Updated Army Service Dress project

[Halifax Tar]

Onions are on backorder.

No, we have them. I'm just too lazy to go back the mezzanine and grab a box.

Coloured hair can help give away your position, making it more possible to be observed by a enemy.

You do realize the amount of people in the CAF who have to be concerned about that is an extreme minority, right ?

 

[dimsum]

I work in an area that never WFH since HAIRFORGEN started and I see a lot of different people to, from, and during work.

I can literally count on one hand (ok maybe half of the second) how many people I saw with unnaturally coloured hair. I see lots of people with beards, multiple earrings, coloured nails, and long (by our old dress standards) hair. Sometimes on the same person. I work downtown NCR so those folks are also in the Rideau Centre or other places where there are civilians, and I have not heard a single thing from them. You would think that with something so radically different, it would cause more of a public mention but aside from comments sections on social media, the public does not care.

Also, one thing people seem to forget is that all of that can be thrown out the window for deployments and operations. You can be ordered to change your hair and nail colour, shave, and all of that other stuff.

But back to uniforms, I think the US Army intentionally used this style to make people think of BoB and WWII. That was when the US arguably the most support at home.

 

[rmc_wannabe]

It's been 6 months since the dress regs changed. I have yet to see anything more than a Platoon minus amount of people wandering around our base of 2500ish people who are on the extreme end of what the regs allow. This is a tempest in a teacup.

 

[Kilted]

Which, if I recall correctly is against a CANFORGEN that was issued about four years ago that required personnel issued with the Naval DEU to wear the NCD when working in an Army/RCAF setting where combat is the dress order of the day, unless there is an operational requirement to wear the CADPAT. Looking like all the other people wearing CADPAT for uniformity sake was not considered an operational requirement.

Unless that CANFORGEN has been recinded since?

I just want to say that the quote that is attributed to me saying that I am in the Navy was not written by me.

 

[Kilted]

The system does issue accoutrements BUT they IMO are not of good quality. Therefore the purchase of accoutrements was mandatory at one time, just like officers have had to but their own swords.

My unit only gave me the regimental items, I had to assemble all the other parts off eBay, land force command badge, trade badge, rank pins, and when I got promoted new ranks, just because my unit didn't have them.

The expectation at that point was that you would order a new jacket of logistic unicorps every time you got promoted.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I just want to say that the quote that is attributed to me saying that I am in the Navy was not written by me.

That's weird. That was me.

 

[Navy_Pete]

In very real terms though have a bunch of ships ignoring the safety requirements for being clean shaven for fire fighting. That should be one of the exceptions called out for safety/operations reasons why we can't accomodate someone as per the hairforgen.

Drives me nuts, FSE (fleet safety and environment) would stomp all over someone for not wearing steel toes on a work site, but won't do FA about this one. Pretty spineless.

 

[Furniture]

In very real terms though have a bunch of ships ignoring the safety requirements for being clean shaven for fire fighting. That should be one of the exceptions called out for safety/operations reasons why we can't accomodate someone as per the hairforgen.

Drives me nuts, FSE (fleet safety and environment) would stomp all over someone for not wearing steel toes on a work site, but won't do FA about this one. Pretty spineless.

So it's not the rules that are the issue, it's lack of enforcement of the already existing rules.

Sounds like a leadership issue to me.

 

[Navy_Pete]

So it's not the rules that are the issue, it's lack of enforcement of the already existing rules.

Sounds like a leadership issue to me.

Yes, I would agree. Leadership issue caused by senior leadership, it's a fun one.

 

[OldSolduer]

You do realize the amount of people in the CAF who have to be concerned about that is an extreme minority, right ?

I'm a retired guy but I would say you are correct. One thing that should be done a bit more is PT. There's fair number of them that need to.

 

[Halifax Tar]

I'm a retired guy but I would say you are correct. One thing that should be done a bit more is PT. There's fair number of them that need to.

No debate on PT.

 

[Navy_Pete]

I'm a retired guy but I would say you are correct. One thing that should be done a bit more is PT. There's fair number of them that need to.

That one always annoyed me; fully agree we should all do PT for good reasons, but it's also pretty frequent that when alongside some departments have way more free time than others. Usually the engineers and log types are working after hours and weekends, so annoyed me that others got bonus points on PERs for CISM etc. It's hard to have extracurriculars if you are working 60-80 hours a week. Similarly if someone can take a month to get a new qual, while someone else can't be spared for a career course due to shortages, that shouldn't go against the individual that doesn't have the same opportunity, but routinely does.

 

[Furniture]

That one always annoyed me; fully agree we should all do PT for good reasons, but it's also pretty frequent that when alongside some departments have way more free time than others. Usually the engineers and log types are working after hours and weekends, so annoyed me that others got bonus points on PERs for CISM etc. It's hard to have extracurriculars if you are working 60-80 hours a week. Similarly if someone can take a month to get a new qual, while someone else can't be spared for a career course due to shortages, that shouldn't go against the individual that doesn't have the same opportunity, but routinely does.

My understanding was that there wasn't supposed to be a bun fight between occupations until the PO 1 level, for essentially the reasons you mentioned. How do you fairly compare a MS Mar Tech to a MS NICOP, MMT, Cook, or Met Tech? Each occupation has very different roles and responsibilities.

 

[Navy_Pete]

My understanding was that there wasn't supposed to be a bun fight between occupations until the PO 1 level, for essentially the reasons you mentioned. How do you fairly compare a MS Mar Tech to a MS NICOP, MMT, Cook, or Met Tech? Each occupation has very different roles and responsibilities.

It was every level after OFP, so Cpl and up, and Lt(N) and up (imagine being an AHOD being ranked against your boss, or senior BWK/OOW against CbtO).

It starts at within the trade, then goes to the unit. I suspect it makes more sense in land units, but still saw in Ottawa completely different trades competing against each other at ranking.

On the flip side, sometimes that means a Met tech or someone in a small trade that doesn't have enough people to get ranked will actually get ranked at the unit level, as 1 of 1 is somewhat of a non-event.

I did Cpl/LS, MCpl/MS, Sgt/PO2, WO/PO1 etc bun tosses on ship a few times as PERMON and it was always a pain in the ass. But with the overlap and a lot of working together, I think it was generally somewhat balanced, although a few times the CbtO/XO prefs carried an inordinate weight and their pet favourites did better than they should have, but not sure it really matters anyway on most of the SCRITs, as the ones I saw didn't really make a difference between section/unit rankings, as your score at that point was usually fairly self explanatory.

 

[lenaitch]

I work downtown NCR so those folks are also in the Rideau Centre or other places where there are civilians, and I have not heard a single thing from them.

Do you expect people to publicly call them out on it or berate them? Those civilians are voters and form part of the public opinion that drives polls and government policy. They might not say anything then and there, but they very well may be judging, expressing opinions to others, etc.

Everybody has an opinion one what somebody in uniform should look and act like. Do I judge what the firefighter looks like as they are dragging my butt out my burning house? Probably not. Do I judge them when they are in dress uniform on a parade or at a funeral? Probably.

 

[Halifax Tar]

My understanding was that there wasn't supposed to be a bun fight between occupations until the PO 1 level, for essentially the reasons you mentioned. How do you fairly compare a MS Mar Tech to a MS NICOP, MMT, Cook, or Met Tech? Each occupation has very different roles and responsibilities.

According to the brief I had a week or so ago, you are correct.

I think unit wide bun fights are ridiculous. For exactly the reasons you pointed out.

 

[Eye In The Sky]

They potentially can.

Being fat hampers effectiveness. Having long nails hampers effectiveness. Having unnatural hair colours hampers effectiveness. Having beards hampers effectiveness. Having long hair hampers effectiveness. Looking unprofessional has a affect on others attitudes towards you and the organization you represent.

Some things have more of a effect than others, but to directly answer your question looks can hamper effectiveness. In the context of a dress uniform it most certainly does as the whole point is to project a professional image.

I knew a few “fat” people in green DEU who were absolute bulls in the field.

The new dress regs that allow colours etc can be restricted by commanders when the operational requirement exists. No one will be giving away an O.P. with pink punker hair spikes, I reckon.

 

[dimsum]

I knew a few “fat” people in green DEU who were absolute bulls in the field.

The new dress regs that allow colours etc can be restricted by commanders when the operational requirement exists. No one will be giving away an O.P. with pink punker hair spikes, I reckon.

 

[Navy_Pete]

According to the brief I had a week or so ago, you are correct.

I think unit wide bun fights are ridiculous. For exactly the reasons you pointed out.

Are there briefings starting on the new PARs?

Still haven't seen any feedback on the pilot program results from last year despite being one of the trades involved in it, but from what I can tell there is really no way to actually rank someone from the PARs other than pure scoring, so still unclear how the PARMon will work. Should be mostly administrative, but some kind of oversight would be useful for consistent scoring at the unit level. Especially as almost no one posted in has any FN in the system for the first half of the year, and there is no equivalent to posting PDRs outside PaCE (or options for folks OUTCAN etc that don't have DWAN).

I think the unit wide ones were pretty silly, but again, in some cases worked in the individuals favour, as I remember the weather witch and firefighters on ship doing well in some cases where they wouldn't necessarily rank at all due to being 1 of 1 or 2 in the trade. And to be fair, at least in that specific case you have some common tasks on the duty watch where you can get an apple to apple comparison, so things like duty coxn etc gave you some common tasks.

I think a lot of the ranking at the unit level is generally stupid anyway, as the bottom of the rung in a graduating class of doctors is still a Dr, and the best in low flyers is still an admin burden, so fairly meaningless relative comparison, and we tend to stack high flyers at HR units (at least on the Navy side, when we had enough people for that luxury). It got even more ridiculous for the ones at L1 level, where it was a collection of hard right PERs.

Was weird at a promotion board seeing some units consistently scoring someone as the 2nd and 3rd coming of Jesus for basically doing their job, and someone else doing way above and beyond expectations in a different unit getting a lower score, so there was some interesting feedback to the CoC as a result. I think if promotion boards have to now look at FNs to figure that out it will actually make it harder and take longer.

 

[Halifax Tar]

Are there briefings starting on the new PARs?

We had a LOG PD Session and a couple of hours was a presentation by a CPO1 who is some sort of SME on the east coast for PACE. Good cat; and very willing to come to the ARes and give us a hand. Pace really isn't going to be feasible for the ARes.

I still haven't seen any feedback on the pilot program results from last year despite being one of the trades involved in it, but from what I can tell there is really no way to actually rank someone from the PARs other than pure scoring, so still unclear how the PARMon will work. Should be mostly administrative, but some kind of oversight would be useful for consistent scoring at the unit level. Especially as almost no one posted in has any FN in the system for the first half of the year, and there is no equivalent to posting PDRs outside PaCE (or options for folks OUTCAN etc that don't have DWAN).

I think the unit wide ones were pretty silly, but again, in some cases worked in the individuals favour, as I remember the weather witch and firefighters on ship doing well in some cases where they wouldn't necessarily rank at all due to being 1 of 1 or 2 in the trade. And to be fair, at least in that specific case you have some common tasks on the duty watch where you can get an apple to apple comparison, so things like duty coxn etc gave you some common tasks.

I think a lot of the ranking at the unit level is generally stupid anyway, as the bottom of the rung in a graduating class of doctors is still a Dr, and the best in low flyers is still an admin burden, so fairly meaningless relative comparison, and we tend to stack high flyers at HR units (at least on the Navy side, when we had enough people for that luxury). It got even more ridiculous for the ones at L1 level, where it was a collection of hard right PERs.

Was weird at a promotion board seeing some units consistently scoring someone as the 2nd and 3rd coming of Jesus for basically doing their job, and someone else doing way above and beyond expectations in a different unit getting a lower score, so there was some interesting feedback to the CoC as a result. I think if promotion boards have to now look at FNs to figure that out it will actually make it harder and take longer.

If the CAF looked at all trades and branches as valuable and key then I think unit merit boards might have some value. Unfortunately we don't, and especially in the RCN you need very strong willed personalities representing people to try and get your people into the numbers. We had an LS Storesy who came out #1 on FRE '20. Ops protested that a Log member cant come out #1 on operations and the CO ordered us to re sit. Thanks to the Engineering Dept he came out even stronger the second time. Ops was very bitter, and so was CSE for some reason.

Its all silly anyways. When I was an LS I finished behind a peer Sup Tech one year on the ship, and vastly higher than them in the national standings. Its stupid. In trade I can see it, unit wide its a mess.