I've not written much of late about the job because, frankly, it's not an exciting job and it's highly routine. The strange thing about it is that it's both monotonous AND chaotic. Surely that makes sense to those who have experienced this sort of thing and incomprehensible to those who haven't.
Basically, my job is to make sure people get where they need to go. It's frustrating because I don't control any assets to move people myself. When people need to get to a distant base, I put in requests to get them flown there; when they need to get to local bases, I put in requests for the military to take them there in Rhinos (up-armored buses). I don't fly the helicopters or drive the buses; I don't even set their schedule. I put people's names on lists and get told when they can be moved. Knowing the way that the helicopters and buses tend to move, I try to balance my requests and give people reasonable expectations when they can move. It's a bit stressful, because the PAX (lingo for passengers), don't want to hear that I'm having problems with the helo planners or that the military is running behind. They want to get where they need to go ASAP. Especially if they're trying to get out to go on vacation.
Overall, I not only do that coordination, but I run around and receive the PAX when they get off the helicopters and Rhinos and I'm there to help them move all their baggage when they get on. Some mornings I'm up at 0450 doing this. Some nights I'm up past midnight doing this. While the number of PAX was low, I was doing the coordination plus execution by myself. There are relatively set times when helos and Rhinos move so I would have frantic bouts of chaos (especially if a Rhino and helicopter arrived at the same time) and then long periods of nothing to do.
The camp I'm on is going through "Transition." My company is Fluor. It won a contract for all the northern Forward Operating Bases (FOBs) in Afghanistan. That's in between 60-80 bases. My company has employees who run the dining facilities, provide and maintain the generators, import and keep the water clean, kill the pests on the FOBs, etc. Basically, we run the camps so the military can focus on going out and killing bad guys. At any rate, we took over these camps from a company that lost the contract bid, KBR. Fluor has been transitioning the property and a good many of the employees from KBR. To deal with counting all the property and hiring all the new employees over (which for the switched employees sometimes just means literally switching hats), a "Transition Team" gets sent to each base going through transition. A transition team can be upwards of 100 people. Moving them is tough because they are on intense deadlines and so they can't give notice. They say "I need to go here now!" and I have to jump through hoops to try to get them taken care of. No one wants to hear that they didn't give you enough notice.
I'm going on vacation in a few days. For most people, that means that they can start winding down at work and getting into the vacation mindset. My camp is in transition now and won't finish until the 15th, so I've been running around like a chicken with its head cut off. In addition, unlike virtually every other department, whose jobs become easier once transition is finished, movement gets exponentially tougher because we are importing 60% of the KBR work force (and thus more than doubling the Fluor work force). When I first got here, I was "pushing" about 4-5 people a day. Lately it's been 30. Pretty soon it will be 60.
My boss, who I initially liked until I discovered he's a two-faced back-stabber, finally came to my base to look over things to see what was needed since I'm going on vacation soon and he needs to send people to cover. While he paid lip service to the fact that I've moved all the people through my area (I'm responsible for not only my FOB, but seven others) without any missing their flights out of country (which can cost them hundreds or even thousands of dollars) with virtually no assistance (he did send me a Kosovar to act as my deputy two weeks ago; but even then that's barely enough) or support (I'm doing all my paperwork/emails from my bunk because they don't have office space for me), he really came down to tell me I need to do things more like how they do it at the main FOB, Bagram. Mind you, Bagram is a perpetual mess, because his leadership style is to send away anyone who is doing a good job there. He likes chaos and problems because then he can step in and "fix" it and impress the higher ups. That's why he has Bosnians and Macedonians scheduling all the helicopters; that's why he has sent away a lawyer, a chemical engineer, and anyone else who has shown himself to be competent out to run other FOBs, far away from the eyes of upper management. At any rate, instead of me doing what I have been doing, he wants me to cede what little planning I actually *can* do to the bosnian planners. Fine. I'm leaving in a few days for vacation. I can let it blow up in his face.
Cut to today.
After I get people on the morning helicopter run, I get on to update my paperwork. I send in my list of people I need to move tomorrow so the planners can figure it out, which the boss told me to do. A planner emails me to tell me that the list he has doesn't match the one I just sent him. I wonder which one of us will be right? He sends me his list. I email him back to inform him that the list he has for tomorrow's flight has the same names he put on today's manifest, the very people I just put on a helicopter to him. "Oh...we must have a problem with our process." No....you don't say... The thing is, that planner is the good one. Which of course means my boss is sending him to replace me here at my FOB while I'm gone on vacation. Because he can't have someone who is "good" (even if they aren't really so great) stay in one place and do the damn job.
On a positive note. I have a great paycheck and all the drama a girl could want! Hooray!
