Military Leave Policy Reminder
 

From the most recent missive titled as above:

"In each of these cases, the process for submitting a military leave request is outlined, and we encourage crewmembers to provide us with as early a notice as possible of their upcoming military service."

Just to reinforce, per Federal law (USERRA), there is no "request" required. The ONLY requirement a service member has is to "notify" the employer when work will be missed for military service. Also, there is no requirement per Federal law to use any company provided means to do this notification. A phone call to the Duty Officer is sufficient.

I'm sure it was simply an oversight. Maybe he should have run it through the "uniquely qualified" Military Affairs Liaison. I bet he's completely familiar with the law...

I'm sure that with the way management has bent over backwards as of late, our guardsmen/reservists will be more than happy to give ample advance notice to our illustrious management when duty calls.

We'll never pressure you or your commander, but 100% of the time we'll have someone call your unit and introduce themselves as Maj Gen X just to help YOU have a stress-free transition back and forth.

He should have just written his last paragraph and left it at that.

But NOoooooo.

Guy's in a deep hole and he just keeps shovelin'

Heard a funny story regarding our very own "uniquely qualified" Military Affairs Liaison, Admiral General Aladeen. Apparently he did the obligatory harassing phone call to my bud's Commanding Officer. Conversation as follows:

Admiral General Aladeen: "Commander X, this is General DT of FedEx and I'd like to talk to you about one of your pilots."
Commander X: "Who is this?"
Admiral General Aladeen: "General DT of FedEx."
Commander X: "Pardon me, but I wasn't aware that FedEx HAD Generals..."
Admiral General Aladeen: "Hammina hammina hammina..."

Classic.

Exactly. At previous company, you entered military leave into the system and no questions were asked. The only time I was questioned by the company was when I entered a long term deployment (7 months). The civilian in charge contacted my commander to confirm the duty and passed along, "Thanks for your service. Call us when you are ready to come back so we can get you qualified and current." Upon my return, I received a personal email from my Chief Pilot again thanking me for my service and explained the quick process of requalification training.

Unlike here where said Maj Gen X told my indoc class, making sure that we knew he was a 2-star, that he doesn't speak to anyone lower than the rank of O-6 when he makes his check-up calls. And that he knows the game so he knows when we really need to be on leave and when we don't. I wonder if he knows the game because he used to abuse military leave himself?

At first I shrugged off his speech to the class. But then I realized it for what it was, a veiled threat.

That's the day I learned that I didn't work for FedEx, but more like "the firm." Because you never know when Bill Devasher was listening or tracking your every move.

All it takes to solve this is a five minute heart to heart with your unit CO explaining that the company WILL call, act like they are making nice, and "…want to work with you…" When they know the call is coming, and it plays out exactly as you outlined, leadership quickly understands the game. For every INDOC FedEx gives new hires, most new commanders get a briefing as well about USERRA rights.

FedEx ain't the only villain out there--as the senior TG at my unit I fielded a few calls from a SWA chief pilot as well. When he mentioned that "most" SWA pilots dropped one trip a month but my guy was dropping 2, I mentioned that said aviator was A) a SEFE, B) one of our few NVG qual'd IPs, and 3) we had 2 weeks of night flying coming up. I told the CP his pilot had asked to only work a few days so he could get back to his airline gig, but our squadron needed him too. I told him that putting this pilot on 30, 60, or even 180 days orders was an easy option for us, but that he preferred to work for us AND fly for SWA. I mentioned that if I thought he was under too much stress at work, it would be easier for me to just go through channels and put him on orders instead. The calls quit coming after that…

We've buried a couple fighter pilots….one Navy and one ANG…since I've been here. Flying fighters is hard work. Staying current, sharp, and fit for duty is a challenge. I always told my flight members your job isn't just to deconflict your fighter flying from your airline flying, it is to use your military leave so that you are in a position to be safe, rested, and fit for duty…period. That means staying current, and doing whatever you need to do to be ready to go to war (or train warriors) without worrying about airline job. If you start to have outside forces that impede on either your safety or combat capability, let your leadership know. I was just a part timer and a Flt CC, but my leadership trusted me on these issues and I let them know when there were challenges. A quick call to the State JAG was usually all it took to make these problems go away.

+1

"The lady doth protest too much, methinks"

Nothing to worry about here. Just a little pre-peak intimidation.

Sounds like a serious breach of ethics if someone is representing themselves by their military rank in order to accomplish business on behalf of a civilian company. If I did such a thing, I'd expect that my supervisor would be notified promptly.