What to Do When Your New Job Isnt Your Dream Job

What to Do When Your New Job Isnt Your Dream JobWhat to Do When Your New Job Isnt Your Dream JobWhat to Do When Your New Job Isnt Your Dream JobIf your new job isnt the love of your life, make the most of it during your search for a better one.You made it After endless hours of filling out job applications, rehearsing your interview responses, and sending post-interview follow-up thank you notes, you finally received that coveted job offer.Its not your dream job, but it will cover the rent. Although youre happy to have the promise of a paycheck when so many are still struggling with unemployment, you cant shake the feeling that there must be something better out there.Youre not alone.These days, everyone from career coaches to celebrities encourages professionals of all ages to pursue your passion and find a job you love. While this sounds like solid advice for a happy career, the harsh reality is that most people work their entire lives without reaching this lofty goal.And even if y oure lucky enough to find your dream job you know, the one where you have a rewarding role at a great company that offers a solid paycheck and all the best perks youll quickly realize that no job is ever perfect.Dont get me wrong. Im one of those career advice experts who believe you should enjoy your work. Life is too short to stay in a job that makes you miserable.But theres a difference between finding a job you love and finding a job you like a lot.If you accepted a job thats less than ideal, never fear. Im here to help you make the most of your new job while you continue your pursuit of a better career.Start your new job on the right foot.It doesnt matter if its a job you love or simply a means to a paycheck. Its never too early to start building your personal brand in the workplace. You already know that its important to make a good impression on the very first day of your new job, but take this a step further by creating a list of things you can do during your first week, m onth, and 90 days on the job that will set you up for success.Related 8 Tips for Success on Your First Day at a New JobMake the most of your situation.Spare yourself a lot of unnecessary disappointment by resetting your expectations for your new job. So, its not the job of your dreams. That doesnt mean this job will be a waste of your time.Often, its necessary to take a step sideways or even backward in your career in order to gain the skills and experience necessary to move forward. Think of your new job as a stepping stone toward your long-term goal.This is especially true if you are changing careers or a recent college grad starting your first entry-level job. When youre trying to break into a new industry, youre looking for any foot in the door, even if that means taking on an unpaid internship or an entry-level job outside of your field of study, such as a customer service representative.Your first job after college will require grunt work. If your entry-level job is making you question your career path, take a look at the work the person two levels above you is doing for the company. If that persons role interests you, then you know youre on the right track.Set realistic expectations for what your new position has to offer and look for the silver lining.Related How to Make the Most Out of a Job You Dont LoveFind outlets for your interests.Its important to find ways to use the skills you enjoy most and wish to pursue in your long-term career, especially if they fall outside your current job description. For instance, if you have a passion for writing, share this information with your manager. There may be opportunities to contribute to the company blog or lend your writing skills to another department in the organization when its running short on resources. Ive seen plenty of colleagues change careers because they were willing to volunteer their skills and time to help another team on a project.Also, look for opportunities to practice your craft outside o f your new job. Using the example above, you may decide to take a creative writing class, pick up some freelance work through a site like Upwork, join a Meetup group to get together with other like-minded individuals, or use a site like Catchafire to find a skill-based volunteer opportunity that allows you to leverage your writing skills for a good cause. All these activities will help boost your resume for your target job in the future.Network like its your job.Studies find that youre 10 times more likely to land a job when your application is accompanied by an employee referral. However, you cant get those coveted references without networking. Make it your mission to become an active networker.Develop a valuable network of professional connections by getting involved in your alma maters alumni events, joining relevant LinkedIn groups online, and finding face-to-face networking opportunities through relevant professional associations, trade shows, and conferences.You dont have to leave the office in order to network. Get to know the colleagues in your department and take advantage of company-wide events to meet those outside of your group. Networking with your current colleagues is especially helpful if you want to pursue a different role within the saatkorn company or plan to continue working in the same industry.Build the skills you need.You may find that your new job isnt providing you with the opportunity to build certain skills that are important for your professional advancement. If thats the case, take matters into your own hands and seek out opportunities to fill your skill gaps. For example, you can sign up for an online course through sites like Coursera, Lynda.com, edX, or Skillshare or pick up one of these highly-recommended career development books to help you improve a soft skill. You may also learn about relevant seminars, webinars, and other professional development opportunities through the professional associations you join and the conferen ces or networking events you attend.Keep looking.While some would argue you want to avoid being labeled as job hopper by employers, most career experts agree that employed professionals should always be looking for new job opportunities. Keep up your job-search activities by regularly updating your resume, monitoring your online presence, fleshing out your LinkedIn profile, starting a brag book to record your professional wins, making networking a priority, and applying to positions youre interested in and qualified to pursue. Dont let your new job get the best of you.It can be challenging to stay motivated at work when youre doing a job you dont love, but dont let your current situation bring you down. Try adopting these tried-and-true habits to make you happier in the office.Know when its time to move on.While I strongly encourage my clients to land a new job before they call it quits with their current employer, there are times when its not worth the wait. If your job is making y ou sick and you absolutely dread going into work every day, its time to make a change. Related 11 Signs That Its Time for a New JobIf youre a recent college graduate and youre anxious to quit your entry-level job and find a new opportunity, take a step back and read this article first. It will help you decide if its truly the right time to quit your job or if its in your best interest to stick it out a little longer.Keep your eye on your long-term job goals and make the most of your current situation. Youve got thisClick on the following link for more career advice.Ready to find your dream job? Hire aTopResume professional resume writer todayRecommended ReadingShould You End Things With Your Job?Discover Your Dream Job in 3 Simple StepsHow to Define Your Career Goals

5 Apps That Will Get You Through the Hectic Workday

5 Apps That Will Get You Through the Hectic Workday5 Apps That Will Get You Through the Hectic WorkdayMeditation and, more broadly, mindfulness have of late been linked to everything from increased creativity to stress reduction. But who has time to pause and assume lotus position amid back-to-back conference calls and an overstuffed inbox?You may not realize it, but the smartphone that youre currently using to flip through emails could be the ticket to workday zen. Each of these five mobile apps, either free or cheap, guide you in channeling some inner peace (even if its in only five-minute snatches between a board meeting and coffee date). 1. HeadspaceWhat it Does Tap into this app to learn how to meditate in just 10 minutes a day. It will guide you via podcast through modern meditations on how to get to sleep quickly and easily, how to make your daily crazed commute stress-free, how to take the time to really appreciate your food, and more. Why I Love It Headspace makes it easy to set reminders to keep yourself on track and even offers a dashboard to evaluate your progredienz. Plus, the guided meditation tracks are voiced by Headspace founder and former Buddhist monk Andy Puddicombe, whose British lilt is the perfect antidote to a hectic workday. 2. BuddhifyWhat it Does Buddhify provides guided meditation tracks for 14 different activities, from eating and traveling to walking in the city and even working online. Like a gym membership for your brain, Buddhify is specifically designed for busy people who still want to prioritize the health of their minds.Why I Love It Designed by a data artist, Buddhify is one of the most beautiful (and easy to use) mindfulness apps on the market. I also like the apps solo mode, which lets you take 10 timed guidance-free minutes to yourself to clear your brain and reset.3. GPS for the SoulWhat it Does This app, presented by Huffington Post, bLife, and HeartMath, uses your phones camera lens to measure your stress levels, then invites you to course-correct through music, poetry, breathing exercises, pictures of your loved ones, and more. Why I Love It Anything with Arianna Huffingtons stamp of approval gets my buy-in. In addition, the apps breathing pacer helps regulate your breathing during each meditation, and each guides beautiful, relaxing visuals are a nice companion to the written content- especially for visual thinkers like me. Because its a Huffington Post-sponsored app, GPS for the Soul also includes access to interesting articles on topics like indecision, embracing quiet, remaining in the present, and more.4. HappierWhat it Does More of a social gratitude journal than a pocket yogi, Happier helps you cultivate those little nuggets throughout your day that make you smile and share them with the wider community to spread the love. You can freely share any happy moment and add it to a collection, whether its getting stuff done, being outside, learning new things, meeting awesome people, or any ca tegory you create. Why I Love It Within Happiers social network, you can smile at peoples happy moments in your feed, reshare them to your followers, and glean inspiration from users across the globe. My New Years resolution a few years ago was to write down one thing I was grateful for every day from January 1-December 31, and while I made it through the journey, I would have loved to use an app like Happier to record and share my thoughts. Being held somewhat accountable by the built-in app community might encourage you to keep recognition of happy moments front-of-mind.5. Stop, Breathe ThinkWhat it Does Created by Tools For Peace, a Pasadena-based organization focused on cultivating compassion and kindness primarily in students, this app prompts you to check in with how youre feeling- mentally, physically, and emotionally- then dishes up recommended meditations geared toward your current mindset. Why I Love It You can track your progress through virtual stickers and learn about how meditation works and why its good for you. Plus, the meditation topics to choose from are wide-ranging being present, gratitude, dealing with change, kindness, equanimity, compassion, and more. Positive thinking and an earnest approach to managing modern stress can seriously do wonders for your workday productivity and flow. Give it a go

US Military Active Duty Death Benefits & Entitlements

US Military Active Duty Death Benefits & EntitlementsUS Military Active Duty Death Benefits & EntitlementsFamily members of military personnel who sie while serving on active duty, active duty for training (ADT), or initial duty training (IDT) may be eligible for several federal benefits, privileges or entitlements. When a family is bedrngnisified of the death of an active duty military member, they are assigned to a Casualty Assistance Representative (CAR) whose sole job is to help the family through the process. If the CAR cannot answer your questions, they will refer you to the appropriate military official or government agency, or get the answer for you. The following shows the benefits, privileges, and entitlements for active duty military family survivors. Monetary Benefits Family members of military personnel who die as a direct or indirect result of wartime or peacetime tafelgeschirr are eligible to receive several types of federal benefits. Benefits to a spouse and child ren are paid regardless of economic need, except in the case of a nonservice-connected death pension. Benefits for parents who might otherwise be eligible are not paid if the parents have income in excess of a certain amount each year. Your CAR, the nearest VA or Social Security office will explain the benefits to you, the amounts that can be paid, and help you complete the required claim forms. Death Gratuity The military death gratuity is a lump sum gratuitous payment made by the military to eligible beneficiaries of a member who dies on Active Duty (AD), Active Duty for Training (ADT), or Initial Duty Training (IDT), or full-time National Guard duty. Its purpose is to help the survivors in their readjustment and to aid them in meeting immediate expenses incurred. The death gratuity payment is $12,420 and is non-taxable. For those whose death is as a result of hostile actions and occurred in a designated combat operation or combat zone or while training for combat or performin g hazardous duty, the payment is $100,000. The death gratuity payment is made to survivors of the deceased in this order The members lawful surviving spouse. Payment delivered by the CAR assigned to the reporting or assistance base, within 24 hours of the members death, unless the surviving spouse desires other arrangements.If there is no spouse, to the child or children of the member, regardless of age or marital status, in equal shares (state laws guide payment to minor children). Payment for minor children is made by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS) within 30 days after they have received the required claim form and supporting documentation. If none of the above, to the parents, or brothers and/or sisters, or any combination as designated by the deceased member. Payment delivered by the CAR assigned to the reporting or assistance base, within 24 hours of the members death, unless the NOK desires other arrangements. The death gratuity is not paid to any other pers on when there are no survivors as listed above. A will is not a legal designation for death gratuity since such payment is not an allowance or a debt due to the member and cannot be parte of the members estate. The claim form required to apply for this benefit is DD Form 397, Claim Certification and Voucher for Death Gratuity Payment. Unpaid Pay and Allowances Upon the death of an active duty member, any pay and allowances due, but not paid to the member, are paid to the designated beneficiary named on the members DD Form 93, Record of Emergency Data. Unpaid pay and allowances may include unpaid basic pay, payment for up to 60 days of accrued leave, amounts due for travel, per diem expenses, transportation of eligible family members, shipment of household goods, and unpaid installments of variable reenlistment bonuses. The decedents pay record is completely audited by the Defense Finance and Accounting Service, and a check for any amount due is issued to the designated beneficia ry. When there is no written designation by the member, any money due is paid to the first eligible recipient in the following order The members lawful surviving spouse.If there is no spouse, to the child or children of the member and descendants of deceased children, on their behalf.If none of the above, to the parents of the member in equal shares or the surviving parent.If none of the above, to the duly appointed legal representative of the members estate.If none of the above, to the person(s) determined to be entitled under the laws of the state in which the member welches domiciled. The claim form required to apply for this benefit is Standard Form 1174, Claim for Unpaid Compensation of Deceased Member of the Uniformed Services. Your CAR will help you complete the required claim form. Family Housing Eligible family members occupying government housing on the date the member dies may continue to occupy such housing without charge for a period of 365 days provided members dea th was in the line-of-duty. If they vacate the government housing before the 180 days are up, theBasic Allowance for Housing (BAH), is paid for the remaining unused days. If the family members are not occupying government housing, they may receive BAH or anoverseas housing allowancefor 180 days after the members death. Your CAR will explain this entitlement to you and help you complete the required claim form. Servicemembers Group Life Insurance(SGLI). The SGLI payment is $400,000 unless the member elected a lesser amount or declined coverage in writing. Monthly premium payments for the level of coverage selected by the member are automatically deducted from the members pay. Determination and payment of proceeds are made by the Office of Servicemembers Group Life Insurance under the jurisdiction of the Department of VA. Payment of proceeds to a beneficiaryisexempt from taxation. The inkoranversd member may have designated as principal or contingent beneficiary any person, firm, cor poration or legal entity, including their estate, individually or as a trustee. If the member designated a trust, they indicated the name and date of the trust in the beneficiary block. If the member designated a trust through a Will, they annotated belastung Will and Testament in the beneficiary block. If the member chose not to designate a specific beneficiary but preferred the proceeds be paid in the order of precedence, the member selected the By Law designation. When the By Law designation is used, the proceeds are automatically paid in the following order of precedence The members lawful surviving spouse.If there is no spouse, to the child or children of the member in equal shares, with the share of any deceased child to be distributed among the descendants of that child.If none of the above, to the parents of the member in equal shares or the surviving parent.If none of the above, to the duly appointed executor or administrator of the members estate.If none of the above, to o ther next of kin. The claim form required to apply for this benefit is VA Form SGLV 8283,Claim for Death Benefits. Survivor Benefit Plan (SBP) SBP is a monthly annuity paid by the military to the surviving spouse or, in some cases, eligible children, of a member who dies on active duty. The initial annuity paid to a surviving spouse is equal to 55 percent of the retired pay to which the member would have been entitled based upon years of active service if retired on the date of death (if the member was retirement-eligible). The annuity is reduced by the amount of the monthly DIC payment awarded and paid to the surviving spouse by the Department of VA. When the surviving spouse reaches age 62, the annuity is reduced to 35 percent. The annuity is paid until the spouse dies, but is suspended upon remarriage before age 55. The annuity to a surviving spouse may be reinstated if the subsequent marriage ends in death or divorce. The annuitant must send a certified copy of the divorce d ecree or death certificate to DFAS-DE to reinstate the annuity. If a second SBP benefit resulted from the remarriage, the surviving spouse must elect which of the two SBP benefits to receive. Should the surviving spouse remarry at age 55 or older, the annuitant will continue to receive the monthly annuity. The surviving spouse mustnotify DFAS-DE/FRB, 6760 E. Irvington Place, Denver CO 80279-6000, of any changes in marital status. Detailed information will be provided by your CAR and the DFAS-DE Center. Reserve Component Survivor Benefit Plan(RCSBP) It is a monthly annuity paid by the military to the surviving spouse or, in some cases, eligible children, of a Reserve Component member who dies and has completed the satisfactory years of service that qualified themember for retired payat age 60. The member must have made an election within 90 days of notification of eligibility to participate in the program. Membersofan Active Guard/Reserve 10211 (officer) or 12310 (enlisted) tour , are eligible to participate in the plan. Coverage is not automatic unless the member dies before the 90 day period established by law. The initial annuity paid to a surviving spouse is equal to 55 percent of the retired pay to which the member would have been entitled at age 60, reduced by the Reserve Portion Cost. SBP and RCSBP Factors Should the surviving spouse remarry before age 55, the annuity is paid in equal shares to eligible children under age 18, or under age 22 if a full-time student, unless handicapped. The coverage stops when there are no eligible children. A dependent child may be an adopted child, stepchild, grandchild, foster child, or recognized a natural child who lived with the member in a regular parent-child relationship. A child disabled before age 18, or before age 22 if a full-time student when the disability occurred, is an eligible beneficiary so long as the disability exists and the child remains incapable of self-support. DFAS-DE reinstates a chil ds annuity when a child between the ages of 18 and 22 reenters school on a full-time basis, or a disabling condition recurs making the child incapable of self-support. Marriage at any age terminates a childs eligibility. The monthlyannuityfor children is 55 percent and is not reduced by DIC or when a disabled child attains age 62. Marriage at any age terminates a childs eligibility.? Survivor annuities are taxable income. You will receivea tax statementfrom the Defense Finance and Accounting Service at the end of the year. The statement will show the full amount of the annuity payments you received and the total amount of tax withheld during the year. Unless you elect otherwise, the amount of federal income tax withheld (FITW) will be as if you were a married individual claiming three exemptions. If you want your FITW changed at a later date, you must complete a new TD-Form W-4P, Withholding Certificate for Pension or Annuity Payments, showing the changes, and mail it to DFAS-DE/FRB , 6760 E. Irvington Place, Denver CO 80279-6000. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service withhold a 30 percentFederal income taxon annuities paid to nonresident aliens unless the beneficiary resides in a country that has a tax treaty with the United States specifying a different withholding rate. Address questions to the Internal Revenue Service, Assistant Commissioner (International), ATTN INCTPS, 950 LEnfant Plaza South, SW, Washington DC 20024-2123, or contact the nearest American Embassy. Annuities may be subject to Federal estate taxes. Beneficiaries should address tax questions to a legal assistance officer or the nearest Internal Revenue Service office. A certificate of continued eligibility form will be sent to you each year prior to your birthday. Complete and return the form promptly so the Defense Finance and Accounting Service can continue your annuity without interruption. Read the instructions on the form and make sure you have completed it correctly. Sign and date the form and send it to DFAS-DE/FRB, 6760 E. Irvington Place, Denver CO 80279-6000. Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) Offset The Defense Finance and Accounting Service reduces a surviving spouses annuity by the amount of DIC the VA awards and pays the surviving spouse. The SBP annuity is not reduced by the amount of a childs DIC entitlement. The claim forms required to apply for this benefit are DD Form 2656-4 (this form is not available electronically), TD-Form W-4P,Withholding Certificate for Pension or Annuity Payments, (available from the Post Office or IRS), andSF 1199A,Direct Deposit Sign-Up Form. The Defense Finance and Accounting Service may require additional documents to establish an annuity (i.e., Representative Payee documentation school certification physicians statement for a disabled child over age 18). Dependency and Indemnity Compensation (DIC) The DIC payments may be authorized for surviving spouses who have not remarried, unmarried children under age 18, disabled children, children between the age of 18 and 23 if attending a VA-approved school, and low-income parents of servicemembers who die from A disease or injury incurred or aggravated while on active duty or active duty for training.An injury incurred or aggravated in line of duty whileon inactive duty training.A disability compensable by the Veterans Affairs. DIC paid to a surviving spouse is not based on the members military pay grade. The amount paid fora spousewith one or mora children of the deceased is increased for each child. The amount of the DIC payment for parents vary according to the number of parents, the amount of their individual or combined total annual income, and whether they live together or if remarried, living with a spouse. The surviving spouse and parents who receive DIC may be granted a special allowance for aid and attendance if a patient is ina nursing home, disabled, or blind and needs or requires the regular aid and attendance of another pe rson. If they are not so disabled as to require the regular aid and attendance of another person but who, due to disability, are permanently housebound, they may be granted additional special allowances. DIC payments to a surviving spouse are payable for life, as long as the spouse does not remarry. Should the surviving spouse remarry, payments are terminated for life? Your CAR or the nearest VA office will explain the benefit to you, the amounts that can be paid, and help you complete the required claim forms. The claim form when applying for this benefit isVA Form 21-534,Application for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation or Death Pension Accrued Benefits by Surviving Spouse or Child, orVA Form 21-535,Application for Dependency and Indemnity Compensation by Parent(s). Denial of Claim for DIC If the VA denies your claim for DIC benefits, you may file an appeal with the Board of Veterans Appeals. The appeal must be filed within one year from the date of the notification of a VA decision to file an appeal. The first step in the appeal process is for you to file a written notice of disagreement with the VA regional office that made the decision. It is a written statement that you disagree with the VAs decision. Following receipt of the written notice, the VA will furnish you a Statement of the Case describing what facts, laws, and regulations were used in deciding the case. To complete the request for appeal, you must file a Substantive Appeal within 60 days of the mailing of the Statement of Case, or within one year from the date, the VA mailed its decision, whichever period ends later. Your CAR or the nearest VA office will help you file a written notice of disagreement with the VARO (Veteran Affairs Regional Office) that made the decision. Nonservice-Connected Death Pension If the VARO determines that you are not eligible for DIC, you may be eligible to apply for a nonservice-connected death pension. Surviving spouses and unmarried children under age 18, age 23 if attending a VA-approved school, of deceased members with wartime service may be eligible for this pension if they meet income limitations prescribed by law. Qualifying children who become incapable of self-support because of a disability before age 18 may be eligible for a pension as long as the condition exists unless the child marries or the childs income exceeds the income limit. The rate of the pension depends on the amount of income the surviving spouse or child receives from other sources. A pension is not payable to those whose estates are so large that it is reasonable to assume the estate will maintain them financially. Eligible survivors should make application through the local VA office. The VA will determine your eligibility. Montgomery GI Bill Death Benefit The VA will pay a special Montgomery GI Bill death benefit to a designated survivor in the event of the service-connected death of an individual while on active duty. The deceased must either have been entitled to educational assistance under theMontgomery GI Bill program, or a participant in the program who would have been so entitled but for the high school diploma or length of service requirement. The amount paid will be equal to the deceased members actual military pay reduction less anyeducational benefitspaid. If you are eligible to receive the death benefit, submit a letter, along with proof of relationship and a copy of theDD Form 1300,Report of Casualty, to the appropriate VA Regional Office. The death benefit is made in by-law fashion to the spouse, children, and parents, and will not be paid to anyone else in the by-law chain. Your CAR or the nearest VA office can help you apply for a refund of contributions. Social Security Payments Social Security monthly benefits are paid to a spouse or a divorced spouse, age 60 or over a spouse or divorced spouse regardless of age with children of the decedent under age 16 or disabled in their care and meeting social security requirements. A divorced spouse must have been married to the service member at least 10 years. Monthly payments are also paid to children until age 18 or 19 if a full-time student at a primary or secondary school, or age 18 or older and disabled before age 18. Spouses waiting until age 65 to apply for Social Security receive maximum benefits. However, they can receive reduced Social Security payments between ages 60 and 65. Dependent parents are eligible for benefits at age 62 if they were more than 50 percent dependent on the deceased service member for their support. The amount paid can only be determined by the Social Security Administration, which has a record of the wages earned by the member during the period of both military and civilian employment under theSocial Security Program. To receive this benefit, eligible survivors should make application to the nearest Social Security office. They will explain the benefit, determine your eligibility, the amounts that can be paid, and help you complete the required claim forms. You should apply early, as the law generally permits retroactive payments of 12 months. Social Security Lump Sum Death Payment The Social Security Administration pays a lump-sum death payment, up to $255, to the surviving spouse living with the member at the time of death. Separation because ofmilitary service, is considered living together. If there is no surviving spouse, it is paid to the oldest child who was eligible for or entitled to Social Security benefits for the month of death, based upon the deceased members earnings. No other survivors are entitled to this benefit. This benefit is paid regardless if burial, funeral, or memorial benefits were paid by the military. To receive this benefit, eligible survivors must make application to the nearest Social Security office. They will explain the benefit, determine your eligibility, the amount that can be paid, and help you complete the required claim forms.

What to do after Applying for a Job Online

What to do after Applying for a Job OnlineWhat to do after Applying for a Job OnlineAfter you press Submit on Ladders site, your resume is on its way, but youre not done yet. There are steps you must take to improve the odds your application will result in a job.

Life, Death and Resume

Life, Death and Resume What You Can Do About Resume Beginning in the Next 15 Minutes Read below for more comprehensive info on the length of time your resume should be, and strategies for making your resume the ideal length. Resume writing for women that are stay at home moms and are seeking to re-enter the workforce may be a tricky thing. One of the primary benefits of using templates that are found on the internet to compose your resume is the simple fact you will save a great deal of time which you would have used to compose a resume. Understanding how to tailor your resume will obviously provide you an advantage. What You Should Do to Find Out About Resume Before Youre Left Behind Job seekers deserve to discover decent content quickly. In the same way, youll find out that the recruiters prepare the work description also. You will need to spell out the job and youll have to make sure the work seeker is ready to understand about the job. You could also incorporate the jo b and be ready to answer any questions the employer has. Bear in mind, your CV is meant to let prospective employers find out about you in the hope they will give you a job, therefore its in your interest to ensure it is effortless to comprehend So far as the insurance policy field is concerned, you have to determine the work description regarding the job. As a result, if youd like to receive a well paid job, specialize on a skill and set yourself aside from the other applicants and youll get the job. The job posting will inform you precisely what you want to understand about just what the employer is interested in hearing about. A Secret Weapon for Resume Make certain you are conversant with Legal management and database software indicated in the work post. Unfortunately, theres no ideal ATS program. Consider your network a personal asset that you have to cultivate. If you wish to seek out a brand-new job, the web is a superb useful resource. Getting the Best Resume At fir st youll need to compose the objective. Similarly youll also discover that insurance resume objective is only an example. Infographic resumes seem nice, but you also have to be concerned about applicant tracking system program. So resume objectives will differ depending on the sector in which you are searching for employment. The move is likely to make the tradition of commercial whaling legal again as soon as the hunting season kicks off in July. So long as youre truthful in your resume and optimize it accordingly, youll have the ideal possibility of landing the career of your selection. Your aim is to advance to the next step in the work search procedure, which is generally the interview If you applied for work on any type of on-line form, it is likely that it is submitted through an ATS. The very first paragraph must contain the reason youre writing for. Throughout the interview session, you can tell the employer that youre motivated with the job provide, no matter how th e employer may not have the capacity to see by way of your action if you dont bildschirm it. If youre writing a letter following your job interview, it can permit the employer know that youre interested in working for the company, and in the flip side, if youve taken the choice to reject the job, sending a work rejection letter it is likewise a polite form to allow the employers know about your choice. Resume Secrets You might also compose a two-page resume if youre in a field that demands technical skills. You also ought to chat about past experience. As a result, if you would like to find the well paid jobs, you should specialize at a specific skill associated with your field of competence. Be explicit and bring arguments to sustain the thought that your qualifications really meet up with the job requirements. Make certain that you do not fall short of their qualifications. Education and Schooling Its quite important to chat about your educational qualifications. Review th e work description and attempt to specify which qualifications appear to bring the most value to the position. Choosing Good Resume If you want, I can supply you with current samples of my work. Just because youve got a three-page resume does not signify you have to incorporate all 3 pages of every work application. Your priority must be to continue to keep your resume clear and simple to read. Resume - What Is It? The sections of a CV may incorporate the following, although a lot of sections can be moved up or down based on what information is relevant for the particular job. There are dozens and dozens of sites where it is possible to post your resume online and complete an on-line job application. List out your customers whove been affected and obtain their claims information. Ultimately, consider if theres any info youve included that is irrelevant or unnecessary.

10 Career Blogs for the Millennial Set

10 Career Blogs for the Millennial Set Welcome to Top 10, Recruiter.coms weekly rundown of the bestof the best in recruiting Every Friday, we release a list of some of our favorite people, things, and ideas dominating the industry. From awesome tech tools and cool companies to great books and powerful trends, no stone in the recruiting space will be left unturned.This WeekTop 10 Millennial Career BloggersOriginally, this welches going to be a list of bloggers who were millennials and who wrote about career issues. Then, we realized that was kind of a dumb idea. What, Gen. Y is so self-involved that its members can only learn from otzu sich millennials? No way there are plenty of non-millennial bloggers out there who offer valuable career advice to Gen. Y.What follows, then, is a list of bloggers some millennials, some Gen. X-ers, maybe even some boomers? We didnt exactly go out and verify everyones birthdate, because that would be creepy whom millen nials should turn to when they need some career guidance.1. Jenny BlakeWhere you can read her Life After CollegeWhy you should read her As the sites title would suggest, Blakes Life After College is all about helping recent grads make the transition from student to professional. As an author, speaker, and career coach, Blakes self-described goal is to help people ditch the rigidity of yesterdays career ladder and treat their careers (and lives) as dynamic as the constantly customizable apps on a smart phone. In posts like Frustrated trying to figure out your life purpose? Try this one and the Magnetic Personal Projects series, Blake definitely succeeds in her endeavor.Shout-out to Lisa Lewis, founder of So Much More Career Coaching, for putting Blake on our radar.2. Kayla KozanWhere you can read her Kozans work has appeared in numerous places around the Web, but shes most easily found on the Ideal Candidate blog (she serves as Ideal Candidates marketing coordinator).Why you should r ead her Kozans post, Why Millennials Make Incredible Salespeople, landed on a couple best-blog-posts-of-the-year lists in 2015, and we can totally see why. This-data driven piece is a great illustration of what you can expect from Kozan an analytical mindset, an emphasis on facts instead of baseless musing, and well-supported arguments that youd be hard-pressed to refute.3. J. Maureen HendersonWhere you can read her Generation MehWhy you should read her Its so hard to find a career advice blog thats actually enjoyable to read in and of itself. No matter how good the insights are, most career blogs remind me of the well-meaning lectures my father would deliver when I was in high school. Sure, it turns out he was right about a lot, but I probably would have started taking his advice a lot sooner if he werent such a snoozefest.Generation Meh is the rare career blog that is a genuine pleasure to read. Hendersons posts often sound more like the kind of thing youd find in a lit mag than t he kind of thing youd find on ERE (This time last year, give or take a couple of days, I was hand-washing underwear in the bathroom sink of a Motel 6 next to the Dallas Fort Worth airport, a recent post begins). Hendersons unconventional insights serve as necessary counters to the generic career advice that litters the Web. You werent ready to be who you are today five years ago. Those years were an investment, not a write-off. Enjoy the ROI. Skip the guilt,she writes in one post. Where else are you going to find such a clear-eyed take on career paths?4. Ramit SethiWhere you can read him I Will Teach You to Be RichWhy you should read him Ramit Sethi is going to show you how to be rich. He says so right there in the title of his website (and his bestselling book). Thats not just big talk, though. Sethis blog is full of no-nonsense, highly practical advice about how to advance in your career and manage your money smartly. If youre looking to keep your wallet fat and your bank account full, do yourself a favor and start reading Sethis blog.Shout-out to Allen Walton at SpyGuy Security for putting Sethi on our radar.5. Nir EyalWhere you can read him Nir and FarWhy you should read him Eyals blog is all about behavior engineering, which Eyal describes as the applied science of psychology to design practical solutions to peoples problems.So, what sort of things can you expect from Nir and Far? A quick survey of the front page reveals posts on building a zen desktop, the intersection of humans and artificial intelligence, and why threatening to burn $100 bills is a good way to motivate yourself.If that doesnt make you want to check out Eyals blog, I dont know what will6. Ben CasnochaWhere you can read him Casnocha.comWhy you should read him If you want to follow an entrepreneurial path, rather than a traditional full-time employment path, then Casnochas blog is the blog for you. bedrngnis only does Casnocha have a wealth of knowledge on the ins and outs of starting an d running a successful business, but he also has a lot to say about the overall entrepreneurial lifestyle. For example, hes written about the loneliness that often comes with entrepreneurship and why outsiders are in the best position to innovate.7. Michelle WardWhere you can read her When I Grow UpWhy you should read her Ward is a career coach who helps creative women find careers that are not only financially rewarding, but fulfilling and meaningful, too. Shes all about recovering the magic you felt as a child, before the grown-up world smacked you in the face and told you that following your dreams was a bad idea. But that doesnt mean youre going to find any platitudes or wishful thinking on Wards blog. Instead, what you will find is realistic advice about how to actually make your dream career into a reality.My favorite thing about Wards blog is the client case studies series, where Ward explores the very real paths that very real women have taken to leaving soul-sucking jobs a nd traveling the world and launching creative, grown-up businesses and simply doing work that fits their lifestyle goals. Dont think your dream career is attainable? Read these case studies first.8. Kirk BaumannWhere you can read him universittsgelnde to CareerWhy you should read him Much like Life After College, Baumanns Campus to Career focuses largely on the transition from dorm room to office space. Baumann is an excellent and insightful blogger in his own right, but what I really love about Campus to Career is that Baumann has made plenty of room for guest contributors to join the conversation. This makes it so that the Campus to Career blog contains a host of different perspectives on forging a career after college. Career advice is never a one-size-fits-all matter, and the feed of distinct points of view cultivated by Baumann has a little something for everyone.9. Derek SallWhere you can read him Life and My FinancesWhy you should read him If youre a millennial, theres a good chance youre shouldering quite a bit of debt (thanks student loans). Want to get out from under that debt as soon as possible? Sall is your man.Check this out Sall paid off an $18,000 debt in 14 months. When another crisis hit, he paid over a $21,000 debt in six months. He also paid off his mortgage in a scant 12 months.What Im saying is Sall clearly knows how to master debt. Hes not wallowing in it so why should you? Pick up some valuable tips and tricks from this guy ASAP.10. Laurie RuettimannWhere you can read her LaurieRuettiman.comWhy you should read her If you havent heard of Ruettimann already, theres no time like the present to start following her smart and witty blog. One minute, shes musing on her work-life-cat balance problems, and the next shes teaching you how to be vulnerable at work.Ruettimans blog is fun, flippant (in a good way), and packed with vital insights. She used to run a site called Punk Rock HR, and though the site is no more, thats still, in my opinion, the best way to describe Ruettimann to the uninitiated.mc_embed_signupbackgroundfff clearleft font14px Helvetica,Arial,sans-serif /* Add your own MailChimp form style overrides in your site stylesheet or in this style block. 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What Happens When a Company Files Chapter 11 Bankruptcy

What Happens When a Company Files Chapter 11 BankruptcyWhat Happens When a Company Files Chapter 11 BankruptcyJust the mention of Chapter 11 strikes terror in the hearts of creditors, vendors and employers alike. Yes, it is a serious action for a company to take and it can have serious consequences for the workforce. All does notlage necessarily spell doom, however. Chapter 11 is a type of bankruptcy that many people have heard of but few know much about. Most likely, youve heard about a major corporation like General Motors or Macys filing, but its not just the big players that file. Small business and sometimes even individuals file also. Chapter 11 is most often used by a business to reorganize its debt under the protection of the bankruptcy court. For many large (and small) employers, it provides a way to protect the business and the companys assets while it negotiates new terms with its creditors. For some Chapter 11 debtors (thats what we call the person or the company that fil es a bankruptcy case), a Chapter 11 case is a way to positionthe company to be sold or to sell assets or to conduct an orderly liquidation. Some Chapter 11 cases are highly successful (think General Motors and Chrysler), while others arenot (Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual).In 2013, almost 9,000 Chapter 11 cases were filed in the bankruptcy courts. By 2016 that number had dropped to just over 7,000. When a company files Chapter 11, the workforce is understandably nervous. Many are battle-weary survivors of numerous layoffs, purges, and mergers.This article explores some of the ways thatChapter 11 affectsthat workforce, and what you need to know when your company joins the ranks. Your rights as an employee differ depending on whether your company filed a Chapter 7 liquidation case or a Chapter 11 reorganization case. Unfortunately for many employees, cases that start off as reorganizations often convert to Chapter 7 and end up going out of business. Job Status When a company f iles Chapter 7, it ceases doing business, but a company that files Chapter 11 usually intends to continue in business while it negotiates with its creditors to reorganize its debt. It does so under the protection of the bankruptcy court, meaning that many of its actions have to be approved by a bankruptcy judge, and creditors also have to seek court approval before they can take any action against the company. Having a need to reorganize debt usually means that the companysincome is low and its expenses are high. The expenses associated with aworkforce, including wages, pensions and other benefits, usually represent the companys highest single expense category,and it is not unusual for creditors to demand that management take action to reduce labor costs. Therefore, layoffs during a Chapter 11 cases are not unusual. Layoffs and job actions must mucksmuschenstill adhere to federal and state statutes and regulations. In fact, some companies that perceive their collective bargaining a greements to be unworkable will file a Chapter 11 case. Provisions in the bankruptcy laws allow companies to reject or renegotiate union contracts under certain circumstances. mora below. Worker Adjustment and Retraining Notification (WARN)Act TheWARN Act requires that certain employers provide affected employees 60 days notice of any mass layoff or shutdown.In general, to qualify employers must have 100 or more full-time employees and at least 50 of the employees are affected. The WARN Act applieseven if the business has filed a Chapter 11 case. But, like virtually all federal statutes, there are exceptions. If your company is subject to the WARN Act, and you did not receive60 days notice of a layoff or shutdown, you may be entitled to compensation for your wages and benefits for those 60 days despite the bankruptcy filing. Wages If the company owes you any wages when it files Chapter 11bankruptcy, as long as you continue in the companys employ, your paychecks should not be interrupted. The company will seek permission from the court to continue paying its employees as long as it continues doing business. If, however, you are laid off when the case is filed or lost your job before it was filed, and you are owed wages or benefits, youve become a creditor of a Chapter 11 debtor. As a creditor, you join the ranks of vendors, trade creditors, secured creditors and even bondholders. It may be some time before you are paid what you are owed. There is also no guarantee that you will bepaid everything you are owed. In a Chapter 11 case, creditors claims are assigned different levels of importance depending on the nature of the debt.Most employee wages are consideredpriority claims and will be paid before many other ordinary debts. This priority status applies to wages that wereearned within 180 days before the case was filed and is limitedto a total of$12,850(as of April 2016 this amount is due to increase in 2019). Wages will include hourly wages, salary, c ommissions, vacation pay, severance, and sick leave pay. Any wageamountsabove the priority limit or that dateback further than 180 days can still be claimed, but they will be treated the same as other general unsecured claims. If you are laid off during the case, most likely the bankruptcy court will order that any wages or benefits youre owed be paid promptly. If that does not happen, your unpaid wages and benefits will likely be consideredan administrative claim, which has a higher status than even priority claims. Collective Bargaining Agreements Union contracts, or collective bargaining agreements, are not safe in Chapter 11 bankruptcy. In fact, some companies have filed Chapter 11 cases with the express intention of using the bankruptcy laws to seek negotiation of new terms even though the unioncontract has not expired. When such a contract becomes burdensome to thedebtor company, the bankruptcy laws allow the debtor company to reject the contract.Rejecting the contract can have a positive effect on the companys ability to reorganize, but it will carry significant consequences, just as it would if it breached the contract outside of bankruptcy. In order to bring about the best possible outcome for the company, the debtor will often seek concessions and modifications from the unionizedworkforce. If the companys financial predicament is severe, a failure to come to terms with its unions can spell disaster for the debtor and lead to the necessity of converting the case to Chapter 7 and liquidation. Independent Contractors If you are an independent contractor earning sale commissions from the bankrupt company, you may also file a priority claimfor unpaid commission that you earned prior to the filing of the case,if during the twelve (12) months before the company ceased doing business you earned at least 75% of your commission income from the debtor. If you are not paid for work you agreed to do after Chapter 11 was filed, yours should be classified a s an administrative claim. Proof of Claim Regardless of whether you have a priority claim, an administrative claim or a general unsecured claim,In order to be paid your claim, you must file a document called a Proof of Claim, supported by any documents that would show how much you believe youre owed. Learn more about the procedure by clicking on Filling Out a Proof of Claim Form. You should also file a proof of claim for any unpaid health insurance claims or unreimbursed expenses that you can document. These will be treated as general unsecured claims. Filing for Unemployment Your right to file for unemployment continues, even if you lose your job due to your companys bankruptcy. Health and Pension Benefits Although it is not guaranteed to happen, your health and pension benefit plans could beeliminated. But, any pension benefits youve earned to that point should be safe.Most of these plans are governed by ERISA (the Employee Retirement Income Security Act), and each pla ns Summary Plan Description should provide information about what will happen to the pension assets and health benefits. Pension In general, ERISA requires that pension benefits be maintainedseparate from the companys other assets, either held in trust or invested in an insurance contract. ERISA requires that any earned pension benefits be vested 100% if the company is liquidated. Many traditionalpension benefits are also insured by the Federal Government. In a Chapter 11 case, the debtor company can ask the bankruptcy court for permission to terminate or modify your pension plan. If your plan is fully funded, your former employer will use the plan assets to purchase an annuity to pay your benefits. If your pension plan is terminated as a part of the bankruptcy or by the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation (PBGC), the PBGC will take over the plans assets and liabilities and will pay your benefits, subject to certain dollar limits. 401(k) If you have a401(k) plan, the money in those accounts cannot be used by the company to pay the companys creditors,but the company is not obligated to provide any future contributions or matching funds. If your 401(k) is invested in your companys stock, it may be wise to consider whether the stock price has taken a hit but is likely to recover, orwhether its time to diversity if you can. Health Coverage If the employer discontinues all its health plans, you will not be able to continue your coverage under COBRA. You may, however, be able to convert to or purchasean individual policy, orjoin your spouses policy. If you are receiving health benefits as a retiree or your benefits are the result of a collective bargaining agreement, you may be subject to special bankruptcyrules.Your first stop will be to contact the administrator of each plan or your union representative. Updated by Carron Nicks April 2017.

When Robots Interact with Humans

When Robots Interact with Humans When Robots Interact with Humans In the old days humans directed robots. Today, however, robots can direct humans on the production line, boosting production by as much as 900%.The key to these impressive gains is reducing set-up time, especially for new products and small-batch production, which often require a disproportionate amount of time for setting up automated assembly tasks.Set-up for assembly automation involves assembly planning, fixture tool selection and positioning, and part loading. Even in highly automated manufacturing systems, setting these up is typically expensive and time-consuming, with skilled operators performing laborious manual tasks.Now a research team at the Robotics Institute at Carnegie Mellon University in Pittsburgh and the Department of Mechanical and Manufacturing Engineering at Aalborg University in Denmark has designed and implemented an automation tool that radically reduces this time.Using augmented reality, our a utomation tool provides the robot with the ability to provide a human operator with precise and convenient instructions, while at the saatkorn time allowing the robot to read information supplied by the human operators actions, says principal systems scientist David Bourne of the Robotics Institute. In this way, a complex set-up task can be collaboratively executed, while allowing both the robot and the human to do what each does best.Human-Robot InteractionThe demand for customer product diversity, along with shorter product life-cycles, has led to an increased focus on bringing the skills of human operators (flexibility, adaptability) together with the skills of robots (efficiency, repeatability, speed). This emerging area of hybrid manufacturing systems has especially focused on human-robot interaction (HRI) and collaboration.The robotic hardware consists of a six-axis robotic arm equipped with an electric gripper. reputation Carnegie Mellon UniversityEveryone knows robots handle parts, says Bourne. But in small-batch runs we actually have the robots setting up the process. So many objects have to be grasped, even though they are easy for people to pick up, they must be distributions-mixd in a very specific place and position for the robots to grip them. Augmented reality allows the robots to show the operator where to put parts and fixtures, with the positions outlined in laser light.The robot must have the ability to understand and respond to environmental cues in the workspace. By reading the environment and human intent by means of active vision, the robot can send information to the human through augmented reality (a real-time view of the local work environment that is enhanced by computer-generated sensory input).The automation tool that Bourne and colleague Dan Gadensgaard developed both displays and sees visual information by augmenting reality with complex laser displays and, at the same time, capturing these visual images. Our system allows laser displays to be registered in the real world so that the projective displays can provide precise pointing data as well as embedded information, says Bourne.The augmented reality tool is composed of a small laser-projector and a smartphone with a camera in a special fixture. Image Carnegie Mellon UniversityThe robotic hardware consists of a six-axis robotic arm equipped with an electric gripper and a steel table as a foundation for varied configurations of fixtures, sensors, and tools. Two identical augmented reality tools (smartphone, laser-based projector-camera system, and special fixture mount) are mounted at two different locations.The smartphone requires several special features, including programmable graphics, video output, wireless connectivity, and a camera with wireless video streaming, says Bourne. The projector needs to be laser-based so that it is focus-free and only directly illuminates the graphics. The smartphone in turn streams data to a high-end PC suitable for doin g real time computer vision and robot control.The projector-camera system displays information directly onto objects in an unconstrained environment. Integrating this kind of functionality into a robotic work cell has the advantage that the operator is able to maintain focus on the working environment while receiving information and instructions visually.Future PossibilitiesBourne tested out his automation tool by making a space frame for a U.S. Department of Defense vehicle. Normally it takes 89 hours to weld the space frame together using one graduate student and the automation tool, Bourne was able weld the space frame in only 10 hours.This is a huge savings in time, says Bourne. Now, for example, the military has the capability to make a customized vehicle in about a tenth of the time.Continued miniaturization of the key components in Bournes automation tool, especially the full-color laser projection, wireless computing, and video streaming, will expand the range of augmented r eality tasks that can be accomplished. Adding these functions to automated robotic systems will enhance the ways humans and robots can collaborate on complex tasks without requiring excessive programming. This is especially important in manufacturing, where the time to set up machines is a major cost factor production, especially for smaller and smaller batches of products with shorter life-cycles.Perhaps the biggest surprise for Bourne was how excited his graduate student was with the results.He was incredibly happy, says Bourne. He had a big smile on his face. Thats when I realized that this technology can make people happy. More contentment in the workplace translates into higher productivity and lower turnover.Mark Crawford is an independent writer.Using augmented reality, robots can direct humans to set up the production line, boosting efficiency by as much as 900 percent.David Bourne, principal systems scientist, Robotics Institute, Carnegie Mellon University

A Females Perspective of Air Force Basic Training

A Females Perspective of Air Force Basic TrainingA Females Perspective of Air Force Basic TrainingWe arrived in the early afternoon at the Military Reception Center at the San Antonio Airport. But therbeie welches no Training Instructor (TI) or any military personnel ready to greet us. The next bus to Lackland AFB welches elend coming until 1700. I was one of the first few people to sit in the pewsand made small talk with the others as mora people started to arrive. The bus showed up an hour late, with a civilian driving a commercial bus.We all were getting a little nervous as we came closer to Lackland. All of us were expecting TIs to suddenly swobere extremitt around us the second we arrived and start screaming in our faces about how stupid we were and how dumb we looked. But that didnt happen. When we finally reached the base, a Non-Commissioned Offcer (NCO) stepped onto the bus, calmly told us to grab our bags and get off. There were a couple more outside who rushed us into a tr ainee processing building - leise no screaming. We all filed into a room and sat down at little desks. Another NCO proceeded to brief us, then we filled out a bunch of papers for in-processing. One of the things they told us to write down was 331 TRS - thats when I found out my assigned training squadron. I forgot what I heard about it, though, so I wasnt koranvers of what to expect. There weresome males from the 319 TRS doing details (the 319th is where med holds and discharges go), and a couple of them were outside with us after we completed the paperwork and fell out into the formation. We were then bused over to our squadron, located all by itself, as opposed to Hotel Row, where 4 TRS is located, and right next to the little kusine Exchange (BX) with the Burger King - which was forbidden. We were herded upstairs to the dorm on the second floor and were told to stand next to a wall leger. Each locker had a corresponding bed, so locker 12 was paired with bed 12. We locked up o ur valuables in our security drawer. There were several females who were already sleeping. We took showers and got ready for bed, and the lights went out. At 0445 the OJT dorm guards woke us up. These were trainees or airmen who performed dorm guard duties, keeping us in line and telling us what to do during the night hours until we learned to do dorm guard ourselves. But it was not that badeanstalt - one of them just turned the lights on and told us to wake up. But not all mornings were like that. And it was that day - our first actual day - that the screaming, shock and terror began. Our TIs let the games begin. A New Reality Most of us started using the supplies we brought with us after the first couple of weeks. But we were told we needed to buy items like toothpaste, a toothbrush, body wash, and deodorant again. On our first BX run, they told us everything had to be the same - one of our TIs even said they favored the small travel-sized shampoo and certain razors. Theyr e always messing with you. Different TIs give you different instructions, so everything conflicts and gets frustrating. Your civilian luggage will be locked up in a closet in the dorm, so make sure you take everything out immediately that you need. You wont be able to get into it again until right before graduation. In the beginning, the TIs will try to rip your flight aparte and ground it into the dirt. They will try to pit everybody against everybody so that its impossible to be a team. Thats when you have to unite and create the determination and resolve you are going to so desperately need for training. They are set on breaking you all down - its up to you and your flight to build yourselves back up. One of the TIs favorite things to do is threaten. Youre recycled You better be packing your bags tonight Hell will freeze over before I see you graduate And they seem very serious. They might go so far as to have a trainee pack his bags and head out before they compassionately deci de to keep him or her in the flight. But their threats create a lot of frightening moments during BMT. The 341 Air Education and Training Command (AETC) Form 341 is referred to as simply a 341 (three forty-one) in basic. These little slips of paper have your name, rank, roster number, flight and TRS written on them. They record excellence on your part or discipline administered, and for what reason. It is rare that a TI will take one from you for display of excellence. Ninety-nine percent of the time, a TI will take one from you for doing something wrong, such as failing to salute an officer, executing an improper facing movement, incorrect reporting anschauung or loss of military bearing. They are folded into fourths lengthwise, and three must be kept in your left cargo pant pocket at all times. If you are Reserve or Guard, a copy of your orders must be kept there also. When you earn your Airmans Coin, that too will be distributions-mixd into that pocket. Anyone can take a 341 from you - even some civilians are granted authority to do so. They are returned to your TI usually by the end of the same day or sometime soon after. The only time a 341 counts is if your TI has you sign it. I had one pulled during the entire time, along with several other females. One of the Blue Ropes had us stocking coolers with Gatorade for the Warrior Cnachhallenge event. These Gatorade in those boxes are new, but the ones in the closet are the old ones. But you only want to use these over here, and one of this one and one of that box, he told us. We were all so confused that we didnt really know what to do. He left, and we opened up two extra boxes. He ripped us for that and pulled a 341 from each of us. He asked each of us to explain, and before we even got done with our reporting statement, he interrupted us. No. Whatever. Next. So we didnt even get a chance. Thankfully, none of us had to sign the 341s. The Daily Grind Zero week - or the first days of basic training - by far, is the worst week of basic military training (BMT). You cant do anything right. I broke down the third night and during several nights after. I hated it with a passion and was hoping I had some disease or something that would get me discharged. There are tons of in-processing and appointments you need to attend. Luckily, my flight uniforms were issued the second day, so I didnt have to wear civilians long. Your personal hygiene items are kept in your security drawer in a specific order and arrangement. Your security drawer also holds your valuables and anything else like letters, stationary, appointment slips - whatever else you may need. You have two keys to your drawer, and wear them around your neck just about every moment in BMT. They should always be tucked into your shirt, otherwise you can get into trouble. You have the right to brush your teeth every morning and night, and to take a shower every night. At Warrior Week, a lot of us showered once - or never - becau se it was so cold. There was always enough time, but the prospect of freezing made us hesitant. Its hard to eat at first with all the TIs rushing you and in your face in the chow hall. Theres even an entire set of procedures to follow in the chow hall, which we had been briefed on the night before. Of course we couldnt remember everything, and of course, you cant really do facing movements right yet, so theyll get you for that in the chow hall. As you progress through training, they have you do facing, flanking and saluting in the chow hall for practice purposes. Attention to detail is stressed. There are so many papers and rosters to sign. If you put punctuation, write illegibly or screw up because you didnt do it exactly the way the TIs said to, then you get reamed. Of course, there was always at least one screw up every time. And there are so many briefings - how to maintain your wall locker, how to make your bed, how to use reporting statements, facing movements and marching. W ithin the first few nights, the TIs will pick a dorm chief to be in charge of the entire flight and four element leaders - one for each row of beds. They said they usually select these student leaders by who stands out. Or they may pick someone out of the blue. It all depends on your TIs. Student leaders have tough jobs that demand a lot of accountability and responsibility. For example, if someone in the flight screws up something, the dorm chief may have to pay for the mistake. If someone does not have their reporting procedures straight, their element leader will get busted. And sometimes the TIs would make the screw-up drop their leader, and that would make it all that much harder on both of them. You are always carrying around your canteen with your TRS and bed number, and that wonderful black portfolio with a pen, notebook and BMTSG (Basic Military Training Study Guide) so that you can study at every possible moment - outside chow, appointments, in the dayroom. Pretty soon y ou are going to have to know your entire chain of command, from the president to your dorm chief, their rank insignia and pay grade. Learn them left to right, the right to left, diagonally and every which way, because you will be drilled on it - especially at the snake pit where all the TIs sit in the chow hall. Learn it, and know your stuff backwards and forwards. Assignments We actually did not do details or dorm guard (which Ill explain later) until the first week of training. Everybody was assigned details during an evening briefing (after chow, a time when you all get into the dayroom and go over stuff with your TI - its usually pretty informal, like an end-of-the-day thing. They would ask who has confidence. People would raise their hands and he would select a dorm guard monitor - an extremely tough job, particularly during the first couple of weeks. Or who sighted a rifle, leading to the bed and shoe aligners assignments. They ask questions like that so they can put th e fruchtwein capable people in each position. If you allren them off, or just because they want to, they can assign you to any detail. The worst ones are road guard and chow runner. In the beginning, our TI picked those out because they kept messing up or just ticked him off. And if you dont raise your hand and volunteer, you will get some of the worst details. I tried to stay in the background and was one of the belastung ones to get picked for something. I was put on latrine crew - which was nasty - but not all that bad. And for each detail, a chief is chosen to head up the rest of the crew, like latrine queen, bed aligner chief, utility room chief. They are usually the ones to get reamed when something isnt right with their detail, so they dont fail to get on their crews to have their stuff done right. Dorm guard is a big thing at basic. Its an entire set of procedures designed to be followed for the security of the dormitory occupants and their possessions, fire prevention and conservation of utilities. Everybody does it. There are two-hour shifts, and during the night hours, two people take each shift. Theres a certain way to authorize entrances and announce entrances and exits into and out of the dorm. There are hourly checks to be done and specific steps to follow in a fire, gas or bomb drill. This is what gets a lot of people in trouble. And if you allow an unauthorized entry in your fourth week or beyond, you will be automatically recycled. The safety of the flight is extremely important. OJTers and TIs will conduct briefings early in training to show you how dorm guard is done. They love you to trick you and make you lose your military bearing when you are on dorm guard, so watch out and be careful. Laundry and Dry Cleaning Your TIs will lso aassign a laundry crew. This crew is responsible for collecting and handing out laundry. Hanging on your end-of-bed display is a green drawstring laundry bag with a zipper opening at one end. Inside are th ree white plastic bags with twist ties and four white zippered mesh bags. The plastic bags are for wet laundry like towels and wet battle dress uniforms (BDUs) if you fell in the water at the confidence course. The mesh bags are for your underclothes. Black wool and cotton socks and other dark items go together, and white bras, underwear and like-colored clothing are placed in another bag. Keep them separate if you dont want your whites appearing strange brown and gray colors. Laundry crew will periodically collect and return all laundry items, but dont be too surprised if stuff turns up missing. Its just a matter of fact with laundry at basic. The washing/drying machines at basic are junk. You get your clothing back and it looks just about the same, perhaps a bit better. At least it smells a little better. BDUs and blues are always dry cleaned. Theres a dry cleaner located on the bottom floor of every squadron. But that comes at a cost. I still actually have all my receipts. They tell you in the beginning, to wear your BDUs (and later on your blues) for no more than two consecutive days. Of course, we followed the rules tightly in the beginning. But as you progress, you learn the tricks of the trade. Theres no way we were spending so much money on dry cleaning if we did not have to. Some of us wore our BDUs for almost two weeks. That may sound pretty gross, but hey, its basic training. You get used to nasty things. As for our blues, we wouldnt exactly dry clean them every second time. Instead, most of us would simply iron whatever we needed the next day. By the way, at first, you have your night display with a BDU set on the hanger hanging on the front of the wall locker. By the end, you will start hanging the BDUs as a day display, too, because you will have your blues on night display. Dust Drills Early on your flight will learn how to conduct dust drills. Its pretty much dusting your dorm top to bottom with your hands, and on your hands and knees. On e of your flight members will yell out the commands, and the rest of the flight will echo the command as they do it. Echoing is something you learn to do really well and really often in BMT. During dust drills you will hear commands like Top of your wall locker, Windowsill, The side of your wall locker, Top baseboard, Bottom baseboard, Between the wall lockers, Chair, In front of your wall locker, End posts, Between your bed and your neighbors bed, Beneath your bed and your neighbors bed until Center aisle, center tile Prepare for the first sweep Then the sweeper comes down to collect all the dust and dirt and junk. I seriously dont know where all the huge dust bunnies come from throughout the day and night in San Antonio. They probably rig the dorms so theyre harder to clean. Then its off for a second exciting dust drill. Lockers Your wall locker is kept a very specific way. We had things we did to make our delightful stay in BMT a little bit easier. The left side of the wall l ocker holds your BDUs, field jacket and PC clothes among other things. We learned to keep two sets of BDUs untouched in our wall lockers. They would be dry cleaned, then wed clip all the strings, remove the dry cleaning stickers and place the uniform properly on a tafelgeschirrable hanger. That way we wouldnt have to mess with them anymore and theyd always be ready for inspection. Your clothing drawer has towels, underwear, bras, pantyhose, brown t-shirts and socks. Everything must show signs of use (except the pantyhose), so use them as little as possible - preferably once if you can. Then wash, properly fold and place the item in your drawer so you can leave it like that for inspections. Some people in other flights told us they actually used and folded everything in their drawers all the time, but we saw it as a waste of time. Correctly folding, tweaking, grounding and making flush towels and brown t-shirts alone takes hours upon hours. Make wise use of your time. Taps sounds a t 2100 Sunday through Thursday night and reveille blasts at 0445 Monday through Friday morning. On Friday and Saturday nights, taps were at 2200 and on Saturday and Sunday mornings reveille was at 0545. Same goes for holidays. But if a holiday is on Monday, then the following Saturday is a regular duty day with regular duty hours because you already had weekend hours on Monday. I thought reveille was cool before I arrived at BMT, but I quickly learned to hate it. Most weekday mornings your flight has to fall out into formation downstairs under the overhang. From reveille, you have around 10 to 15 minutes to get dressed, fill your canteen, grab your portfolio and stampede down the stairs. Once in formation, there is accountability. Sometimes it ends at that and you fall back upstairs. But usually, we would have the briefing of the day. Then wed sing the first verse of the Air Force song, followed by the three core values excellence, integrity, service before self. And sometimes afte r that, we would shout out our squadrons motto. It helps build team morale and enthusiasm and competitive spirit. You Just Have to Survive The first week, it is still really stressful - a time when you just have to survive. So much information is crammed into your skull that sometimes, even when you know your stuff, you get it wrong because your mind is swimming and you get too nervous. Youre also getting used to your flight members. Rooming in close quarters with 50 to 60 other people can get on your nerves very quickly. Starting this week, we integrated with our brother flight. We would separate into A Bay and B Bay, and the males who slept in A Bay of their dorm would integrate with the females who slept in A Bay of their respective dorm, so we would be two flights with males and females in each flight. We would march everywhere together, eat chow together, go to appointments together. The only thing we did against each other was complete for honor flight. But even then poi nts were split. Cadence was quite interesting. Each TI had his or her own unique way of calling cadence. And then there were the ones who were in training that would constantly get us out of step by calling cadence on the wrong foot then yell at us for being out of step. But it sounds awesome. I dont know how they learn to do it in MTI school or anything, but they make these sounds in their throat, kind of like guttural sounds or something to chant off cadence. But it sounds awesome. And Jody calls are always fun. Our flight made up some of our own and were allowed to use them at the end of training. The second week is not too bad. You know how to do your job now, you will have to endure your first inspections. The first one is a free inspection which is not counted. Ours, fortunately, went pretty well. Its funny how the ups and downs are so fast. We will make our TI proud one moment, then screw up and tick him off the next. Its all about attention to detail. One speck of dust in t he latrine can put a TI in the state of fury. Everything has to be perfect. Try as best as you can, because it can be done. Strings pop out everywhere, especially after dry-cleaning, so make sure you inspect them meticulously. Groups are assigned to the FTX site, Confidence Course, KP, Reception Center and other various locations. You work pretty much all day, but you dont have to eat in the chow hall every other day. You either get to use vending machines, or if youre on KP, you get more time to eat and get the privilege of eating snacks and desserts. You earn them by being on your feet from long before dawn to the late evening. We had to get up around 0215 and march over to another squadrons chow hall. We were on our feet until we returned to our squadron around 2030. You learn to appreciate all the work that goes into preparing meals and what goes on behind those double doors in the kitchen. I hated it, but at least I could eat a lot and was able to have sweets. Three WOT is cla sses and more classes. Lots of academics. Make sure you study and pay attention because you are going to need to know the information for 4 WOT. More of those wonderful inspections are conducted. You get fitted for your blues And you also get those lovely BCGs issued. Hell Week You do endure a Hell Week. As long as you have studied well, pushed yourself to meet the PC regulations and can set up your dorm right, its not all that bad. This week holds the inspections, PC evaluations and EOC test that will decide whether or not you graduate. It can be stressful. Having a diligent academic monitor - someone responsible for making sure the flight knows their memory work and test material - really helps. Our flight and our brother flight had zero failures for the EOC test and over 40 outstanding grades. Warrior Week prepared us to handle war conditions and embracing the Aerospace Expeditionary Force concept. You will shoot an M16-A2, go through the gas chamber, do the confidence cour se, live in tents, eat in a mess tent where you get meals ready-to-eat (MREs), take anti-terrorism classes, self-aid and buddy care, war games, and a big exercise at the end where you put to practice everything you learn. You earn the Airmans coin and complete the transition from trainee to airmen in the culminating ceremony. Lets Get Physical The PC program we did was tough. They usually alternate running days with callisthenic days. Stretches and cardiovascular exercises are always performed before PC, with stretching afterwards. Calisthenics is lots of sit ups, countless pushups of all types, flutter kicks, leg lifts, shoulder presses, partial squats. All in repeated sets until you think you are going to cry and you cant even hold your arms up anymore. Fun stuff, but its good for you. For running, we would either run two miles or do a three-part running exercise. For that, we would do Last Trainee Up, where theres about 10 trainees in the same running ability group running in a line around the track. The lead trainee would be the pacer, and the one directly behind would raise one arm and yell, Last Trainee Up The last trainee would then proceed to sprint from the back to the position right behind the lead trainee. The trainee who just yelled from putting his arm back down and the trainee who just sprinted up would then raise his or her arm and yell the same thing. And you go on and on for 15 or 20 minutes. Then theres the run-at-your-own-pace run for around the same amount of time, then the last exercise is six sets of sprinting for 30 seconds, then walking for two minutes. They go easier on you in the beginning and give you a few walking breaks, but pretty soon youre going to have to run the entire time through these exercises. And theres no stopping. TIs will be right out there with you - some running, some watching - and theyll yell if youre walking. If you are dehydrated and faint, complain to the IDMT (Independent Medical Technician) or have any problem other than a serious injury, expect no sympathy from them. They will scream at you for being weak. Honor Grad PC requirements held to the new standards for our flights. For the females, you needed an 18-minute run, 27 pushups and 60 situps (from the 19-min run, 22 pushups and 50 situps) to be eligible. For flights with the new PC program, trainees attained the title Thunderbolt if they met the extremum standards stated above - males have higher standards except for sit ups. With that title, one would receive an extra Town Pass and a certificate. If you met even higher standards, you can earn the title of Warhawk, get a Warhawk t-shirt, certificate and extra Town Pass. Warrior Challenge Recently added to BMT is the new Warrior Challenge. If you are a fitness buff or love stuff like running, pushups, sit ups or pull ups and other physical events, including tug-of-war against the TIs, then youll love Warrior Challenge. Its during the first Saturday of every month, and tra inees and airmen from every squadron come together and compete. The best physical performers in every flight have a practice session after every regular PC session. Lots more pushups, sit-ups and running. Then they take the top 10 from each flight to compete. They held Warrior Challenge on the PC pad next to Hotel Row. A lot of the VIPs come - squadron commanders, the TRG commander. Its a big thing. There are some pretty high numbers two-minute sit ups and pushups were in the hundreds, and for the two-mile the males times were in the 1000s and the females times were in the 1200s. Its a lot of fun to watch the events, cram down junk food and mingle with other trainees and airmen. This Isnt For Everyone In my flight, we lost only three trainees, all of them early on in training. The first one couldnt handle the physical demands of BMT at all. I think she had asthma, heart problems and other ailments. Im not sure how she got there in the first place. Another hurt her ankle and wa s sent to the 319th, where they do details if capable, or have patio breaks and sit around with other med holds and discharges, like people who are pregnant, very ill, have a disease or have a mental illness. She was put back into training a week behind us but had a panic attack after she returned. She was discharged and sent home. The third tried taking a lot of pills because she supposedly couldnt handle BMT. She was sent down to CQ (Charge-of-Quarters) to recover and was held for observation. They gave her a dishonorable discharge and sent her home. Amazingly, those were the only three we lost. No recyclees or anything later on. Thats good and bad. You like your flight members and hate some, and there are the few that have to be carried through or they wont make it. Some people just arent military material. But hey, were a team and we help each other out. Faith Church was awesome. They allow all trainees two hours a week of religious activities one for church services and one for religious instruction like a Bible study class. They hold many different kinds of services for different types of beliefs. I attended the Protestant services, which happens to be the most popular one. It was contemporary and upbeat, comforting and encouraging. Its just what trainees need. I bawled during my first Sunday at church. I was just so emotional - so homesick, so frustrated and stressed out. But with time, I got over it. The best thing about the church is that TIs arent around. No ones going to yell at you or play mind games with you. On the way there, youre told to smile and relax. Its a great way to de-stress and go back to training a little bit refreshed. As classes or church is ending, youre told to get back into the training mode. Get your game faces back on. After youre released, you have to put your mind back into gear. Phone Calls and Letters Home A patio break is when trainees are allowed to go outside on the patio and eat snacks and candy from the vendi ng machines, and make phone calls on one of the many pay phones. It can range from a couple minutes to a few hours. Keep in mind every TI has a different set of rules. Some flights are allowed some or all of these privileges right off the bat, while some flights may never get a chance to have any of them - save for the mandatory phone call or two and some letters. Our TI was never fond of patio breaks. Another flight in our squadron had their fourth patio break by their second week. We got our first and only one the night before Warrior Week, which was almost our fifth week. Luckily we were given a 10-min phone call every weekend. And that meant 10-minutes for each bay, so we had 20 to 25 people wanting to use the limited number of pay phones. Sometimes calls have to be cut short. And the first few times dont be surprised if a TI, dorm chief or element leader is in your face yelling at you to hang up. It gets frustrating, but it eases up after a while. The first phone call is usua lly an emotional one. I cried, and just about everybody cries or at least gets teary-eyed when you hear the voices of your loved ones. You have only enough time to spit out your address and that youre not dead (yet) and that you love them. Then its goodbye. Its tough, but by the next couple of times, youre more relaxed and can speak clearly enough for them to hear what youre saying. But then sometimes youre so excited and so full of information and interesting things to say that you speak too fast for them to hear you. Right after my first phone call, I accidentally ran into a Blue Rope on the patio. Not fun. Just watch out where youre going. Letters were a big issue in my flight, and Im sure every trainee in every flight looks forward to letters. You need that source of comfort and connection to your loved ones. Mail call is normally conducted during evening briefings on weekdays. Sometimes things get busy, and a week may pass with no mail call. Its really disappointing, but all t he mail that comes at the end is worth it. We were not given permission to read or write letters until the end of our 1 WOT. We were actually given letters a few days beforehand but were told to lock them up in our security drawers. It was torture to have those letters just sitting in there but not being allowed to open them up. We were ecstatic when we were finally given permission to read them. We were never actually given real personal time by our TI until the very very end. Before that, he would leave it up to our dorm chief and element leaders. They would have us get all of our stuff done and help each other out before we got a little free time. And during the times when we would work on our personal areas, we would sometimes be able to read and write letters then. Or after lights out, there might be a little time to do so. If we didnt have our stuff straight or screwed up somehow, our leaders would revoke privileges. They have the authority to do that. Our dorm chief once to ok away all letter privileges for three days. But then we made it up to her by performing well as a flight and got back the privilege the next day. Remember, too, that your TIs can take away your privileges at any time for any reason, and in certain cases, your student leaders can do the same also. Security CQ is a hallway downstairs in the main part of the squadron with lots of offices in it. TIs will hang around here and a lot of your commanders and higher ups have offices here. Dorm chiefs report here for accountability every night, trainees report emergency drills being conducted in their dorms, TIs monitor the dorms by video and sound, etc etc etc. Its like the headquarters of the squadron. And like a version of the snake pit because TIs are everywhere. If youre waiting in the bench area, stand up at attention when an NCO or TI walks past or youll get busted. Correct facing and flanking movements are required at all times. Video cameras are positioned in the hallway outsid e every dorms main door. It monitors all entrances and exits. Theres an intercom in every dorm, too. Its where reveille and taps sound, dorm guards report for accountability during the night hours, CQ calls up for any reason, to report emergencies, or for TIs or CQ to give instructions including uniform of the day. And they can flip a switch so they can hear sounds coming from the dorm. Be careful with what you say. Bathroom Breaks Right after we returned from Warrior Week, my flight switched dorms. We went downstairs so we could be right across the hall from our brother flight (our older sister and brother flights had graduated a week earlier and their dorms were empty).We moved into a previously male dorm, and was exactly the same except the layout of the dorm was a bit different. So, I am assuming the latrines and bays are the same for every dorm. With all the water they make you drink to prevent dehydration, using the latrine is almost a constant need - at least for us fema les. Its crazy how much you have to go in basic - almost like we needed to go every five minutes. A lot of the time you will just have to hold it, because you might be marching, in formation, in class or the TIs will just tell you that youre an adult and can hold it. Of course, they allow latrine breaks, and if its an emergency they will let you go but yell at you for it. Sometimes the breaks dont quite seem often enough, though. At Warrior Week its really hard because you have an assigned latrine building you can use, and none other. If youre on one side of the camp and need to use the latrine, good luck getting to it before its too late. It wasnt uncommon for accidents to occur. Make sure you utilize every break you get. I was pretty self-conscious before basic training, but immediately got used to showering and changing with 50 other females. Before long, females were walking around the dorm during showers/changing butt naked and didnt even care. No one else did either. You ge t used to it. Before Deployment Prior to deployment, we inquired about the road march during Warrior Week. We were informed there would be no march. There was lots of marching, some lengthy ones, but not an official road march. The TIs told us there used to be a two-mile march - it was actually a 5.3-mile march - however, a male died at one point. His death was completely unrelated to the march, but they eliminated the road march from Warrior Week anyway. So, as of this time, there is no road march being conducted during Warrior Week. I dont know if theyll bring it back or what, but it doesnt exist right now. If you have good TIs, they earn your respect. And if you do your part, you will earn theirs. We missed our TIs at Warrior Week because we have an entirely different set of instructors. Not individual ones assigned to flights, but lots of instructors - each with his or her own duties like teaching the anti-terrorism class, being IDMT, conducting muster - a briefing cond ucted every evening. There were 16 flights total at our Warrior Week, four female and 12 male. We were then separated into four different Airand Space ExpeditionaryForces (AEFs), each named after an important person. Each AEF was assigned different activities throughout the week. FTX, CATM (M-16 training), NBC training and classes were all conducted at different times for each AEF. My AEF had FTX first off, whereas another AEF had that as its last activity at the end of the week. It was tough, but its preparing you for deployment conditions. Your flight can start designing a flight t-shirt. Your design can represent the essence of your flight. The creative and the artists in your flight with suggestions and advice from all the others, can create your flights own unique t-shirt. A design is sketched out and given to the local BX design store so they can put it on a t-shirt. All flight shirts are black with a small logo on the front and a large one on the back. All the names of the fl ight members and TIs, as well as the flight number and TRS are on the back. It can also include a slogan or motto you want. Its up to your flight to do whatever - all at the discretion of your TI. You can also have the design put onto a coin. At the end, the flight almost always buys an extra shirt for their TIs. The TIs then put the shirts up in their flight office (their office in the dorm) or wear them. After BMT, you can wear black t-shirts under your BDUs instead of only the brown ones. Its All About Trust It can be extremely difficult just holding the flight together. All the mind games and integrity issues almost made my flight fall apart. Without trust, its hard to work as a team. And females can get surprisingly bitchy. But eventually, we pulled together and learned how to cope with all the stresses and demands of basic training. We also learned to build up team spirit and cooperation. I was lucky to have such awesome females in my flight. There are always a few in ev ery flight with attitudes - just dont let them get to you. Stay focused and concentrate on the tasks at hand. It Does Get Better Always remember that things will start looking up. It was hell at first, much harder than I expected, but after the initial shock passed and everything started setting into your brain, things improve. And I was really emotional. I didnt show it - never show any sign of weakness in front of your TIs - but it really got to me. Like the first time a TI ripped me, and the first time someone got dropped, I felt like crying. But then I got over it. Some say it gets better but not easier, while others say the opposite. And some say it doesnt get better or easier. I say it does. As you learn more and more and how things are done, it gets easier to do. Of course, they pile more things on top, but you learn to deal with it. I liked the marching, the discipline and the order. As you start becoming accustomed the military way of life in basic training, it doe s get better. Its all about attitude. If you keep a negative outlook, you are going to get depressed and easily discouraged. But if youre positive and look back on what youve survived through and what youve achieved and looked forward to your goals and graduation, youll stay focused and be able to cope with the hardships of basic training. Basic Training is really is a lot of hurry up and wait. Wed be rushed somewhere then have to wait forever until we actually got inside or were able to do whatever we needed to do. Weekends usually werent crammed with activities, at least during the later weeks. Usually just study time, details, working on personal areas. Not too bad. Remember - its all a big mind game. I never took that literally when I heard it. I was always like, whatever. I never realized what it meant until I endured the mind games myself. They really do mess with you. But I would tell myself that sometimes, its just a mind game, just to comfort myself and my flight mates. I went from hating it to missing it. Its an intensely interesting and wonderful transition that occurs. Youve Come to the End Youve come to the end and Graduation Week is awesome. The day you have been waiting for is so close, and seeing your family and friends is just days away. Youre so proud to be an airman and walk with your head held high. You learn how to wear your blues and get to wear them everywhere. They look sharp but are a hassle with the gig-line and garter straps and everything. Its an exciting time, but dont forget its not over yet. Dont relax too much or get complacent, because in your blues youre a target. TIs will try to trick you into making mistakes. You better know your memory work, how to properly wear your uniform and render customs and courtesies - everything you learned over the past five weeks should be put into practice and maintained. You can still get recycled even after graduation, and you can have your Airmans Coin confiscated. Just dont do anythin g stupid and follow the rules. The TIs arent always hounding you and they will lay off quite a bit. Just be sure to know your stuff. Keep your head high, your hopes up, and never say I cant and never give up. Push yourself to your limits and beyond, and you will be trained to become the best Airman possible in the United States Air Force. But be proud, because youve earned the right to be called an Airman in the United States Air Force.