Do you guys think I've been in the military my entire life?
Anyway, something really funny just happened to my chain of command. Lets just say bad for them, good for the unit, and REALLY good for me.
Unfortunately, I now have a surprise three week FTX on top of the one I just had; convoy in the morning. Life is bittersweet sometimes.
Oh dear.
Prime contractors love ex-military. The people I dealt with at my anonymous client based in Arizona are almost all ex-USAF. And the primes are all investing heavily in cybersecurity. I follow Thales, LMCO, BAE systems, Raytheon and others on LinkedIn. The flashy videos show missile live fires. The boring articles are all about IT.
I looked into getting security clearance with a prime sponsoring me for it a few years ago because the prime was feeding me all manner of classified information (classified to the RAAF, that is). Pain in the arse. Notes of who you meet with, why, preferably with someone else in tow to evidence probity, and no visits to certain countries. Blah. I wanted to go to Damascus on a holiday before Assad screwed the pooch and that is now obviously out of the question, but I wouldn't have been able to even contemplate it if I had clearance.
But it does give you amazing entrée into private sector jobs. You'd get a well-paid job here in a blink as a trainee patent attorney because only three patent attorneys in Australia have security clearance to be able to file military patents. I assume something similar happens in the US.
Thales offered me a job three years ago actually, in a semi-enlisted capacity. I was tempted to take it, but they apparently wanted me to fly to and from Kuwait multiple times. But I really don't want to go back there if I can help it. Plus, the unit I was with at the time was already drawing deployment, so I didn't want to miss the opportunity.
I have a friend in Exelis who said they could use me if ever I decided to leave. I'd rather work for Harris since they're larger, have more interesting equipment to work with, and go more places. However, I'm very familiar with Exelis products, so I'd be better prepped for the job (plus, Exelis is mostly CONUS whereas most of the active Harris sites are OCONUS).
Going contractor though is a big controversy for me. They're paid absolutely disgusting wages for doing a disproportionately small amount of work. They'll argue with me to the death how untrue that is, but they're in a poor position to deny their laziness when I've actually seen them in action so often.
I've been working signal and all manner of other technical jobs for so long that I'm rather restless. I'm pretty much not at risk of losing my job anymore, but since I've been preparing for the event of a discharge over the past few weeks, I'm having second thoughts about staying on the course that I have been. Right now, I'm think security might be more fulfilling.
