Free Advanced rider training (with a catch)

[Kishy]

Defence personel are anyone in the Army, Air force, Navy or APS.

Shit.. I didnt know that! Thanx for enlightening me

Now that changes everything dosent it?

[MickLC]

The waste in the defence budget is huge...and I'm not talking about anything to do with how much soldiers etc get paid,it's the defence department itself and the culture of waste that is present within its halls.

...and I can think of much better things to spend it on than more bloody guns and planes and boats that don't work properly, like health and education and roads fercrissake

I'm sure just as many defence personel get injured on motorbikes as in any other goverment department like health, but I can guarantee that they don't have the money to waste.

[Ratmick]

What do you call crap pay?

Let's have a look at the attachments, shall we?

These are from the Defence Force website (but by fark you have got to really look for them).

At the risk of sounding like an old fart (well I am one, so why not) in my day I was a Private (P) Radio Tradesman in Group 6 earning in March 2006 dollars around $43,221. Back in 1989 it was a shade over $26,000, including $3,500 Service Allowance.

If I'd stayed in the Army, in the same trade, doing the same job, and managed to work my way slowly up the rank structure over the 17 years from 1989 to 2006 I would (maybe) have made Warrant Office Class 2 (WO2). I would probably be in charge of a workshop company and in charge of 20-30+ soldiers, or attached to a training unit as an instructor. The most I would make, given three yearly increments, would now be $57,207. I was making more than this in civvy street in 1993, and I didn't have any more qualifications than I left the Army with as a Private.

Check out the Officer Pay. All I can say is that if you transferred my current salary to the Defence Forces there's be a whole shitload of people saluting me. I'm nothing special, still bottom of the pile. I work in an IT Team in a Bank, it's a senior role (I am an old fart) but no-one reports to me. Lots less stress.

This is a best-case scenario. As you know, you don't automatically get promoted. You have to be promoted into an available vacant position or willing to go to a shitty posting (or both). You used to have to have a good grading for three consecutive years before they'd even consider promoting you. Doesn't matter how hard you work, how many hours you put in, how many butts you kiss, how much your marriage and home life suffers. You have to uncomplainingly put up with the shit, bite your tongue, keep your nose clean and severely kiss arse to get ahead. If you cop an absolute bastard arsehole as a platoon leader he can so tarnish your service record (if he so wishes and if he doesn't like you) that you will NEVER get promoted, and the Army was full of the pricks.

These days the government may actually like its personnel, it was trying to piss as many people off as possible in '89 to make them leave (so I left). I gather Howard values you guys more now (he sure as shit sends enough of you overseas).

Benefits?
* One afternoon a week playing sport. - I go to the gym four or five times a week.
* 20 days leave. - I get twenty days leave now, plus 15 sick days, which accrue.
* Free medical and dental. - This is for the serving member only, doesn't cover the family, and it is with Army Doctors and Dentists. That would save me, what $500 a year?
* Subsidised Housing. If you're single you live in Barracks with 100-odd same-sex members, some of which have extremely disgusting personal habits (and revel in them) or questionable personal hygiene (and don't care). Or both. Some prick always steals your socks from the drying room, and sometimes your shirts if you're a common size (hey, they are all green and bloody hard to tell apart).
* If you're married you get allocated a house according to your rank/number of children/how long your length of service has been/how disgusting a mess you left your last place. If you're a young newly married Private with no kids and have been in the Army for only five years you get to bring your new bride into the squalor left over by a delinquent sergeant and his rabid brood who has sunk so low in the married quarter stakes he gets Private's houses. I'm extremely glad they did clean it up before we moved in, but I'm still embarrassed Ros had to see the dirty filthy and broken pigsty the guy left behind.
* You get to eat in the OR's Mess at times the Army say you have to eat. If you get good catering staff the food isn't bad, but you normally get a good shift and a bad shift. The bad shift you go out for pizza if you value your stomach lining.
Note: This may not be an issue now, they were in the process of replacing all the Army cooks with civilian catering firms and the food was not too bad.

Downsides?
* If you get posted to a field-force unit you get to spend at least four months a year out bush. When I was in they would take you without warning from your morning muster parade and you'd be gone for a fortnight. Great for family life and it's a rare woman that'd put up with that shit for long.
* You can get sent OS and be shot at/blown up/get to eat sand and flies for an indefinite period (see the part about a rare woman).
* If you get a turd of a boss, he can get you locked up if you tell him to piss off. He can so fark your career so far you will be a lance corporal for the rest of your unnatural life.
* You can be posted to somewhere you don't want to go at anytime and be screwed if your son is half-way through Year 12.
* A lot of Army bases are in places you wouldn't live if you had the choice. Broadmeadows...Puckapunyal...and the married quarters are just like peas in a very large pod. The shops are Army, the school's Army, the Kindergarten's Army, the hairdresser's Army, your neighbours are Army (and sometimes your superior). The nearest 'normal' town closest to the Base is full of people that hate Army (I'm thinking of Wagga Wagga and Seymour in particular).
* You get to do crap duties after hours like drive the CO around or look after the base Other Ranks club, which is hell on earth on pay Thursdays.
* If you hate the job/the place you work/your boss/wearing green, you can't just leave.

Edit> Bits re. food and accomodation added for Neka.

[Kishy]

Fucken oath Mick..

eg. How many billions they spent on those fucken submarines that
dont even bloody work

No wonder we hear such comments as "$1.9M is a small price to pay"

How many xtra nurses will that pay for each year?
How many xtra school teacher will that pay for?
How many homeless fuckers will get shelter over their heads with this money?

All the above miss out because some bozo's dont know how to ride
a fuckin scooter

Ridicuous.

[Kishy]

Thanks for the confirmation Ratmick.

After alls been said, its a job that has to be done, & there will always
be those who are willing to do it for whatever reason it is.

All da power to em

[greeny]

One thing you did forget Ratmick.

To those other ranks salaries add:
$9.548 per year service allowance and
$418.97 uniform maintenance allowance.

[Ratmick]

BTW, I am of the opinion the $1.9M is probably money well-spent.

I have been on course with Army guys and they know their shit. Given the amount of tax dollars invested in training the guys, then the $1.9M is just a form of insurance. It works out at only $3800 per rider, that's nothing compared to the cost of training a soldier/seaman/airmen to the point where they're an effective member of their unit.

On the other side of the coin, I reckon they're being severely ripped off and they are entitled to anything they can screw out of the Defence Force.

[Ratmick]

One thing you did forget Ratmick.

To those other ranks salaries add:
$9.548 per year service allowance and
$418.97 uniform maintenance allowance.

I didn't forget, it wasn't listed on the website .

The Service Allowance was the only thing making the pay look reasonable. There was talk when I was getting out of taking it away from everyone that wasn't in a field-force unit. Not sure if that would have gone down well .

Having said that, another $10,000 on top of $57,000 is still not really good money for what is essentially a senior technical manager with responsibility for 30 people with 20+ years of service (I'm pretty sure our Desktop Support guys get around that). And as I said, most of them know their shit.

But there are some really sadistic two-faced back-stabbing vindictive small (and narrow) minded bastards in the Army.

[gizmo]

What do you call crap pay?

Less than 10yrs ago, a gunner was on approx $40k (if my memory serves me correctly)

Was shit back then, & it is shit today. Many jobs out there offer more $$ for comparative
work..

If it was overwise, the Forces would be flooded with applicants instead of the Gubyment
having to launch advertising campaigns getting cunts to join up.

Why U think the Defence Force have hard time retaining their pilots for example?

Why? because of money. Airlines will pay shitload more than the Forces eva will.

Ya go into the Defence Force for the love of it.. not for the peanuts they fucken pay ya &
the kick in da guts ya get once ya out.

Just pray ya neva get a medical discharge, or worse still get killed in duty.. because once
ya useless to em, you'll see what the Gubyment treats ya ass; or ya loved ones.. if ya dead

As the V.V. what they think of how they've been treated.

Man Kishy you are a VERY Negative fella arn't ya?
Don't you get free housing or subsidised housing in the forces?

The amount of money all depends on where you live, $40K isn't much in the city, but it can be ok in the country...

[gizmo]

Fucken oath Mick..

eg. How many billions they spent on those fucken submarines that
dont even bloody work

That all depends on who you talk to, Now I have read stories about our supposed Shitty Subs getting great pictures of the hull on America's most well protected aircraft carriers in war games & the Americans wondering how the hell that happened with all there Hi-tech equipment & people protecting it.

How many xtra nurses will that pay for each year?
About 30?

How many xtra school teacher will that pay for?
About 30?

How many homeless fuckers will get shelter over their heads with this money?
About 30?

All the above miss out because some bozo's dont know how to ride
a fuckin scooter
Are you in the Army?

Ridicuous.

Thank you for your Opinion Kishy, but man you are a grumpy fella....
Think Chicken Little, the sky isn't falling, it's not the end of the world, just try to breathe alittle & then go for a ride on the bike

[Neka79]

yea cheap rent too..
all these things (plus learning a trade) made me consider joining..several times ive thought abt it..but decided against it..i like being able to make my own decisions...

[les2010]

Now Now Kishy, don't knock the collins class submarine, my nephew served on one and reckons with 4 wheels it would have been the best tank OZ ever built.
Les

[Kishy]

Now Now Kishy, don't knock the collins class submarine, my nephew served on one and reckons with 4 wheels it would have been the best tank OZ ever built.
Les

[Kishy]

Thank you for your Opinion Kishy, but man you are a grumpy fella....
Think Chicken Little, the sky isn't falling, it's not the end of the world,
just try to breathe alittle & then go for a ride on the bike

Wouldnt you be pissed if someone took $1.9M off you
to teach some fuckers how to ride a scooter?

[greeny]

Wouldnt you be pissed if someone took $1.9M off you
to teach some fuckers how to ride a scooter?

For the record i know of a couple of scooter riders tried to get on the one i did and they were told they had to have a real motorbike to do the training.

And the course i did was an intermediate cornering and braking course.


Dude you speak as if the money was taken out of your own pocket.
Do you have a problem with fellow riders getting some free training? Or is it just cause you can't take advantage of it?