View Full Version : Yippeee
Great I have the whole week off to de-stress myself. I will be fitting my heating system and making my driveway gates starting tomorrow.
I have been really stressed in work recently and it is not helping that I have to work with four ex-army guys. Why oh why do ex army people know more about every subject than anyone else.
I get very annoyed when they are talking out of their backsides, whilst they attempt to lie through their back teeth just to make evryone think they are right. I have found this with 90% of the ex-forces people that I have had to deal with in the workplace, if I dont know something I dont bloody know and I'n not afraid to admit it.
I had a stand up argument with one of them about a technical subject and he told me I was wrong, he came out with the biggest load of s**t to explain his reasons, then about 3 weeks later he asked me about the subject again and had obviously forgotten about our little conversation and kept interupting whilst spouting words of wisdom, they were actually the same things I had told him weeks earlier that he had disagreed with.
One of them is currently involved in discipliary hearings and I was asked in asked in as an independant witness, the story now is 100% different to the one I heard in the disciplinary meeting!
I have heard similar stories over the past few weeks about ex-forces people screwing things up in ntl, and there definately seems to be a trend. They can talk the talk but give them the job to do and they haven't a clue.
We deal with a lot of RF comms, and these army guys all claim to be experts in the radio field. I now realise that a CV from an ex-army person claiming radio experience just means they were the poor sod who ended up carrying the clansman radio!
Its also funny how a couple of them have worked together in a few companies, but always seem to get made redundant before very long.
I am also amazed that their references from the army always say things like "they were a credit to their unit" when its common knowledge that they were discharged or spent a lot of time in the glasshouse. :mad:
Come on guys, if you dont' know just admit it. Cut out the bulls**t :rolleyes:
*Ramrod examines the sky for the incoming missile strike that has surely been called in* :D
*Ramrod examines the sky for the incoming missile strike that has surely been called in* :D
Why, the funny thing is I know ex-army people who agree with me!
zoombini
30-08-2004, 14:45
Oh yes, I have an ex army inlaw.
While putting some chairs on my roof rack & tying them on, he offered to help saying he had been a truck driver for years in the army & tying stuff on was easy, then proceeded to yank the end of the rope & force a chair leg to make a big dent in the car roof.
Know what your talking about there..;)
Hi Escapee
I'm sorry you feel this way about Ex Army people but please don't tar us all with the same brush.
There are a lot of ******s in the Army but this is the same in all walks of life.
Ex Army guys don't know more about every subject than everyone else but you "might" find they have a wider knowledge than someone for example that has been living in the same town doing the same job all their life. (Extreme example)
Ex Army guys do tend to have the "been there, done that, seen that, got the T - Shirt" mentality because generally they have. This goes for all forces people. I hate it when I'm in conversation with someone else and I say, "Oh I've been there" or "I've done that". I certainly don't mean to be big headed but I'm not lying either. But it does make me think that they might be thinking..."Oh is there anything he hasn't done".
I'm in no way sticking up for these guys if they think they know everything about every subject when clearly they don't. Nobody does.
I've also never been to the Glass House and never got charged once in 8 years regular and 3 years TA service. I did leave with "an exemplary soldier" (their words, not mine) written in my discharge book by my Officer Commanding.
I had one job before I joinded the Army and have been in the same job since I left, so please don't generalise about Ex Army people.
Just my two pence;)
Married to an ex Navy Charge Chief here.That description doesn't fit him at all.He tends to be rather more prepared to acknowledge he knows less than others in the field these days especially when it comes to dealing with electrics these days.He reads up the latest info because he knows that he needs to keep up if he is to survive at work repairing monitors or what ever they end up assigning him to. :)
Not every one is the same.However I do know what you are going through because the very worst are the retired service people who go into teaching. :rolleyes: I've been driven mad by a few of them especially the ones that have been institutionalised by the service.They have become so used to following orders and the chain of command that they are pendantic about sticking to the paper trail and won't do anything unless it is WRITTEN down. :rolleyes:
Incognitas
When you say, "He tends to be rather more prepared to acknowledge he knows less than others in the field".
I couldn't agree more. My job is a constant learning curve Although I'm ex Army, I totally except that people that have been doing the job longer than me will always be more knowledgeable.
Hi Escapee
I'm sorry you feel this way about Ex Army people but please don't tar us all with the same brush.
There are a lot of ******s in the Army but this is the same in all walks of life.
Ex Army guys don't know more about every subject than everyone else but you "might" find they have a wider knowledge than someone for example that has been living in the same town doing the same job all their life. (Extreme example)
Ex Army guys do tend to have the "been there, done that, seen that, got the T - Shirt" mentality because generally they have. This goes for all forces people. I hate it when I'm in conversation with someone else and I say, "Oh I've been there" or "I've done that". I certainly don't mean to be big headed but I'm not lying either. But it does make me think that they might be thinking..."Oh is there anything he hasn't done".
I'm in no way sticking up for these guys if they think they know everything about every subject when clearly they don't. Nobody does.
I've also never been to the Glass House and never got charged once in 8 years regular and 3 years TA service. I did leave with "an exemplary soldier" (their words, not mine) written in my discharge book by my Officer Commanding.
I had one job before I joinded the Army and have been in the same job since I left, so please don't generalise about Ex Army people.
Just my two pence;)
I have one friend who is ex-army and he's not like it at all, I think the worst ones are in the electronics/communications/IT field. It generally attracts the know it all type, or th type who like to give the impression that they are the most knowledgable in the field.
My one ex-army friend always says "I'm not like that though am I" I always go quiet just to wind him up a bit. :D
One example recently was this one ex-army guy who took over ordering test equipment from me at work. I am just starting a big project and needed some equipment ordering for the project, I gave him a list with the items I required. One of the items was a " True RMS Voltmeter" I needed it to measure recovered audio tones at 2.4KHz max from an RF data receiver to carry out signal to noise measurements. The kit I specified had an analogue meter, chosen especially to make it easier when tuning the equipment for max performance.
(Digital display is rubbish for this) The item I specified was less than $1000 and he went ahead and ignored my specification and ordered a digital/LCD screen device costing about $7000. The bit that really made me fall off my chair was when he got it out of the box and I saw an external sensor head, I said "what frequency does that go down to" he said "I dont know"
I picked up the book and suprise suprise the range was 10KHz to 1GHz, not mush good for measuring 2.4KHz, he quickly pushed the item on the shelf out of sight! He also got one of his forces mates a job with us, he was sold to us as being an expert at labview programming. If he didn't know it it wasn't worth knowing etc. We had a meeting and the guy said "you will have to get some contractors in for that" now we have to pay a contractor to do exactly what the guy said he was capable of. :rolleyes:
I saw both their CV's before they joined and gave the thumbs down to the pair of them, my boss has now slowly realised but is a bit embarassed over the situation. These guys are slowly trying to take over the whole department, and its funny how they have worked in about three companies together and got made redundant form them all. I have four ex-forces people with me now and its a nightmare, a nice environment has turned very sour.
One of my old friends at ntl told me a story about a couple of highly paid ex-forces guys working for the national team involved with cable modems, he started off telling me how they screwed up the levels on the network when they upgraded from 1.6 to 3.2MHz QPSK, he said they had to wind the levels up by 3dB after tests in the lab with the army guys and a Dr or professor working for ntl. I said "don't tell me, they measured it with the spectrum analyser upgraded to 3.2MHz and it appeared to drop by 3dB, they then upped the level to compensate".
He said exactly, I rolled around laughing I dont suppose its funny considering the lowest paid in that co*k up probably earns in excess of 30K.
He then told me about another c**k up with the VOD team, how one senior engineering manager (ex-forces) claimed there was a difference between modulated and un-modulated QPSK! I had a good laugh about that one, said it was rubbish and did some tests in work to provide him with figures to prove. Again this involved an ex-army guy who knows everything and is earning in excess of 45K.
I know they are not all the same, there are bullsh***ers in every walk of life, but I find the ex-forces ones are worse. The ones I come across will never back down when they are wrong and get very aggressive and try to bully you into thinking they are right. The one guy in work is very good and my manager usually takes it all in thinking he has just learnt something new from this expert.
I just find in technical positions that some companies seem to automatically take ex-forces people on without really finding out what they are capable of, they then seem to have the gift of the gab and unlimited confidence to convince everyone around them they are the best thing since sliced bread.
Rant over :D
I think in your case you have been extremely unlucky to have 4 w**kers that give the Army a bad name come and work for/with you.
If your company is willing to give jobs to these people without sussing them out properly then they only have themselves to blame.
Surely regardless of what their CV says you must have some sort of trial period. If these guys are not up to scratch and their CV's are bulls**t then they must go.
I do find this all a bit offensive as I work in IT myself. I came with no prior experience but the company I work for was willing to train me. I didn't come in assuming I was somes sort of expert because I had come from a totally different field of work in the Army.
Writing your last post based on baffling the reader with pointless technical jargon about what you do doesn't really explain your arguement against Ex Army people very well.
Also putting "Do ex-army guys know how to measure QPSK?" as you signature. I mean...is this relevant? Not all ex Army guys leave and join your line of work. And so to the majority of the working population including myself and the rest of the civillian population this means absolutely nothing!
Thats my rant over aswell. :)
When I worked at Neath College a few years back, the security guard there was ex-army and you couldn't tell him anything - he had to be the absolute authority on every subject. So bearing in mind my inability to NEVER admit to being wrong (yes peeps, I know you all know it ;) :p: ) you can imagine the animated conversations he and I used to have..... :blah: :banghead: :fit:
I think in your case you have been extremely unlucky to have 4 w**kers that give the Army a bad name come and work for/with you.
If your company is willing to give jobs to these people without sussing them out properly then they only have themselves to blame.
Surely regardless of what their CV says you must have some sort of trial period. If these guys are not up to scratch and their CV's are bulls**t then they must go.
I do find this all a bit offensive as I work in IT myself. I came with no prior experience but the company I work for was willing to train me. I didn't come in assuming I was somes sort of expert because I had come from a totally different field of work in the Army.
Writing your last post based on baffling the reader with pointless technical jargon about what you do doesn't really explain your arguement against Ex Army people very well.
Also putting "Do ex-army guys know how to measure QPSK?" as you signature. I mean...is this relevant? Not all ex Army guys leave and join your line of work. And so to the majority of the working population including myself and the rest of the civillian population this means absolutely nothing!
Thats my rant over aswell. :)
I agree that I have probably been very unfortunate in meeting too many of them in my line of work, it was bad enough in ntl but in the defence type environment it's a nightmare. My whole point about the jargon bit, is these guys really try to give the impression they know everything. The bits they fall down on are the basics of the subject, its a bit like an accountant not knowing how to multiply two numbers. I got involved with an ex-navy guy a few years ago who was working for a large company supplying equipment to us. I got on very good terms with him and when he visited we would always go out for a few beers, he asked me if I fancied a job with his company. I said that advert says they are looking for someone with a degree, he said so what they think I have a degree! He used to phone me up and ask detailed questions and admitted that he learnt all about photonics and RF through reading books whilst counting down the days until he left the navy. I actually got on very well with the guy despite his BS attitude, I will openly admit if I dont know something, and I have never claimed to be an expert about anything. I will only say that IMO I have good skills in certain areas, and the ability to see pigs flying a mile off.
I find the arrogance of these guys very annoying, the one guy who got his mate in is always brown nosing around the bosses and was even arrogant enough to tell me that as he was someone who had served his time in the army, he had the best training and was superior to any civilian engineer.
one of the older guys is very experienced in a certain technology, and served many years as a design engineer working to component level. I have picked up a lot about his subject and will always listen because I know it will benefitt me. The one ex-army guy couldn't repair a certain bit of gear and wouldn't listen to anyone, he eventually admitted defeat and wanted to scrap the piece of gear. The old guy spent about 90 mins explaining in depth and talking him through the fault finding proccess, he put him within 3 components of fixing the fault. The guy found the faulty component and then went boasting about how good he was to the boss, I was there and he didn't realise I had been earwigging on the training session.
It's unfortunate that companies take people on and once in the system it seems awkward to get rid of them, I sat in a disciplinary meeting recently (about 2 months ago) and the guy is still with us. To be honest if I had done what he had done, it would of been "escapee here's your P45" He claimed his bad memory was from his Gulf war syndrome! he now has to pay a few grand back for the fiddled overtime!
It's just that out of the seven other people in our department not including myself, four of them are ex-forces and three are not. Four guys are BS merchants and the others are helpfull to each other and not afraid to ask someone if they need help. Two of the ex-forces people are a disaster, they are the "click on every setting and change it to see if it works" type.
I think my mate in ntl summed up the two he's working with when he said "They are like cancer, spreading BS through the company 24/7, they never seem to take a rest" The ex-army guy who was with us had a good laugh, he's a good guy though.
See, I don't think they are all the same. There are exceptions :angel:
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