bocastephen

Not all jobs require this type of performance metric - and often, creating these metrics are counter-productive.

If I was going to create performance metrics, it would measure items such as:

1) adherence to work policies
2) flying assigned schedule
3) attending recurrent training
4) training goals and initiatives - foreign language training, intelligence training, world politics, etc.
5) psychological and background check clearance each year

It's very difficult to create actual performance metrics for someone in this type of job role, since the actual execution of the job is hard to measure until something happens.

Creating make-work initiatives like these to justify employment is counter-productive, and in this case, anti-American.

FliesWay2Much

I saw this back in my Air Force days among missile launch officers (the guys who pulled shifts in Minuteman and Titan II silos waiting for WWIII to start). Because everyone was fully trained, qualified and completed their "check rides" successfully, the only way you could ultimately tell how well they did their jobs was during WWIII. Obviously, there wouldn't be anybody left to rate them. So, the only way to get ahead was to get a masters degree, which virtually everyone did to help cope with the boredom and to volunteer for additional duties -- wing safety officer, Combined Federal Campaign Keyworker, you name it -- just so they would have something to say on their annual officer evaluation reports.

Spiff

I dunno:

Reported for work each day
Was on time
Proper appearance
Diligently turned key during drill
etc

Of course, no one was harassed during one of these drills...

Bart

Someone somewhere in a bureaucracy is always trying to capture statistics as a means of interpreting the validity of a certain activity. I've always hated number crunchers. At my job, each hour I have to write down the number of passes through the WTMD and number of alarms (it's a matter of pressing a series of buttons on the WTMD panel). I always quip to the WTMD monitor, "excuse me while I write down these very crucial Homeland Security statistics so instrumental to the War on Terror." Then, as I punch out the numbers, I'll sometimes ask, "See that number?" And when they respond in the affirmative, I'll quip back, "Well, it's SSI. You're gonna have to stay after work and get formally debriefed. There's lots of signing of papers involved. You shoulda been looking the other way." (Hey, have to have a sense of humor.)

At any rate, there are some activities that just can't be expressed in terms of statistics. My old job was one such example. We were required to fill out a manpower survey. The tricky part was keeping it unclassified, so we used general categories such as administrative, maintenance, investigations and operations. There were a few others, but these were the major ones. My second-in-command, a very conscientious warrant officer...great guy...very technically proficient operator...but one who thought rules were meant to be followed...would spend an extraordinary amount of time filling out these papers. I shook my head and finally relieved him of the task by taking over over the requirement myself. I just picked numbers out of the air and filled in the blanks. To be honest, I thought my numbers weren't too far off the mark. Just had to make sure that I didn't go overboard, for example, by identifying 72 hours worth of work in a typically 12-14 hour day (we DID work long hours at that job). Well, finally, my conscientious warrant officer spoke up and said he was having an ethical dilemma with the way I was treating this administrative report. I reminded him that our job was to hunt down the bad guys and f*ck with them with whatever we could get away with within the parameters of international treaties and US policy. Each minute he and the guys spent in the office fretting over a piece of paper was a minute they could be spending out in the streets looking for hostile intelligence operatives. My job was to make sure they spent their time productively, efficiently and effectively, and filling out a piece of paper to satisfy some bureaucrat who never spent a day on the streets wasn't cutting it. Besides, I told him, I was the boss and accepted full responsibility.

Point here other than bragging about my battles against the bureaucrats is that this number-crunching phenomenon is nothing new. Like a cancer, it spreads into all walks of life. It helps feed the colorful little Powerpoint Presentation slides that are briefed to some head honcho in a nice, pretty little conference room or spacious office and gives the illusion of having a handle on some enterprise, endeavor or other corporate effort.

Can't have the FAMs just sit there with nothing to do between the times they have to shoot people. Have to account for their activities and purpose in life. My goodness, the bureaucrats have to justify their existence by forcing others to justify theirs. It's a circle-of-life thing.

Take care

etch5895

This is one of those career fields where except for the 'managers', there is hardly a way to distinguish yourself from your peers:

1. You show up to work on time with all the right gear
2. You do your job well, without incident
3. You You maintain weapons qualification standards, and (hopefully) fitness standards
4. You're not a discipline problem

So why get ahead of your peers as a FAM, anyway? To fly a desk instead of an airplane? If it is a gov't job, raises should be based on time, so I don't see what all the fuss is about.

The most professional FAM would, in my opinion, be the person who came to work everyday, blended in with the pax, did their appointed duty in the very unlikely event that a hijacker team attempted to take over the aircraft, and went home everyday. No showing up at the airport drunk, no sleeping on the plane, no shooting the back of the seat in front of them because they are playing with their weapon. Just quiet professionalism.

themicah

Except Matthew Broderick in Wargames...