Productive personnel count their blessings

  • Published
  • By Lt. Col. Paul Harris
  • 100th Security Forces Squadron
When my oldest daughter was working her way through college as a telemarketer, she told me one day how much she hated calling strangers to solicit. When I asked her why she just didn’t quit and get another job, she said, “People go to work every day to jobs they hate because they have to.” That comment hit me as a profound truth and reminded me how blessed we all are that we can actually enjoy what we do as we serve our country.

Having a stable income, working with quality people and doing something that contributes directly to the nation’s security are all things we should not take for granted. Some people are under the illusion that life on the “outside” would be heavenly bliss.

The truth is that in much of the corporate world, they care about you as long as you have the ability to make them money. As soon as problems come up in your life that keep you from performing at the top of your game, many of these companies are quick to look for someone new who can help their bottom line. I doubt there are many people left who have not had a family member, friend or acquaintance who was “downsized” or “let go” after many years of faithful service. In the military, when hard times come, if you have done your part by working hard and showing your commitment to the team, the service will stand by you and your family every time.

The primary thing you can do to increase the enjoyment of this privilege we have to serve is to focus on the positive. There are so many good things happening each day all over Air Force bases that simply actively looking for and recognizing the positive cannot help but raise anyone’s spirit. The glass is always more than half-full.

My advice to noncommissioned officers and officers in leadership positions is: Do not fool yourselves. The atmosphere you help create at work directly impacts the mission. If you focus on the positive and do your part to make everyone feel like a valuable member of the team, it will pay huge dividends in the quality work and dedication of your people. Harsh measures put people under constant stress will get you short-term results, but sustained excellence can only be achieved when people enjoy coming to work and feel they matter.

Years ago, I knew a captain who treated his troops like second-class citizens and lived under the illusion that everyone was working super hard to accomplish his agenda. During a major U.S. Army Joint Readiness Training Center exercise, I noticed one of this captain’s sergeants spend the entire five-day exercise diligently trying to get his portable radio communications, more commonly known as a PRC 77, radio to operate.

Every time the officer came around, the sergeant was either performing function checks, changing antennas, or switching frequencies, but all to no avail. After the exercise, I learned this sergeant had carried this heavy radio around on his back for the entire time knowing he had never installed the battery. This sergeant was wrong, but the captain could have avoided the human-nature tendency of people to rebel by simply changing the way he treated others.

It only takes a few minutes to show interest in people, lighten their stress with a few words of encouragement and find reasons to be happy. Creating an environment where it’s is easy for people to realize how lucky we are to serve always pays dividends in the lives of our troops, their families and our great Air Force.

My favorite Western author, Louis L’Amour, wrote in one of his stories about a selfish woman who betrayed an injured “good guy” for a few dollars, so she could get a train ticket out of town. After this injured cowboy fought off some “bad guys,” and listened to the woman’s excuses as to why she betrayed him, the cowboy put her life in perspective by saying, “It does not matter where you go, because you’re going to be there.”

If you want to find reasons to be miserable and why everything is screwed up, I am sure, if you work at it long enough, you can, but I suggest a different path. Count your blessings, focus on the positive and enjoy this time as we serve together in the greatest military in the world.