Crap -- my OPR is due. Help.

[BMW]

I find OPRs get drop out of the scan often being in a joint USAF & USN squadron. Most of the AF guys wish they would switch to the Navy due date system. All Navy FITREPS/OPRs are due the same time every year throughout the fleet for a given rank, so there isn't an excuse to not having it done. Good luck, no matter what system your in it this sucks doing them.

 

[scoreboard]

Two schools of thought, Fury. Pick the one that seems best to you. Scoreboard's solution is the "book solution", I guess. You make the guy do his job, even if you end up being the one shafted with a poor OER when you know you deserved better but the guy can't or won't write it, even after he's asked you to give him bullets or even a draft. But you'll have made your point if that's what's most important to you here.

I'd go the other way. You have to assume that the rater will concur with what you wrote and that he's honorable in the sense that he won't forward anything he doesn't agree with. If it was me, I'd do the research and produce the bullets, etc as asked. There's no guarantee he's going to use them anyway but they could mean the difference between a good-to-go or a show-stopper.

There's a lot of risks you have to take and they'll be times you''ll willingly fall on your sword over something...this doesn't have to be of them. Give the man your bullets.

Bullets are OK, what he said was his rater wanted a completed OPR, not cool. Yes, write the bullets as best you can, OPR ese if you will, but don't fill our the OPR for goodness sake. jeesh..

 

[payola]

Great advice. Get used to doing your own OPR; I've written almost all of mine ... er, I give the rater bullets on a form 707, completely filled out.
While it may not be right, I can guarantee you that you will get a better product if you do it yourself.

Serious question. How does the AF view its evaluation system? I'm reading a lot of things like (above) and how you're better off writing your own evals and the like. Maybe it's just the situation, but it sounds a lot to me like "Write your own, it's just paper." Here's a quote from the Marine Corps Performance Evaluation System order:

The fitness report provides the primary means for evaluating a Marine’s performance to support the Commandant’s efforts to select the best qualified personnel for promotion, augmentation, resident schooling, command, and duty assignments. The completion of fitness reports is a critical responsibility. Inherent in this duty is the commitment of our commanders and all reporting officials to ensure the integrity of the system by giving close attention to accurate marking and timely reporting. Every commander and reporting official must ensure the scrupulous maintenance of this evaluation system. Inaccurate marking only serves to dilute the actual value of each report.

So by writing your own evals are you really getting any honest critique of your performance? Are you just securing your next promotion? Is anybody really concerned with any of this? I know, I know, somebody will say "No, it doesn't matter, it is just paper." And somebody else will say "No, it doesn't matter, I'm not in an operational squadron yet." But why start/build bad habits? Ya know...

 

[PHX767]

Another tact

Fury,

Stop by the admin shop and seek out the SSgt or TSgt head admin, explain that you need a few "example" OPR's and see what they can do. If they don't reach in their upper right desk drawer and come out with a fair amount of examples, I will have lost my faith in the scribbly corps.

As unsavory as it may seem to you now to be a part of this process, you need to have a great first OPR. What if you get nominated for IP of the quarter or whatever - What will they have to look at? A couple of training reports and the first OPR.

So, consider providing a great sheet of bullet statements, sew together some of them for a nice OPR, some recommended endorsements, and let the rater do his thing. One thing I learned from staff work, is that the closer to a finished product you hand over, the more you will like the result. The other officers that your rater supervises may not be putting forth the effort you are and the results will show.

Some shining examples; "This officer is constantly pushing on doors marked pull."

"Lt fuzz distinguishes himself from mediocrity, but only just."

 

[pkober]

Not pointed at the writer of this tread, but here are some other good ones.

"Sets low standards for himself and fails to achieve them."
"It's hard to believe that out of the 1 billions sperm cells, this was the one to make it to the egg."
"Somewhere a village is missing it's idiot."

Just copy some one else's.

Good luck.

CLAMBAKE

 

[Fury220]

thanks for the help, guys -- the OPR is done, and it looks great.

It helps that I fly my buttocks off...

 

[YeOldeProp]

Okay...this year's done...now get ready for next year.

I made all the pilots that worked for me over the years put together a folder on their computer that was marked only for their OPR's. Every week they were to sit down in the office (usually over a beer or two) and log what they did that week that was worth anything. Things like out on the road supporting the Army on a JAATT at Pope dropping x number of troops or flying x number of sorties in JCS-directed Exercise MUCKETY-MUCK or honching the squadron Friday Beers and Spears dart tourney (back when we were allowed to have fun on a Friday afternoon and not being ordered out to attend mandatory fun/rent-a-crowd functions) or whatever. Thus, over the year they had something more written down than their pocket day planner scribbled notes and flight times. Details fill out an OPR a lot better than the standard fluff statements. I'd take a look at them every once in a while and make sure they were providing enough detail and tweak their fact gathering.

With those details, they were also told to build some bullet statements for their OPR. This had a double goal. It gave me an idea of something to start out with when I got hold of it for the real OPR, but more importantly it made the youngster start working with AF-style writing and learning the "event/result" style of writing demanded by the bosses. These usually weren't worth much initially, but the guys started getting the hang of it over the years and at least were ready when it came their turn to start writing OPR's/EPR's of their folks. Come report time, we'd sit down and go over what they had and how to make it a better reading statement, etc. Training in progress...

And what KUMA and PHX767 said about getting examples of past OPR's is really a key point. In a normal AF sqadron, get the exec and Flt CC's together and make them build a "brain book" of what's good and not good in the eyes of the bosses. They should have a series of sanitized performance reports in there, preferably ones that have been praised/highlighted by the bosses (as in highlight the really good bullets with one color marker and the piss-poor ones with another). Don't know how it works in the joint squadrons, but the mentality should be the same.

Now here's the toughest part of the whole writing OPR process...make sure you can stand in front of the bosses AND your peers and justify the statements written. It was a sh!tty situation in the active duty side of the house when I left...the bosses were demanding absolutely glorious, walk-on-water, #1-in-everything-he/she-touched type reports. The politics of the OPR can be very, very intimidating...you want people to get promoted and make more money, but you also have the responsibility of making sure the ones who really do the job right are spotlighted, rather than "everyone is the greatest". The non-AF services do a far better job of rating and stacking their people in order versus our AF version of "everyone is a future commander, general and CSAF". I've seen people who's OPR's read like dream (who were semi-outcasts in their units due to job deficiencies and inability to work well with others) who are now O-6's on their way up. And on the flip side, there are some true leaders with great people/mission hacking skills who got passed over for rank. Go figure...

Best of luck in your career, fly safe, may your after-flight beer always be cold, and thanks for letting an old man rant...

 

[PlaneStupid]

Flightinfo is not useless after all. These are all good comments. I agree with the line of thought that you will write many of your own opr's - besides it is good training for when you are in a supervisory position. I used to keep a copy of mine on the computer and would update it with new bullets as they happened. Hopefully, the mil will someday realize what a waste of time and pile of crap this evaluation process is. Talk about wasted resources, it should be as simple as this: move up a grade every four years. If you stay in - you get promoted.

.02

 

[Fury220]

it should be as simple as this: move up a grade every four years. If you stay in - you get promoted.

.02

Are you serious?

 

[PlaneStupid]

Yes I am serious. I have seen too many idiots get promoted who had great opr's and some outstanding officers get passed over because of politics. If an officer stays in he or she should be rewarded with an increase in pay. I have seen better leaders in 1lt's than some lt col's with great opr's. In this system there would be more time to get the mission done instead of wasting your time glorifying your snack bar management, or recovery of a critical air force asset when the student pukes on your adi in imc.

.02

 

[slacker]

I agree with planestupid. OPRs are one of the biggest jokes in the Air Force. If you want to write a challenging OPR, try to write one on a Reservist. How do you make a guy who struggles to stay current, sound like he single-handedly saved the free world? This process is broken and someone needs to fix it. I'm not sure a strictly Time in Grade system would work, but it can't possibly be worse than what we have now. It sucks watching good guys getting passed over because their rater sucks while slugs get promoted because their rater can use big words.

Merry Christmas!

 

[YeOldeProp]

It's been addressed before in the great scheme of things to go to a dual-track system in the AF similar to the Brits, Aussies, Germans, etc. I did a bunch of research on it down at Maxwell and the Air College library. Drove up for the weekend when I was scrambling to do my mandatory masters degree. Quite a few papers on it and the Warrant Officer program had been written by Air War College, ACSC and Army CGSC students over the years.

Everyone starts out the same as it works now, but at the 7-year mark you make a decision whether to aspire to be the General-type or if you just want to fly. By then, most will know a bit about the way things work in the AF and the bosses know what kind of officer/leader you'll likely turn out to be. Only about 35% of the corps is allowed to go "Specialist Aircrew" (to use the Brit term) after a good look at their aviation skills, work ethic, good-old boy check (important to know if you can play well with others), etc. The rest of the flyers/officers slog it out as usual in the big blue AF.

The SpecAircrew status slows down their promotion capability...usually only a few making O-4 and only a very, very, very few making O-5. But, they become extrememly good at their flying job, and go between the various ops squadrons and the training side of the house. But, as they develop their aviation skills, their flight pay goes up annually...so they can become fairly well compensated over the years. And the squadrons have top-notch folks in the important positions that the commander can look to for guidance and expertise. There's less people competing for school slots (helping those who want them), less numbers to move PCS every 2 1/2 years (saving money), less OPR's to write (they have a place on their annual flight eval paperwork that says if they meet/maintain Officer standards or not).

At the 14-year point, there's a chance for a crossover. Some SpecAircrew who thought that flying was all they ever wanted may have lost thier appetite for it and want to persue the higher ranks. And those who thought they wanted to be a General may have found out that they're a whole lot better at flying than the politics and meat-grinder of command and staff work. Not many swap over, but there is the chance. There's a lot more detail than this, but it gives you the idea.

It's not a bad system. You look at the winners and high scorers at a lot of the Gunsmokes and Airlift Rodeos and other flying competitions of the past couple of decades and it was the Guard/Reserve guys (closest version of the SpecAircrew I can see in our AF) that were continually taking the Blue ribbon. Flying for a living (versus being a rent-a-crowd for the commander or blood drive officer) tended to make them pretty good at their craft.

Just food for thought...maybe you guys who are still active duty can float it across the FORM 1 suggestion box and see if you can get an answer from the higher ups...good luck.

 

[malterf15]

My 2 cents:

Fact: You're not going to change the system. It should, but doesn't happen.

We could however do a 1 page OPR that mimizes all the essential elements to dispense with the eyewash, but keep the "meat" which is actually looked at:

1- Personal Info
2- Unit Description: 1 line
3- Job Description: 2 lines
4- Extra Duties: 1 line
5- Performance of Duties: 3 lines (this is where you pick the 3 big things that distinguished this person from the rest) written by supervisor
6- Commander's X of XX rack n stack plus push line: 1 line

Add the signatures and you get an uncluttered single page "meaty" performance report that has all the standard stuff.