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The rest of the TI shadowing went great. It was long hours, but there are breaks throughout the day so it's not non-stop. I'm putting in a package, now I'm just rushing to get it all done in time. I'm hoping to get it to MTI recruiting by Tuesday and to AFPC by Thursday. I had to get my picture taken in blues for it, I should get it back Monday or Tuesday. The commander is out of town until Monday, there's some stuff he has to sign off on. The most interesting and frustrating part of the process was going to mental health to be screened.
I called them on Wednesday and got an appointment for Thursday morning at 0930. I had a checklist that had to be completed, and it included a couple tests: an MMPI-2, and a Shipley IQ Test. The MMPI-2 is 567 true/false questions like "I enjoy fixing door latches" and "fire fascinates me". The Shipley test is a 2 part test. The first part is 40 vocabulary words, each word has 4 words that follow it and you have to pick the synonym of the original word. Pretty easy, there were 2 I didn't know, "jocose" which I matched with "humorous" due to it's similarity to jocular, and "temerity" which I guessed wrong. The 2nd part is 20 logic/pattern questions. There were 2 that made me think for a while, but I managed to get them all correct. The first one that got me was a number one, "3241 73 82 154 13_" and you had to fill in the last digit. The other one that took me a little time was a word pattern, "tar pitch throw, saloon bar rod, fee tip end, plank _ _ _ _ _ meals" and you had to fill in the missing 5 letter word.
I guess I got a little ahead of myself, but there were some other things on the checklist like letters that they were supposed to provide, etc. So I get there at 0915 and the airman at the reception tells me that the airman that does the MTI processing called in sick and that I'll have to reschedule for next Thursday. At this time there was a civilian female and 2 male airmen there. I ask if anybody else can do it since I have a pretty tight deadline for the application. I explain to him about the retraining program and that I have to have the package approved by AFPC by 21 September. He said there was an alternate but she was deployed. So I asked to talk to the supervisor of the airman that called in sick since usually a supervisor knows how to do all the tasks their troops know how to do. I was told that he wasn't there, so I asked to speak with the superintendent. They told me they didn't have one, the only person higher than the supervisor was the doc, a Lt Col. So I asked to speak with her, but before they could call her the supervisor walked by. He was able to give me the 2 tests I needed to take, but said I'd have to come back the next morning to finish everything else. That's a lot different than having to wait a full week, and was completely acceptable. So I finished my tests and left.
I went back the next morning and they had a folder prepared with everything I needed to finish my screening, and after I filled out some paperwork the airman that was sick the day before came and got me for the interview. On the way to her office she said that she was sorry she wasn't there the day before, that she understood there was an issue with that, that she had talked to her commander about it and her commander wanted to talk to me after the interview... Ok, whatever. During the interview one of the questions was something about how I handled anger and I told her I'm a pretty laid back person and very rarely get mad. She said, "Well what about yesterday? They told me you were very rude when you came in.". Ok, that made me a little angry. I was completely polite, used the chain of command to resolve an issue, and that makes me rude? When I talked to her commander later, she said "I understand you caused quite a stir yesterday...". WTF? I told her about the deadline for retraining, that I needed the stuff done, that I had an appointment with her airman, etc. I could understand if I had been obnoxious, but I was completely polite and wasn't even mad on the inside.
Whatever, she recommended approval for my MTI application, so that's all that matters. Just pisses me off that the others exaggerated what happened, and I have no idea why they'd do that. Also, if it would have been me that was sick and didn't show up for my appointment without calling them they would have happily sent a no-show letter to my commander. But when they blow off an appointment and don't tell the patient until they show up, it's ok.
So now I just have to get the commander to finish up his part of the package on Monday and it'll be ready to go.
The property management company found a renter for my house, they should be moved in this week sometime. It's a dual-military family, so they should be pretty reliable.
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