there right well and like you said it the right to disconnect I get that parts but certainly in the civilian work too well imagine imagine you you deployed Afghanistan like like a real deployment not like to a to LUD the deployment right I can imagine you went for a year you came back you recovered you went to Disney World you came back right and and and now you’re getting after-hours calls and like mother fuck and leave me up I’m not even what for what for what what do you need yes like words yes I lock the conics all right thank you god damn you know and and I get it and especially when you’re trying to retain people that’s that’s kind of an easy kill that’s an easy that’s a low-hanging fruit thing it’s though right that they’re gonna remember it’s like what like dude like why am I gonna stay and so they can tell me all the fucking time so they can keep calling me about my slides updated no F you but you get those and and that and I get the mental I get the mental push on that I get the mental push on there like geez give me a break would you I will I will concede just under that no it’s not trying to concede but I know I’m just saying I will concede because it makes sense my thought was just like where you were going like softies right soft yes but at the same time it would have been nice to go you know it would be nice to come out of the field turn in my weapon and go home and not be bothered for until Monday morning that would be great and if it’s one of those weeks where you’re getting ready for inspection because there’s the only time I think like in my military career when I will get some cost right there’s an inspection or something’s going on you know it’s like I remember just telling people’s like hey man I’m gonna stay here a little after hours at home right go spend some time with your family but I might call you because I might have some questions are you cool with that right you communicate oh yeah if you’re that hey I need I need you bring in some magic erasers tomorrow because we’re gonna clean for the ORI don’t worry about our paperwork we just need to make sure the walls look good that works I bring in magic races I’m gonna work at midnight all right yeah best phone call I got from you I you know I knew that was gonna come back if you guys were ever like the colonel or general at least for myself if I went in went to the MCS and right it’s it’s spotless if it’s like super clean I think I’d be wanting to stop an airman or Guardians like hey what’d you do yesterday I was cleaning the same thing you did 20 years ago you were cleaning bathrooms in hallways because you wanted to impress the ORI team that was coming in because that somehow that would make all the errors that we made on sifts and teepees go away because our walls were spotless you know and remember this was really dumb Eric you would have you would probably quit the podcast if you knew we all did this or were forced to do this right during those ORIs they would take crews in to evaluate them so the commander was like hey we got to line the hallways and cheer them on as they’re walking into the training suite it was the dumbest shit I’ve ever done remember my last four years what’s with an IG inspector with space command last and what I was gonna tell you is not once in all of our meetings all of our planning meetings did we ever go holy shit that organization that squadron had the cleanest walls fucking around that’s because they were all spotless we never talked about that shit if they were are you functioning of the speed and if you guys if any of you three guys have walked in the MCS now you’d be like oh it’s trash this is this is Aurora I wouldn’t be surprised if there was a broke-down car in the hallway you know 30% of the toilets work it’s 20 what 20 something years of all 24 7 that’s 24 7 like the freaking ketchup packets underneath the toilet see all that dick and around that we’ve reminisced about that poor building has been fucked over for 24 straight I did literally see the result of like the saran wrap over the toilet remember the little shot shooters that they used to find in the freaking trash can right before you entered the building early early on you know a little more tactical all right somebody was drinking shooters from the turnstile all the way to the building and then throwing in a trash can you boys needed some more guidance I believe yeah I know you left all your shit in our air raid shelter boys need some guidance let’s do something and then I want to say so much he must not care well no he would judge you anyways thanks thanks thanks for contributing to the team I think I’ll call you around midnight and go hey is my banner still fucked up perfectly perfectly because Eric responds to you 90% of time and I’m like I’m not fucking shift that’s point oh five of zero zero dollars good conduct metal runoff I love all right let’s do a good a good news story we haven’t done that in a while from stripes calm petite powerhouse a Kirtland Air Force Base airman is a source of great strength corny corny bonus points for that let’s see mine got looser senior airman Bianca Mendoza of the 377 security forces group defender and the Colorado native is an airman who exercises the fly fight and win model I have not heard that in years so that was good to bring back Mendoza was born and raised in Fort Collins Colorado where she was an athlete for most of her life serving in the military Mendoza found a bigger reason to remain fit to fight she discovered a community within the Air Force that would allow her to maintain her physical fitness and accomplished things she never thought possible quote I started my powerlifting journey here at Kirtland my flight chief Master Sergeant Spears was big into powerlifting so I took the initiative and expressing my desire to get into the sport one thing led to another and he became my coach for the next year and a half Mendoza currently holds the New Mexico’s junior women 56 kilogram powerlifting record in the 20 to 23 age bracket and is aiming to become a professional powerlifter standing at an empowering four feet ten inches tall and weighing in at 120 pounds Wow she for the interview she was putting on 295 on the deadlift I searched I could not find what her powerlifting record is in New Mexico I I I don’t know I couldn’t find it I searched and searched and searched but she’s working out with 295 and I saw the I saw one record from a couple years ago it was over 300 so to break she’s only 20 to 23 like they don’t peek till mid 20 late 20s are yeah yeah yeah yeah right right well she’s already I mean look at look at the shoulders man like she is legit like she’s gonna yeah she stays with us she’s gonna she’s gonna break some records yeah nice and so she’s yeah Eric Eric could not be prouder I’m like a proud dad you got a powerlifter and a cop I know I know she did say well that’s true you would be you would be the grandpa downer on that hey good job on lifting over 300 pounds on a dilla covered up did you really good life choice and she would drop the weight to go grandpa I wonder if Eric’s like trying to say is like is that 25% of the body are you allowed to have those tattoos I’ll send you our episode where we went into detail on this I missed that I wish I was there I would have been devil’s advocate all day every day she said she is dedicated to placing in the top five at a national level where she will compete against others in the United States she’s training hard or quote I’m training hard for my upcoming national powerlifting competition after that United States Powerlifting Association military competition is something I am looking to represent the Air Force in Mendoza’s advice for anyone looking to start their fitness journey don’t be scared you always have a fear of being in the gym you worry that people are going to judge how much you can lift or what you can do be confident and don’t think about it too much it can be very it can be scary to put yourself out there but you have to if you want to succeed so good on you Airman Mendoza nice probably any other AFSC you wouldn’t have the time to do it but oh I forgot you guys are so busy sitting at the terminal told you we’re cops with better climate control that’s really it is actually actually there were a couple guys I remember Stroder was one of them who who always had the weights who always had the weights as they were sitting at the console on the ops floor yeah I never saw them do a lot of weights but they were sitting by the chair you know it’s kind of like Willie with the gallon of water to show that he works out because he has to stay hydrated you’re carrying around a gallon of water with you they’re all on the ops floor it’s crazy that is insane 30% of the toilets are not functioning so you’re in trouble that’s true because he pissed two of them out of order Eric finishes out with the US military history US oh damn it I should have called you last night it was like hey do you have a US military history you ready all right so here’s my first one something I guarantee you boys didn’t know on 30 April 1789 at Federal Hall in New York City the first capital of the United States General George Washington took the presidential oath of office with a hand on the Bible a sacred volume borrowed from a local Masonic Lodge and subsequently known as the George Washington inaugural block he said I quote I George Washington do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the office of the President of the United States and will to the best of my ability preserve protect and defend the Constitution of the United States in court at that time at that moment the Chancellor of the state of New York Robert Livingston the person who administered the oath to the first chief executive exclaimed long-lived George Washington the President of the United States how about that shit that was April 30th April 30th 1789 all right and this one I wanted you got a little bonus this one I thought was really important because it was inherently important to the conclusion of World War two all right okay April 30th 1945 hold up in a bunker under his headquarters in Berlin Adolf Hitler commits suicide by swallowing a cyanide capsule and shooting himself in the head allegedly soon soon after German unconditionally surrendered to the Allied forces ending Hitler’s dream of a thousand-year right so there you go fellas quick and painless but too very important though this is a 10 out of 10 with Eric yeah well it’s you know the allies yeah I was part of well as long as it was like a allied suicide pill or a US pistol maybe used a Chinese round to blow his head off I’m just going where we know where most of the rounds are made all right one how’s your how’s your only fan session going there laying on the bed you know you’re off hours for Europe so you know we won’t call you tonight one we won’t call you hey if you know it’s important Marty knows all about that man every time Marty called and I was on my day off I was like he needs somebody you know I I I apologize for not remembering all the calls that I made but all three of you have made comments to me it’s like I remember you called me one time one you told me I guilted you into it yeah I think all three of you say I guilted you but no if you if you called us yeah we knew you needed us we’re like all right really cold I guess you’re gonna make me fucking cry jeez all right this is how much I gave up for Marty I had George Clinton and the IP Funk all-star tickets like dude he’s like you’re the last one if I had any skills at all and I had a mixing board brought up I was there I was oh I had my tight pants on see and see Eric would have reported with no reason I’d be like Eric we need you and he’d be like I’m there right on our team of lose and then he would and then he would have lifted that whole midship he’s like oh he’s lifting I’ll be over at the ADF gym lifting on that note I think we’re end up yeah you guys good oh yeah it works for me you know Jake you keep sending me that or I got that text about stuff posted on the I remember I when was that I took did I take a picture no I didn’t take the picture but the memo from the were you on teapot I know you weren’t on one but there was a two months ago I was in the MCS and I was taking a piss and what was above the toilet oh okay memo saying don’t put coffee grounds yeah the context is I just sent Marty hey mid-shift conversation idea yeah random bullshit posted above the urinal that’s true like the dehydration don’t put random shit in here nor in there I’m like who the fuck says noir Oh that’s yeah come on man Oh jinkle times or the freakin jinkle times yeah that’s what they used to stick on the essential paper or some shit like that yeah unbelievable Native American month go to go to celebrate whatever that’s why you got all your news not from the guy who calls you at eight o’clock that night like hey do you know Native American month is like yes I read it in the toilet thank you we have any Pacific Islanders do we need to tell them specifically who do you think there’s one is one Pacific no he’s not sir are you sure yeah Eric did you ever get a call to like hey did you put anybody in for a word this month oh yeah yeah yes I did again and it’s done most of our shit was that garden out you guys every time we got our weapons right right I did guard mount a I was I was on that to this when I was waiting for my your augmenting yeah my because you didn’t have a clearance yeah yes guard now baby that’s where you got all your info right well Space Force did it after hours phone calls so there you go on behalf of all of us here I’d like to thank you for listening today please like share subscribe and let us know how we did in the comments and make sure next week that you are not late for changeover I know I see the instinct is there to do it like 10 minutes ago Eric like you listen to last week’s you’ll see how much I edited that first weekend I do augmenting top I gained trouble no so we can’t I can’t crash course this how you’re a cop all right cool whatever so I go to the chow hall and they’re like hey where’s your gun where’s your m16 so it’s fucking back in the Jeep like why am I gonna carry one you’re fired it was always going around is how do you know an augmentee versus a real cop augmentee will racket it freakin change over oh nice the clearing barrel official always had to be very aware the other thing I got in trouble for was my flight chief my on the space side has like hey I need to talk to you so if you get a chance we’re working a minute can you come in all right cool guess who takes his weapon inside the skiff Wow you got no training are you starting to understand why they made you a space guy because because security forces can’t instruct that’s why well if I have to hold his hand and say don’t take your gun in there but take it in there nobody ain’t nobody told me these things they’re just like they’re like hey here’s your gun you work in a skiff it’s a prohibited item he’s a he’s a cop yeah you can join the cops and go dock in the air raid shelter so yeah with some what was the washing takes if you’re right Marty it didn’t get better dude when you’re talking about swashing I was like dude I still want to say some shit right now but I’m like man thanks for the week and I’ll see you next week you