Standing Down and Free time

[baudspeed]

Okay, I have to ask this since I was informed through a friend of a friend who knows someone who once was in the Canadian Forces (army), that there is alot of ';ping-pong and sitting around'; end quote. Now, maybe it was because my friend stated that he thought that the guy was in the reserves. Maybe they do things differently than the regs. Maybe each regiment, unit, individual leader, does different things.*shrug* So help me out here.

I was wondering if you guys could contribute your (Non-BS) views on how much sitting around and ping-pong playing goes on during both on base time, and deployment, VS reserve time. I have read a few postings on Army.Ca (and what a great site it is!) that have referred to CO's getting the guys to sweep the dirt driveway  because 'the dirt looks dirty', and others have mentioned the copiously large amount of PT. But no one has owned up to any days found sitting around waiting for something to do.

So how much time do people have(please state trade and reg VS Res.) during a day? breaks lunch, etc. On roto or on base?
Care to comment?

Keep in mind that I obviously am a civilian pre-applicant, and I have no military experience yet. So dont take this as my opinion. Please confirm or deny the (mis)information i have been provided with.

 

[mistyqueen]

I can speak from what my Husband told me when he was posted to 2PPCLI in Winnipeg, before they moved everyone to Shilo. He worked Transport and if the were not doing calls delivery fuel or the Honey truck somewhere like Wainwright, Sufffield, Shilo, driving to Kenora, they were working on their equipment (trucks) they were watching TV re runs at lunch. He told of the nasty PT runs.

I passed the guy and ladies as I was driving to work each morning on the PT run. Who was the nutbar that thought it was good to run in -20 below with windchill factor -30 is beyond me?  I remember asking my husband what did you do today at work?  (He is retired now.) I took my Gun for a walk then I ate lunch, then I took my gun for a walk. I'm sure he was more busy than that but he down played everything.

My husband went to Yugo when that was the Hot spot in 92-93, 94, and 97, in 2000 He remustered out of the army to be a weather Witch, (Weather Tech - Air Force)

 

[Good2Golf]

Lost Cargo, while there may be some variation in pace of work, you would find life in the CF fairly challenging, as well as rewarding.  Rest assured that there are no trades or occupations such as "Ping-pong Player or Sitter-downer".  This would be especially true if you ask your directing staff during basic training if you could "just sit down or play some ping pong?"

The fact that this was fourth-hand knowledge (i.e. friend of a friend who knew someone in the CF, heck most people today actually know someone in the CF, thus at least get second-hand knowledge) tells me that you might want to be a bit more discriminating in where you get your information about the CF.  Talking to folks here will give you some impressions, but you might want to see a recruiter or at least look at the CF recruiting website.

G2G

 

[Gunner98]

The Cold War era included lots of kicking gun boxes and counting socks.  Today this is less common as the Op Tempo has increased.  Six  of the performance factors on the Personnel Evaluation Report (annual assessment ) are:  Initiative, Accountability, Reliability, Evaluating and Developing Subordinates, Supervising  and Resource Management.  A soldier may not be busy all of the time, but they should never be idle.  In my Gunnery days we used to say, "long periods of quiet follows by brief intense periods of mayhem."  The life of a soldier is as varied as the soldiers who wear the uniform.

 

[George Wallace]

Let's not kid ourselves.  Yes there are Stand Downs and 'Free Time'.  There is also Compulsory Time Off (CTO).  The CF is not a "Normal Job".  You don't get paid 'Time and a Half' or 'Double Time' for working Overtime.  You will be paid a flat rate.  At times, you will be required to work 24 hours a day, seven days a week, for months at a time, while on Exercise or Deployed.  So if there is idle time, don't think of it as the norm, but a 'temporary luxury'.

 

[rmacqueen]

So much of the sitting around doing nothing depends entirely on the situation at the time.  I have seen times we would do our morning PT, change into uniform, report to the hanger, do a little maintenance and by coffee break have nothing to do but hang out shooting the sh**.  But those were the slow periods between ex's and training and not the norm.  The periods running up to a field exercise were quite busy getting get kit and vehicles prepped and ensuring everything was in order.  Of course, in the field you were often run ragged with no time to even think.  What section you are in, within a unit, can also have bearing on down time.  Sometimes one section can be busy supporting the training of another unit while other sections are not.

Sometimes the "operational" situation can cause a lot of sitting around.  I was involved in one ex where we were bugged out to go and guard the Chalk River nuclear labs.  It was a brigade level ex so the entire base was involved but because I was working the regimental kit shop at the time I had to report in but then we just hung out waiting for something to happen with us.  We waited in the shacks for about 16 hours just killing time and then were given 5 mins to grab our gear before we were taken out for 3 days of foot patrols and searching for "guerrillas".

Much of it is perception.  Being duty personnel in the shacks at 4 am can seem like a week of doing nothing, as can standing sentry duty in the field.  By the same token, if someone puts in an attack while you are sentry or some drunk decides to put his fist through a door while on duty, suddenly time flies. 

Bottom line is anytime standing around doing nothing doesn't even come close to compensating for the time spent away from home, training and, basically, working your a** off.

 

[TangoTwoBravo]

I served in the Reserves before coming to the Regular Force.  I'm an officer, so my view is certainly tinted.  Officers can always find some way to be busy (note that I did not say productive or useful).

My impression is that in the Reserves a training night or weekend was packed full.  Time was precious, so it was all accounted for in some way.  A Thursday night (I'm armoured) would have three 40-minute training periods plus the first and last parade or be spent getting ready for an upcoming exercise.  Exercises had all phases of war crammed into 36 hours.  That being said, if I'd screwed up as a planner and organizer there could certainly be periods of time when the troops were sitting around waiting for things to get sorted out.

The pace seemed a bit different in the Regular Force.  We didn't feel the need to fill every hour on the daily planner with an activity.  Still, maintenance on tanks might seem like busy-work to some, but it has to be done and is time-consuming.  Lots of training still occured, even if Friday afternoon found the hangar-floor empty.  Exercises were much longer, so there was perhaps less temptation to account for each hour.  Still, an afternoon of down time in the leaguer after a week of hard training is hardly ping-pong time.

The bottom line is that there can be sit-around time in any trade or component, but that you will be busy wherever you go. 

 

[Fishbone Jones]

So I think we can all agree that 'free time' isn't really free, it's just borrowed against the frenzied overtime hours of operations and training. That should suffice for an answer for Lost Cargo. If you have anything to add PM me, or another Mod.