bayer-z28

iTrader: (14)

I found my career field I should have gone into in the first place! So long CE Dirt Boy, Hello AGE!

I do ALL the damn small equipment maintenance around here and I'm TRYING to re-inventory and re organize the ENTIRE Dirt Shop of tools and I'm about to give up on this ****! I am the ONLY one that maintains all the AUX equipment and no one seems to give a **** if things are broken or running. They bitch that the shop is all junk, but they don't help maintain anything! I've saved more then $15k in repair and replacement costs in the past year! (one of my last EPR Bullets I wrote that made it on the final 910) They were about to ditch everything and buy ALL NEW tools, untill I got ahold of everything and fixed it! There was nothing wrong w/ more than 3/4 of the stuff, It's just been neglected! Old gas, bad plugs, broken pull cords, misplaced tools so they go out and buy a WHOLE NEW 120 piece SET and throw it in the drawer.. Now we have 10 locations that we store crap and they want everything bar code inventoried...It's going to take longer to check the tools out than it will to do the damn job! And on top of it, this won't stay organised...


I'm SO fed up with this! I'm going to just bide my time till my cross training window opens up and then I'm going to a shop where everything runs, and it BETTER, and everyone is responsible for fixing the stuff... Ahhhhhh... And their tools are taken care of..

Damn that's going to be a HUGE weight off my shoulders NOT having to do it for these ingrates who don't CARE.. It'll be exactly like what I'm doing now, but minus the screw job of being a dirt boy.. I'm fed up w/ CE. Sorry fellow dirt boys, I'm just tired of the neglect our equipment gets.. I'm the shop VCO here at Holloman to.

anyway.. I gotta go put a saw away that my BOSS left out... I'll finish this rant later...

whiteLS1

iTrader: (15)

and you think AGE is going to be that much better.... doubt it. the maintence side of the house in the airforce is where everyone gets **** on. im sure your excited to leave the job you have now but i dont see AGE being an approvement. just my .02 cents and if your curious what i do im fuel shop NOT POL i dont refuel jets i work on the fuel systems of the jet

bayer-z28

iTrader: (14)

Compared to this **** hole, anything will be better. I know that the flight line side of things has a lot more strict accountability of their tools. I want to take a walk thru of their shop, but I don't know anyone here at Holloman that is in AGE.

CE gets **** on PLENTY hard. We're on the long hard deployments cleaning up everyone else's crap. I'm just so fed up with this shop. I love doing the small equipment maintenance, I just hate being the ONLY one out of the whole shop that does it and no one else seems to care. It's not the motor pool either, I couldn't handle that customer service crap. I'm tired of being a grunt labor construction worker. I'd like a flight line job where it's a bit easier on my body and I'd like to be around the aircraft but not have to put up with their strict repair standards. I can't sit behind a desk all day in the MED clinic.. I REFUSE to do that!

I love fixing stuff and mechanics is all I really have a knack for. I need a career field that is a little lighter on my body. I've been wrenching for over 10 years so I know I can do that and it won't really bother my back.

405dave

I worked AGE at 5 or 6 different bases. Every time I would get PO'ed I would PCS to the next one. LOL I finally wised up and cross-trained to Flight Engineer. If I had only done that at 4 years instead of 10. Oh well, live and learn. After 10 years of flying I retired with 20 (Jan07) and I give all maint. guys the same line- if you like to fly cross-train now, you will not regret it. Working with O's (officers) is so different than working for them. I'll never forget the first time a Major turned around and said ok "Eng" how do we fix this? I smile just thinking about it.

camaroguy_02

please elaborate? im doin my best to get into ROTC to eventually fly jets.. just wondering how cross-training's going to help me?

405dave

I really don't know how it will help you get to pilot a jet. But flying for a few years would make the transition much easier. The flying comunity is so different than you would believe. Something you should know about ROTC and pilot slots. The slots go to the academy grads first and if any go to the ROTC only the first or second in the whole class get a shot. Its not impossible but VERY difficult. Maybe an AF pilot slumming this board will chime in.

bayer-z28

iTrader: (14)

Any AGE troops out there that I can get some more input from?

I don't think I'll have a problem w/ this.. I have to go by what is available on the x train advisory. I'm trying to find the better options. I like being around aircraft, but the flight engineer would be a bit much for me.

bradl1982

iTrader: (9)

The grass is ALWAYS greener on the other side.

bayer-z28

iTrader: (14)

I'm goign to mail the Shirt tomarrow and see if they still have that Job Shadow program. He knows me from a couple things... Not bad, Shirts are good for remembering people.

bene

iTrader: (16)

Why not just PCS to another base? I know the dirt boys in my squadron are cool as ****. They get their **** together too even when they're low on manning.

bayer-z28

iTrader: (14)

If I don't crosstrain as a FTA it'll be more difficult when I'm a Carrer Airman. THis job is getting old anyway. The only thing open for us is Korea and RED HORSE. I don't feel like doing either. I want to get back to Europe. I'd like to get a BOP to Aviano.

slow14U

I was age for 4 years. It is a great career to get into. It led me into the technical field as a civilian. You will get schooled on several highly desirable technical fields in the civilian world. Just don't waste your time like most do. Most learn just enough to get by, then get out and work at home depot or something. It can be a great foundation to get into the high tech world out there. I am an example. I make over 70k a year from the experiance I gained as an age mechanic. I learned as much as I can, stayed out of trouble and got out, got into technical jobs and expanded. Trust me, it is one of the best fields to get into. The only regrets I have is I should of got my associates in electronics or some such degree, I have got turned down for several 100k+ a year engineering jobs becase I don't have that piece of toliet paper. I think I made out well though. I can always go and get if I want to.

As an age mechanic, working on the flightline can be stressful, keeping inventory on tools every day twice a day sometimes four times a day, signing out rags, signing this out, signing that out, but it is for a good reason. Three letters, F.O.D. Oh, the 74 million fod walks I did were pretty fun too. There is a lot of bull **** to put up with. I found out that the best way to get by is be the best in the cat, and you will be passed up for the bull **** cause they need you on the floor. Oh, age drivers are also delivery men. We deliver equipment to the crew chiefs, avionics, fuel guy, ammo etc. Mostly the drivers drive according to how many e-4's are in the shop. Like if there is 5, you will drive one week out of every five. It's actually pretty nice to get out of the shop every now and then, but then your the age driver for what ever squadron you drive for. If it's a fighter squadron, have fun. Just don't waste your time.

bayer-z28

iTrader: (14)

^ That's JUST what I want to hear. I also just made Staff Sergeant./ I know all about Roll over FOD checks and that stuff. I run the sweeper on the airfield. So this will be a break for me. I can see FOD walks as being BS, but it's not like it's physically demanding work... like driving thousands of stakes for concrete forms then moving and RE moving thousands of 18 + 20" 140lb + concrete forms in Afghanistan for 8 months. I do construction work.

I'm HIGHLY mechanically inclined so I think I'll be an asset. I've been thru CIV tech school (1 year course) before I came in. I've got a squeaky clean record too. I like to think I'm a good airman and a hard worker, I'm just starting to realize that I'm better than this job I have now.

405dave

Hey you seem like you REALLY don't want to go to Korea. I need to warn you, if you work AGE long enough you will go. I got lucky, my tour was Osan (cake). I had 2 friends that were not so lucky. Both of them did 2 tours, 1 did 2 nonvol, 1 did a nonvol followed a few years later by a vol one. The BIG and I do mean HUGE difference is where they went. Ever heard of camp casy or red cloud? Probably not. They are army bases you could throw rocks from and hit the DMZ. They have portable generators that AGE guys support. 500 army guys and 5 AF guys. Yes, they hated it. Oh, and to top it all off my close friend's supervisior an E-8 ARMY guy wrote his AF ERP!! Needless to say he did not understand the process or how it affects AF testing and it took my friend a long time to recover from it. I guess I'm trying to say ALL jobs have bad sides. I think you will enjoy it if you go in saying you will.

Grave

iTrader: (4)

I got a good friend of mine who cross-trained from AGE to being a Flight Engineer. He's up at Kirtland right now doing some kind of training.

underatedT/A

iTrader: (1)

i'm AGE and in kunsan korea right now. i've been doing this for 14 years and i love my job. the 1st 2 years is the hardest because of all the different equipment but after that its cake until you sew on staff and 7 level upgrade training. then its babysitting all the time and you will never drive the flightline as a nco unless you are a fk up. but believe me like all the other guys said try pcsing its not your job its all the forceshaping and promoting of unqualified airman in my opinion.

Nite_Hawk

Yo, Rich...if you want i can take you by the AGE shop on base. We usually go steal their forklift every now and then. How about Propulsion---ie...engine's; could work engine tracking.

69Nova355

Yeah I'm an AGE troop, whaddaya wanna know?

You get the pleasure of getting greased up to your elbows fixing broke *** jammers/mules/generators that should've been **** canned years ago, but the AF wants us to fix them until you've rebuilt the damn thing 20 times over.

Not true about not having to drive flight line as an NCO, I've seen plenty of NCO's driving the line and they weren't **** ups either. It's all about who's available for the job.

And if you do drive you get the pleasure of hearing the expediters bitch if you don't have them their stuff in 5 minutes or less. Then you have the clowns on the flight line that misuse/constantly break all the equipment and rely on you to fix it. You will find that AGE abuse is a rather common house hold name.

I'm sure you're probably already aware of the strict safety rules we have.....you have to do 5 things before you can do one simple task.

But all in all it's ok, not my favorite job in the world, but it's got it's good days and it's bad.

I just hope your shop is at least clean and has everything you need....my shop is old and falling down and we never have anything when we need it.

Hit me up if you have any other ?'s......

bayer-z28

iTrader: (14)

I'm just trying to find a job to cross train into. I made staff, so that should help. My window opens in Jan or Feb so I need to find something soon. I've been researching things for a couple months so far.

PotentialZ28

To 405dave, thats just what us maintainers love, the flight engineer telling us whats wrong. If you guys always know whats wrong, and how to fix it, why not fix it? FEs wont even check oil......lazy


And to 69Nova355, it does get quite annoying waiting 35 minutes for a power cart when you knew what time the plane was coming down, or i love the fact that you cant get me something at 11am cause you are doing turnover for lunch, pfffffhhhh