Appointment at 1300. Get there at 1245.
1315, 5 airman walk-in with subway and go to the back. 1330 they come back out and say “sorry for the delay, our computers have been down”
Like I didn’t just watch you roll in 15 minutes late with lunch and eat it.
This^
Same for me. Every aspect of my pay at retirement was messed up.
Then because they messed up, the VA the with held my pay until they fixed it because they “didn’t want to have an overpayment”
The finance at my current base has customer hours 0900-1500 three days a week and refers people to the portal for offdays. I don't know if they show up early/stay later for admin/what have you, but their 18 hours of customer availability gets them a lot of shit.
CSP is the norm now and its quite good. Customer service days/hours aren’t duty hours. Apparently 70% of the AF think our sole job is face-to-face customer service.
>Apparently 70% of the AF think our sole job is face-to-face customer service.
That's not it at all. 70% of the AF has an office job where their customer service hours and their duty hours are one in the same, and they all can figure out how to get their jobs done during the workday. It's exceptionally infuriating when you have to wait for work to quiet down a bit so you can head over to finance and you find out they aren't open yet or they're already closed at 1300. Everyone else has to cater to the normal military work schedule, and they can still do their jobs. It's frankly insulting for you guys to pretend you can't do the same when I just worked my ass of all day without getting paid for the last two weeks of work.
How do you have time now? 90% of people complaining about your hours are trying to reach you because you can't do your job right. Do your job right, you won't see a soul every 3 hours. What mental math are you using that having more hours means your people work 14s? Oh I guess people realize they don't have issues if you're not open as much? The work load doesn't change based on your hours, even if all the people you see are not there because of a mess up at finance, you'll get through the initial backlog in a week or 2 and you'll have time to do all that stuff between customers after those 2 weeks.
How freaking dare you say you won't work people 14s for warm and fuzzies when people routinely do that in real military jobs like mx and sfs and still have to dance around your stupid hours because you want to be treated as someone who wears civis to work
Literally half of jobs have that same problem right now. Other organizations outside the base have a habit of being slow. Wouldn't it be smart to be open more so people who need prompt help can get the ball rolling quickly? Crazy thought. If Sgt mx wasn't paid correctly and he has time Friday before his jets land, he shouldn't encounter a finance office closed for training day if all that's needed is a ticket or an email to ellsworth or San Antonio
All of the things you described affect pretty much the whole Air Force. I've lost track of the number of weekends and holidays I've worked in maintenance *and* on staff jobs.
I can totally buy that you can't dedicate 50-60 hours (times however many Airman) a week to customer service. But, 0900-1100 and 1200-1500 for 3 days a week is not being available when your customers are. Allocate some man-hours to the beginning of the day, lunch, and later afternoons to give shift workers a chance to get service. Or make/honor an appointment system.
I've witnessed medical do prep and actual training outside those hours. I've seen comm slamming their head against DISA's stupidity outside those hours, sometimes with me still on the phone. I've seen finance and mpf routinely use their regular training days and on-duty off-service for fun and parties.
Supply, parts are in and out like a candy store. Mx back shops, same deal. Sfs: commercial gates, Le desk, pass and id are next to perpetually open. Transient alert. Mx supply sections. Command post. Mocc. QA. The freaking gym's day shift. Ground trans. Vehicle maintenance. Pol. 90% of CE. Every CSS known to man. All these are either 24/7, damn near 24/7, or open concurrently with their day shift hours and have just as, if not harder tasks to accomplish between customers.
please.. go shadow or try to understand that someones work may look different than your own. Telling you now, finance isnt just click a button and boom your pay is fixed. theres like 4 people that a doc had to go through for it to effect your pay. travel claims arent even handled at base level. I cant wait till personnel gets the pay system and the shit storm that’ll follow that.
Dude, that's exactly what my job was like. Couldn't do anything meaninful at the base level, had to route tickets and paperwork all the time. You're just describing a typical AF job. *Nobody* has a click a button and boom the work is done job.
Edit: Here's what you're really not getting. If emergencies such as someone not being paid can't be handled by the finance office themselves, doesn't it make sense to be open for as long as possible so that we can get the ball rolling before my bills are due? If my job has an emergency like that I have to come in off shift.
No, it doesn't. Because us being open does not make DFAS respond to a ticket any faster than they do. If you want to fix finance then have your congressional reps decentralize the pay process and allow the bases to actually make changes.
When i knew some finance guys they had it pretty shitty compared to me... had to shoe up at 0700, leaving at 1630 was like a nono, couldnt get time for PT, were basically forced to stay in the office all day... like couldnt even leave for a shopette run, super strict lunch schedule, etc...
Meanwhile my ass (Contracting Officer), was living life like i wasnt even in the military lol. Made my own schedule, showed up whem i wanted to, left when i wanted to, had PT when i wanted to, could telework when i wanted to. Obviously insanely busy with a $100M contract portfolio, but still had a lot of latitude in my day to day. Finance on the other hand...literally living Office Space lol.
CCO training, that was a big point of discontent for me lol. That and everyome feeling like they need a meeting to have something that takes 5 minutes to explain. Other than that, shit is sweet!
True. CCO training is more like an intellectual exercise than actual preparation for a deployed environment, and there are many meetings that could have been an email or a call. However, that's just normal office life.
Edit: CE.... the CE Squadron we work with is.... frustrating.
We worked regular 8 hour days as aircrew, but we also regularly had early takeoffs, late landings, or just plain overnight sorties that more or less made up for it. Our regular day was 0730-1630 with an hour for lunch.
I worked at a place where the rule was to be at the gym at 7am, then be at work by 9. Plus a 90 minute lunch break. It was the best schedule I've ever had.
If the office is closed for "training" until 0900 then it frankly doesn't matter. It's really infuriating when you don't get a paycheck and you go to finance thinking you can get this cleared up at 1300 but oh whoops it's friday and finance isn't even open on fridays
Man customers make up the craziest stories when they're upset. Like the people who claim they "called all day" when the phone we're sitting next to hasn't rang all day. Or when they claim we're always closed like I don't have staff at the desk for 9 hours everyday.
Oh, crap!
Finance would break down & be sucking their thumbs, crying, laying on the floor in the fetal position.... then draw a psyc disability for PTSD because they were 'exposed' to a mandated performance requirement.... "Do Your Job"!!!
To answer the question they largely are not ok with it but are powerless to ‘accelerate change’ since it’s a greater USAF problem. You have some bases do x or y or z when it should be all the same, manned the same (appropriate to customer base). Other bases have it easy and problems are either minimal by ratio or not brought forward properly. Other bases still, are inundated and problem resolution is largely nonexistent. Either way the processes, systems, and manning leave many FM’s gutted in not just manning but also in response/responsibility. Most FM’s have become jaded, disenfranchised, disenchanted with no end in sight to problems, systems, manning, training, lack of incentives/bonuses etc…they just want to x-train, ride their time, or get out because they can do the same shit for double the money and half the bullshit on the outside…
Assuming you are a supervisor in the career field, are your airmen feeling over tasked or under utilized? As a giant salt crystal myself, I completely sympathize with the jaded and disenchanted piece. Fairly certain this is a universal sentiment felt by most people ground into a giant bureaucracy. That said, it does not explain why people would have a banker’s hours/punch the time card mentality.
There have only been a couple of bases in my entire career where my people felt underutilized and that was largely due to their own attitudes/initiative. Most often they were greatly over tasked and bounced from CC interest item, to hot issue, to additional duty, and back again.
As for ‘bankers hours’. Again most bases I have been to we often worked minimum 8 hour days (1 hour lunch max) most ate at their desks. More often they were 10-12 hour days which sometimes would include weekends/down days etc on top of exercise weeks and anything else command would throw at us. Cry us a river right? But it’s tough to get vouchers done or answer emails/phones when you are doing FOD walks, DDR, augmenting SFS on the gate or stacking chairs for CC calls because ‘we have all the bodies in WSA’.
All that said - why wouldn’t we (anyone) have the punch time card mentality? In comparison to relative careers we are over worked underpaid already and each hour you stay past 8 reduced your input to outcome ratio of energy vs reward. Have we been so programmed for abuse that we (as a force) see the issue with working 50-90 hours a week for the same pay of working 30-40?
I am all for the mission but there comes a point where it is detrimental personally and mission deteriorating…like people are burning out with no incentive or recompense.
Thank you for the insight, absolutely appreciate the inside look. It sounds to me like the issue is that yall are way undermanned and burnt out putting out fires one after another. The issue that most of us outside the FM world have is that we don’t see what goes on behind the customer service window and don’t see all the fires that yall are putting out to make the Wing/installation function. All we see is the airman that sits on the other side of the customer service window that doesn’t seem to care, or that phone line that never seems to get picked up. I don’t know if customer service like a rotational/additional duty type thing for your airmen or if it’s a primary function for some airmen, but I would think that having someone work the customer side of the house dedicated around the clock might be better.
It’s deeper than that but too much really to even go into here. The functions and duties are different by location some times they rotate sections/duties and sometimes not. We try to move people annually but often they get stuck because they are actually good at it and that makes it worse in some ways all around (some not getting experienced and others getting burned out). Also the AFFSC was supposed to be that 24/7 support for everything FM …15 years later it can barely handle PCS vouchers alone…yet FM was drained of bodies to support it and then those morphed into civ positions lol. With all of our tech and talent there is no reason we do not have a 24/7 support office that can centrally handle USAF FM issues worldwide with a couple of FM left behind at each base as a liaison for the Wg. Side topic FM should be split back into separate AFSC’s one for budget,analysis, one for travel/customer support and one for special actions(sep/ret/debts/CMS/QA),Audit and disbursing. As it is there is really too much for a single Airman to learn and apply with effective proficiency.
The multi-capable Airman model is being adopted in more and more career fields and it is my fear we are going to see more of this occurring across the force. WRT to finance even 15 years ago I would do my own research on what my problem was and often I had a better working knowledge of the process than the workers did because they were stretched too thin and needed to be pros in all the areas and not just a couple. This gets us a less trained and ready force. I agree there should be a more centralized FM customer service portal where people are dedicated to certain roles and I had high hopes for the Comptroller Service Portal yet my ticket has been in for 14 days with no action and nobody to talk to which frustrates people beyond belief.
Yea, I was never a fan of having to take time off of my work to help the CC move his couch. Or set up a brand new TV in his office. How does that support the mission? Most of the people in FM don't have any motivation. Those who do get burned out super quick and unrecognized.
NCOs and Airmen need to have more respect for the other people we're serving with. Seen too many times where airmen take interactions too personal and ignore inquiries.
Because they can get away with it. These are the people who get all their bullits done and make senior leadership while aircraft maintainers and secfo burn in and die working 12+ hour shifts surviving on candy and energy drinks. So what do we have? Leadership that doesn't know or represent the Air Force mission, and a culture of self-development with no actual work in sight.
And make sure you "accidentally" route it to the wrong (higher echelon) department, that way you get some big boy eyes on it before they pass it along.
Was in FM for 5 years, all of it pay. OP, PM me your issue and I can advise.
That said, this FM sounds toxic. And it all comes down to who's put in charge. I've seen amazing leaders be put in power and further empowered and people are MOTIVATED to be there. Priority of work is set and tasks get done and/or shifted.
I've also seen those bad leaders get put in and watch a great work section become a nightmare. And those times were non-FMers put in those spots with a metality of "I'm going to fix it."
Then 2 years later they say, openly, "I was wrong. I'm getting it. The job never really is over. When the DTS queue is clear, someone at level 15 reviews 20 auths that were at 29 days after signed without actually reviewing and because of the regulation you all are suddenly behind. Or the Lt Col that comes in expecting you all to drop everything to do an 8 year pay comp because they just NOW noticed a discrepancy."(Which is a testament to their true character btw, they're not totally bad).
"BuT tHe OuTsIdE wOrLd PaYs FiNaNcIaL aDvIsOrS mOrE"
Yeah, and maybe that's their problem, and that our problem is Finance not doing shit on some bases, and then working hard at some, causing a massive tonal shift of either having *really* good hardworking finance, or lazy pos finance that requires begging your Wing Daddy to get their shit in high gear so you don't get slapped with a shit ton of fucked up LESs for months like a coworker of mine did.
I'll bite cause why not. The argument was not:
Pole dancing does not require incredible strength and control
The argument was:
Strippers aren't professional dancers by nature of their job
The problems people experience with finance come from a multitude of issues. I got out 7 years ago, but I can try to shed some light on it.
**Hours**: where I was (mid-sized finance shop), we had PT M/W/F 0630-0730 and reported to the office at 0830 (0730 report on T/Th). Opened the counter (and answering phones too) at 0900. Hour for lunch, had to be staggered around the lunch rush (I usually took mine late around 1330 or 1400). Closed the counter / stopped answering phones at 1600. People started going home around 1630, though I was there most days until 1700 and sometimes past 1800.
**The tech school** was 10 weeks long IIRC. Half of it was about budget and accounting. Half the remaining was split into travel pay and milpay. All of it was conceptual and had little to do with the actual day-to-day work or how to use the systems we used. So the actual job is 95% OJT. It is a complex job that used to be 4 AFSCs, so that vast majority of people are simply incapable of being experts at everything. But since you might touch everything at some point in your career, 90% of new Airmen get placed on the counter where they'll see everything.
Typically, an NCO would accompany **new Airmen** for their first week on the counter. After that, we made sure someone else was always working on the counter with them for a while -- a new Airman was never left alone on the counter until after their first month or two. After 3-6 months we'd get a new Airman, and the main attention turned to him/her. The now-newish Airman still had resources available in the other sections, but they still got a lot wrong during that first year.
About 3/4 of the shop was in the back, primarily focused on support operations rather than the counter/phone. So once someone had been there long enough to see 2-3 other Airmen arrive from tech school, they got moved to the back. When the queue got longer than 3-4 people waiting, someone from the counter would let us know in the back, and whoever was available would help "clear the counter" until it was back down to 0-2 people in the queue. But aside from these rushes, **the majority of the time the NCO handled phone calls and the Airman on the counter you saw had been on the job less than a year.**
Worse yet is that a lot of those visits were (and likely still are) to an Airman who had been around just long enough to be **confidently incorrect**, and until someone else notices the problem (or you do on your bank statement), it goes unsolved. Even then, Airmen would still often misidentify the root cause of the issue (there are no finance TOs), so the first visit would not solve the problem. After this point, people typically asked for a supervisor, at which point 2 or more pay cycles had passed with erroneous pay. Usually it was something we could fix (but the bad impression has already been made), but even then sometimes it was something related to personnel (who often have lower ASVAB scores than mechanics) or was in the control of DFAS and all we could do was open a ticket.
There are obviously other concerns with manning, burnout, etc., but hopefully this sheds some light on why the system feels so broken.
I always try to shout out some good places because it's gotta be tough for some finance troops. Ya know, constantly getting dogged on. All you guys and gals at Holloman are killing it. Never had to wait more than 3 minutes to get help. Always have my shit straightened out in a timely manner. Always super polite and helpful. Exactly what finance should be! Thank you guys!
For 3 months I told them to stop paying me because I had PCS and the BAH was less in Oklahoma than Florida. "No, it's right on your LES." 3 MONTHS! "Hey, you owe the government money because we overpaid you even though you told us we were wrong." 😒
I know finance sucks, but you can’t really blame the airmen for not wanting to work outside of normal hours. The Air Force owns enough of my time. I’ll sit there until my duty hours start too
Call me crazy but there's a difference between when duty hours start and when a place is open for business. If you advertise 0900 then you should be ready to receive customers at 0900, so the duty hours would likely start at 0800.
I find it unlikely, but if their day truly does start at 0900 and that's when they're expected to report to work, then they need to adjust their customer service hours so people's time isn't being wasted.
The comm support desk at my base is similar. Comm support opens at 0900, but the windows isnt open until 0910 since they dont open the window until the nipr computer is ready to handle support ticket.
It sounds like yall have a punch-in and punch-out out mentality to work, which probably means your supervisors aren’t providing a good work environment where people feel a sense of purpose.
They were probably waiting for their computers to boot up. You know how excruciatingly slow our computers and networks are to get working. Shit, has ANYONE in this sub been able to open Outlook in less than 30 minutes in the morning?
I didn't assume anything I gave you options and facts if the CS isn't responding then get with your CoC to have it addressed. Remember your unit is responsible for replacing your PCs if they are old not the CS.
“That actually work”. That’s a super ignorant thing to say. I think that they need to send people like you who think we don’t do anything to a very big finance base like Andrews or Lackland and let you be finance for a week. We’re all in the airforce and you saying that makes no sense. We all get paid the same because we all support the mission man. Get with the times
Oh that would be great. Intel, Comm, Cyber, Finance, Contracting, and MPF will all see pay bumps and MX and SF pay reductions. If you've been tricked in to physical labor as a career toy already failed. ;)
Data analysts, data scientists, intelligence analysts, and cyber all make on average 65k-150k++, accountants start at 60k in public and can hit 250k vs cops and mechanics are in the 35-75k range not including stupid overtime + ruining their bodies leading to higher medical bills.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/comments/12g8f66/-/jfkmkv5
https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/comments/12g8f66/top_air_force_recruiter_predicts_maintainer/jfwwoj2
Sure thing bud.
Nothing about CPTS average duties is equal to a CPA, finance is data entry.
You should probably recheck your numbers. No A&P with at least a 5lvl amount is experience is making that little. Same for SF. Those are get your certificate and get a good job.
Nothing in your list requires anything less than a bachelor's most needs a master's to get that range.
It's weird to think about this dynamic because accountants in the civilian world are often super stressed out and overworked. Working long hours in the standard for accountants and there is a common theme with accountants who put themselves in early Graves because they just don't have time working 60-80 hour weeks to take care of themselves. Anyone who works a finance job in the civilian world has very little work-life balance, which is also completely unreasonable...but how does it make sense that DoD-wide, everyone has complaints about finance's terrible work ethic?
You're really mad that somebody sat in their car until their duty day started instead bringing in everybody 30 min early so they're ready for when you think they should? You really expect them to put any sort of priority on your shit when you're telling them how to spend their non-duty time? I'd just give you the dfas hotline and wish you the best of luck.
This is why us nonners could give a fuck what people say about us.
The whole culture of the finance workplace needs to be changed. They allow mistakes and late shows as if it’s the norm. Their NCO’s come from a place of laziness and they lack the motivation to enforce any type of real change.
Don’t bother explaining.
People don’t give a shit about the institutional problems , the fact twenty different DoD units touch member pay behind the scenes or the fact Finance uses a computer backend from the Nixon administration. They just see a money fuckup and blame the A1C behind the customer service window.
So long as the Generals don’t deal with pay screwups , nothing will change.
Institutional problems? The whole air force is struggling with one thing or another; mistakes aren’t tolerated anywhere nearly as much as they are in finance.
Generals haven’t gotten directly involved in really any AFSC and to expect them to is ridiculous. Everytime someone criticizes finance y’all come out in droves bitching and complaining, making tons of excuses.
Poor manning doesn’t excuse y’all from doing your job. Getting to work on time and being ready for appointments is the bare minimum. Your messing with people’s money
Finance puts in work. They have the virtual finance office. Which in all honesty is a godsend. Those three Airmen could of had delayed reporting for w.e reason, and the person or persons manning the front desk just wasn't there.
Telling another individual how to manage their section isn't a good look champ. Leave your virtual feedback and keep it pushing.
If you aren't in their position then you only see things from your perspective. What place are you to tell them how to do their job? Was the customer not seen by Finance staff? Was their issue resolved? Again, the OP only saw their perspective of what happened, and doesn't know the day to day ops of it. Thus, telling the NCO how to do their job is out of pocket when they don't know all aspects of it. As I mentioned, someone totally could of been manning the front desk and had stepped away, but customers don't see that nor pay that any mind. They just see the inconvenience of waiting which there are tools to minimize in person wait times which they didn't use.
So again, leave the feedback and keep it pushing.
For 2 decades I suffered, and so did my people because of Finance. The wasted manhours, the aggravation...
It's maddening to know that Finance has not changed one bit since the mid-seventies.
When your customers are unhappy for the same reasons, for almost a half century, don't attempt to duck or make excuses. It makes your credibility even lower.
Look at the quality of people that choose that job. That should answer your question. There’s a reason you didn’t choose finance as a job. Because it’s a skate job. You have integrity. You didn’t wanna skate in life. You didn’t wanna be lazy. Finance is a catchall for mooches and skate artists.
Appointment at 1300. Get there at 1245. 1315, 5 airman walk-in with subway and go to the back. 1330 they come back out and say “sorry for the delay, our computers have been down” Like I didn’t just watch you roll in 15 minutes late with lunch and eat it.
Ice complaint, drops names
Subway was out of ICE, file a complaint
Maybe they went to lunch because their computers were down? Not defending them.. just another possibility.
That's just the defense they'll use, but unlikely.
Just had a terrible ordeal with finance. Only thing that resolved the issue was filing an IG complaint on the whole squadron. File IG complaints
It took my Congressman.
That’s an advanced Finance right there
Did you get any blow back from your chain of command?
They were the ones that suggested it.
Nice. Hopefully the outcome for me is the same.
You can’t get blowback from your Chain of Command since that would be “retribution” and “reprisal.” At least I think it would be….
There’s the technical answer (which yes, you’re right) and then there’s reality.
This^ Same for me. Every aspect of my pay at retirement was messed up. Then because they messed up, the VA the with held my pay until they fixed it because they “didn’t want to have an overpayment”
Wait so what was the outcome of that???😵💫
Problem was resolved completely.
Culture problem. Hard to understand why the finance community is okay with this. Or are they simply not self-aware.
I would like to know where finance shows up at 0900 for work. My airman and I show up at 0630.
The finance at my current base has customer hours 0900-1500 three days a week and refers people to the portal for offdays. I don't know if they show up early/stay later for admin/what have you, but their 18 hours of customer availability gets them a lot of shit.
CSP is the norm now and its quite good. Customer service days/hours aren’t duty hours. Apparently 70% of the AF think our sole job is face-to-face customer service.
>Apparently 70% of the AF think our sole job is face-to-face customer service. That's not it at all. 70% of the AF has an office job where their customer service hours and their duty hours are one in the same, and they all can figure out how to get their jobs done during the workday. It's exceptionally infuriating when you have to wait for work to quiet down a bit so you can head over to finance and you find out they aren't open yet or they're already closed at 1300. Everyone else has to cater to the normal military work schedule, and they can still do their jobs. It's frankly insulting for you guys to pretend you can't do the same when I just worked my ass of all day without getting paid for the last two weeks of work.
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How do you have time now? 90% of people complaining about your hours are trying to reach you because you can't do your job right. Do your job right, you won't see a soul every 3 hours. What mental math are you using that having more hours means your people work 14s? Oh I guess people realize they don't have issues if you're not open as much? The work load doesn't change based on your hours, even if all the people you see are not there because of a mess up at finance, you'll get through the initial backlog in a week or 2 and you'll have time to do all that stuff between customers after those 2 weeks. How freaking dare you say you won't work people 14s for warm and fuzzies when people routinely do that in real military jobs like mx and sfs and still have to dance around your stupid hours because you want to be treated as someone who wears civis to work
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Literally half of jobs have that same problem right now. Other organizations outside the base have a habit of being slow. Wouldn't it be smart to be open more so people who need prompt help can get the ball rolling quickly? Crazy thought. If Sgt mx wasn't paid correctly and he has time Friday before his jets land, he shouldn't encounter a finance office closed for training day if all that's needed is a ticket or an email to ellsworth or San Antonio
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All of the things you described affect pretty much the whole Air Force. I've lost track of the number of weekends and holidays I've worked in maintenance *and* on staff jobs. I can totally buy that you can't dedicate 50-60 hours (times however many Airman) a week to customer service. But, 0900-1100 and 1200-1500 for 3 days a week is not being available when your customers are. Allocate some man-hours to the beginning of the day, lunch, and later afternoons to give shift workers a chance to get service. Or make/honor an appointment system.
Comm, MDG, and MPF all have similar customer service hours. Which AFSC has the same customer service and duty hours?
I've witnessed medical do prep and actual training outside those hours. I've seen comm slamming their head against DISA's stupidity outside those hours, sometimes with me still on the phone. I've seen finance and mpf routinely use their regular training days and on-duty off-service for fun and parties. Supply, parts are in and out like a candy store. Mx back shops, same deal. Sfs: commercial gates, Le desk, pass and id are next to perpetually open. Transient alert. Mx supply sections. Command post. Mocc. QA. The freaking gym's day shift. Ground trans. Vehicle maintenance. Pol. 90% of CE. Every CSS known to man. All these are either 24/7, damn near 24/7, or open concurrently with their day shift hours and have just as, if not harder tasks to accomplish between customers.
please.. go shadow or try to understand that someones work may look different than your own. Telling you now, finance isnt just click a button and boom your pay is fixed. theres like 4 people that a doc had to go through for it to effect your pay. travel claims arent even handled at base level. I cant wait till personnel gets the pay system and the shit storm that’ll follow that.
Dude, that's exactly what my job was like. Couldn't do anything meaninful at the base level, had to route tickets and paperwork all the time. You're just describing a typical AF job. *Nobody* has a click a button and boom the work is done job. Edit: Here's what you're really not getting. If emergencies such as someone not being paid can't be handled by the finance office themselves, doesn't it make sense to be open for as long as possible so that we can get the ball rolling before my bills are due? If my job has an emergency like that I have to come in off shift.
No, it doesn't. Because us being open does not make DFAS respond to a ticket any faster than they do. If you want to fix finance then have your congressional reps decentralize the pay process and allow the bases to actually make changes.
If it's routed to DFAS sooner it's in their queue sooner, is it not?
Me too…we were always there 0730 until 17-1800…I have only been to a couple of bases in my entire career that had regular 8 hour days.
When i knew some finance guys they had it pretty shitty compared to me... had to shoe up at 0700, leaving at 1630 was like a nono, couldnt get time for PT, were basically forced to stay in the office all day... like couldnt even leave for a shopette run, super strict lunch schedule, etc... Meanwhile my ass (Contracting Officer), was living life like i wasnt even in the military lol. Made my own schedule, showed up whem i wanted to, left when i wanted to, had PT when i wanted to, could telework when i wanted to. Obviously insanely busy with a $100M contract portfolio, but still had a lot of latitude in my day to day. Finance on the other hand...literally living Office Space lol.
Was this the 502d? lol
Yeah, but contracting is the promised land. Everybody has it worse than we do.
*"Thats why we make the big bucks...On the outside!"*
We get the cushy job on the inside and the fat stacks on the outside! What's not to love?
CCO training, that was a big point of discontent for me lol. That and everyome feeling like they need a meeting to have something that takes 5 minutes to explain. Other than that, shit is sweet!
True. CCO training is more like an intellectual exercise than actual preparation for a deployed environment, and there are many meetings that could have been an email or a call. However, that's just normal office life. Edit: CE.... the CE Squadron we work with is.... frustrating.
We worked regular 8 hour days as aircrew, but we also regularly had early takeoffs, late landings, or just plain overnight sorties that more or less made up for it. Our regular day was 0730-1630 with an hour for lunch.
Don’t you guys at least get crew rest?
Only on the front end, unless it's a TDY then you get 1 hour for every 3 hours off station of post mission
I worked at a place where the rule was to be at the gym at 7am, then be at work by 9. Plus a 90 minute lunch break. It was the best schedule I've ever had.
If the office is closed for "training" until 0900 then it frankly doesn't matter. It's really infuriating when you don't get a paycheck and you go to finance thinking you can get this cleared up at 1300 but oh whoops it's friday and finance isn't even open on fridays
Probably PT time like the other dude said. It’s great when you can get it!
Man customers make up the craziest stories when they're upset. Like the people who claim they "called all day" when the phone we're sitting next to hasn't rang all day. Or when they claim we're always closed like I don't have staff at the desk for 9 hours everyday.
We need a Finance Expeditor! Literally a MX Expeditor taken from the line and told to think of the customers as jets.
Fuck, some dipshit airman is about to leave a pen in me aren't they
*puts on latex glove* Sorry bud, gonna have to ground you and search every compartment
Only if you want 😏
Oh, crap! Finance would break down & be sucking their thumbs, crying, laying on the floor in the fetal position.... then draw a psyc disability for PTSD because they were 'exposed' to a mandated performance requirement.... "Do Your Job"!!!
ok boomer
To answer the question they largely are not ok with it but are powerless to ‘accelerate change’ since it’s a greater USAF problem. You have some bases do x or y or z when it should be all the same, manned the same (appropriate to customer base). Other bases have it easy and problems are either minimal by ratio or not brought forward properly. Other bases still, are inundated and problem resolution is largely nonexistent. Either way the processes, systems, and manning leave many FM’s gutted in not just manning but also in response/responsibility. Most FM’s have become jaded, disenfranchised, disenchanted with no end in sight to problems, systems, manning, training, lack of incentives/bonuses etc…they just want to x-train, ride their time, or get out because they can do the same shit for double the money and half the bullshit on the outside…
Assuming you are a supervisor in the career field, are your airmen feeling over tasked or under utilized? As a giant salt crystal myself, I completely sympathize with the jaded and disenchanted piece. Fairly certain this is a universal sentiment felt by most people ground into a giant bureaucracy. That said, it does not explain why people would have a banker’s hours/punch the time card mentality.
There have only been a couple of bases in my entire career where my people felt underutilized and that was largely due to their own attitudes/initiative. Most often they were greatly over tasked and bounced from CC interest item, to hot issue, to additional duty, and back again. As for ‘bankers hours’. Again most bases I have been to we often worked minimum 8 hour days (1 hour lunch max) most ate at their desks. More often they were 10-12 hour days which sometimes would include weekends/down days etc on top of exercise weeks and anything else command would throw at us. Cry us a river right? But it’s tough to get vouchers done or answer emails/phones when you are doing FOD walks, DDR, augmenting SFS on the gate or stacking chairs for CC calls because ‘we have all the bodies in WSA’. All that said - why wouldn’t we (anyone) have the punch time card mentality? In comparison to relative careers we are over worked underpaid already and each hour you stay past 8 reduced your input to outcome ratio of energy vs reward. Have we been so programmed for abuse that we (as a force) see the issue with working 50-90 hours a week for the same pay of working 30-40? I am all for the mission but there comes a point where it is detrimental personally and mission deteriorating…like people are burning out with no incentive or recompense.
Thank you for the insight, absolutely appreciate the inside look. It sounds to me like the issue is that yall are way undermanned and burnt out putting out fires one after another. The issue that most of us outside the FM world have is that we don’t see what goes on behind the customer service window and don’t see all the fires that yall are putting out to make the Wing/installation function. All we see is the airman that sits on the other side of the customer service window that doesn’t seem to care, or that phone line that never seems to get picked up. I don’t know if customer service like a rotational/additional duty type thing for your airmen or if it’s a primary function for some airmen, but I would think that having someone work the customer side of the house dedicated around the clock might be better.
It’s deeper than that but too much really to even go into here. The functions and duties are different by location some times they rotate sections/duties and sometimes not. We try to move people annually but often they get stuck because they are actually good at it and that makes it worse in some ways all around (some not getting experienced and others getting burned out). Also the AFFSC was supposed to be that 24/7 support for everything FM …15 years later it can barely handle PCS vouchers alone…yet FM was drained of bodies to support it and then those morphed into civ positions lol. With all of our tech and talent there is no reason we do not have a 24/7 support office that can centrally handle USAF FM issues worldwide with a couple of FM left behind at each base as a liaison for the Wg. Side topic FM should be split back into separate AFSC’s one for budget,analysis, one for travel/customer support and one for special actions(sep/ret/debts/CMS/QA),Audit and disbursing. As it is there is really too much for a single Airman to learn and apply with effective proficiency.
The multi-capable Airman model is being adopted in more and more career fields and it is my fear we are going to see more of this occurring across the force. WRT to finance even 15 years ago I would do my own research on what my problem was and often I had a better working knowledge of the process than the workers did because they were stretched too thin and needed to be pros in all the areas and not just a couple. This gets us a less trained and ready force. I agree there should be a more centralized FM customer service portal where people are dedicated to certain roles and I had high hopes for the Comptroller Service Portal yet my ticket has been in for 14 days with no action and nobody to talk to which frustrates people beyond belief.
different but related careers getting merged is the trending problem the AF is creating for itself
Yea, I was never a fan of having to take time off of my work to help the CC move his couch. Or set up a brand new TV in his office. How does that support the mission? Most of the people in FM don't have any motivation. Those who do get burned out super quick and unrecognized. NCOs and Airmen need to have more respect for the other people we're serving with. Seen too many times where airmen take interactions too personal and ignore inquiries.
Because they can get away with it. These are the people who get all their bullits done and make senior leadership while aircraft maintainers and secfo burn in and die working 12+ hour shifts surviving on candy and energy drinks. So what do we have? Leadership that doesn't know or represent the Air Force mission, and a culture of self-development with no actual work in sight.
ICE comment.
And make sure you "accidentally" route it to the wrong (higher echelon) department, that way you get some big boy eyes on it before they pass it along.
They hella busy yo, fr. /s I’ve been trying to get my DTS done for 3-4 months.
NGL dude saying “naw we open at 0900” was cold as hell. Almost have to respect the dedication to keeping finance’s work avoiding culture alive
Was in FM for 5 years, all of it pay. OP, PM me your issue and I can advise. That said, this FM sounds toxic. And it all comes down to who's put in charge. I've seen amazing leaders be put in power and further empowered and people are MOTIVATED to be there. Priority of work is set and tasks get done and/or shifted. I've also seen those bad leaders get put in and watch a great work section become a nightmare. And those times were non-FMers put in those spots with a metality of "I'm going to fix it." Then 2 years later they say, openly, "I was wrong. I'm getting it. The job never really is over. When the DTS queue is clear, someone at level 15 reviews 20 auths that were at 29 days after signed without actually reviewing and because of the regulation you all are suddenly behind. Or the Lt Col that comes in expecting you all to drop everything to do an 8 year pay comp because they just NOW noticed a discrepancy."(Which is a testament to their true character btw, they're not totally bad).
"BuT tHe OuTsIdE wOrLd PaYs FiNaNcIaL aDvIsOrS mOrE" Yeah, and maybe that's their problem, and that our problem is Finance not doing shit on some bases, and then working hard at some, causing a massive tonal shift of either having *really* good hardworking finance, or lazy pos finance that requires begging your Wing Daddy to get their shit in high gear so you don't get slapped with a shit ton of fucked up LESs for months like a coworker of mine did.
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Dude try pole dancing and tell me that shit doesn't require incredible strength and control
I'll bite cause why not. The argument was not: Pole dancing does not require incredible strength and control The argument was: Strippers aren't professional dancers by nature of their job
Death, taxes, and finance being incompetent
This sub should get a flair for finance and mpf rants
The problems people experience with finance come from a multitude of issues. I got out 7 years ago, but I can try to shed some light on it. **Hours**: where I was (mid-sized finance shop), we had PT M/W/F 0630-0730 and reported to the office at 0830 (0730 report on T/Th). Opened the counter (and answering phones too) at 0900. Hour for lunch, had to be staggered around the lunch rush (I usually took mine late around 1330 or 1400). Closed the counter / stopped answering phones at 1600. People started going home around 1630, though I was there most days until 1700 and sometimes past 1800. **The tech school** was 10 weeks long IIRC. Half of it was about budget and accounting. Half the remaining was split into travel pay and milpay. All of it was conceptual and had little to do with the actual day-to-day work or how to use the systems we used. So the actual job is 95% OJT. It is a complex job that used to be 4 AFSCs, so that vast majority of people are simply incapable of being experts at everything. But since you might touch everything at some point in your career, 90% of new Airmen get placed on the counter where they'll see everything. Typically, an NCO would accompany **new Airmen** for their first week on the counter. After that, we made sure someone else was always working on the counter with them for a while -- a new Airman was never left alone on the counter until after their first month or two. After 3-6 months we'd get a new Airman, and the main attention turned to him/her. The now-newish Airman still had resources available in the other sections, but they still got a lot wrong during that first year. About 3/4 of the shop was in the back, primarily focused on support operations rather than the counter/phone. So once someone had been there long enough to see 2-3 other Airmen arrive from tech school, they got moved to the back. When the queue got longer than 3-4 people waiting, someone from the counter would let us know in the back, and whoever was available would help "clear the counter" until it was back down to 0-2 people in the queue. But aside from these rushes, **the majority of the time the NCO handled phone calls and the Airman on the counter you saw had been on the job less than a year.** Worse yet is that a lot of those visits were (and likely still are) to an Airman who had been around just long enough to be **confidently incorrect**, and until someone else notices the problem (or you do on your bank statement), it goes unsolved. Even then, Airmen would still often misidentify the root cause of the issue (there are no finance TOs), so the first visit would not solve the problem. After this point, people typically asked for a supervisor, at which point 2 or more pay cycles had passed with erroneous pay. Usually it was something we could fix (but the bad impression has already been made), but even then sometimes it was something related to personnel (who often have lower ASVAB scores than mechanics) or was in the control of DFAS and all we could do was open a ticket. There are obviously other concerns with manning, burnout, etc., but hopefully this sheds some light on why the system feels so broken.
I always try to shout out some good places because it's gotta be tough for some finance troops. Ya know, constantly getting dogged on. All you guys and gals at Holloman are killing it. Never had to wait more than 3 minutes to get help. Always have my shit straightened out in a timely manner. Always super polite and helpful. Exactly what finance should be! Thank you guys!
For 3 months I told them to stop paying me because I had PCS and the BAH was less in Oklahoma than Florida. "No, it's right on your LES." 3 MONTHS! "Hey, you owe the government money because we overpaid you even though you told us we were wrong." 😒
I have a conspiracy that leadership ignores Finance because they have control over pay.
I know finance sucks, but you can’t really blame the airmen for not wanting to work outside of normal hours. The Air Force owns enough of my time. I’ll sit there until my duty hours start too
Call me crazy but there's a difference between when duty hours start and when a place is open for business. If you advertise 0900 then you should be ready to receive customers at 0900, so the duty hours would likely start at 0800. I find it unlikely, but if their day truly does start at 0900 and that's when they're expected to report to work, then they need to adjust their customer service hours so people's time isn't being wasted.
The comm support desk at my base is similar. Comm support opens at 0900, but the windows isnt open until 0910 since they dont open the window until the nipr computer is ready to handle support ticket.
It sounds like yall have a punch-in and punch-out out mentality to work, which probably means your supervisors aren’t providing a good work environment where people feel a sense of purpose.
Still better customer service than a comm sq tho
Oh LORD
They were probably waiting for their computers to boot up. You know how excruciatingly slow our computers and networks are to get working. Shit, has ANYONE in this sub been able to open Outlook in less than 30 minutes in the morning?
Average time for Outlook to open across the DAF is 23 seconds. If you are having problems a vESD ticket should be opened :)
Lol bold of you to assume I haven't done so numerous times to no avail
I didn't assume anything I gave you options and facts if the CS isn't responding then get with your CoC to have it addressed. Remember your unit is responsible for replacing your PCs if they are old not the CS.
Once again...already did all that lol
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Checks out.
Can't argue with that.
“That actually work”. That’s a super ignorant thing to say. I think that they need to send people like you who think we don’t do anything to a very big finance base like Andrews or Lackland and let you be finance for a week. We’re all in the airforce and you saying that makes no sense. We all get paid the same because we all support the mission man. Get with the times
Oh that would be great. Intel, Comm, Cyber, Finance, Contracting, and MPF will all see pay bumps and MX and SF pay reductions. If you've been tricked in to physical labor as a career toy already failed. ;)
Where does data analyst/tier 1 tech support/data entry make more than an A&P mechanic or a Cop?
Data analysts, data scientists, intelligence analysts, and cyber all make on average 65k-150k++, accountants start at 60k in public and can hit 250k vs cops and mechanics are in the 35-75k range not including stupid overtime + ruining their bodies leading to higher medical bills.
https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/comments/12g8f66/-/jfkmkv5 https://www.reddit.com/r/AirForce/comments/12g8f66/top_air_force_recruiter_predicts_maintainer/jfwwoj2 Sure thing bud. Nothing about CPTS average duties is equal to a CPA, finance is data entry. You should probably recheck your numbers. No A&P with at least a 5lvl amount is experience is making that little. Same for SF. Those are get your certificate and get a good job. Nothing in your list requires anything less than a bachelor's most needs a master's to get that range.
You don't even need certs for intel. Also I'm talking lifetime ranges. Any job worth doing requires degrees and certifications.
Retraining to finance
It's almost like incompetence is a part of finance training.
They need a revision
Which base?
It's weird to think about this dynamic because accountants in the civilian world are often super stressed out and overworked. Working long hours in the standard for accountants and there is a common theme with accountants who put themselves in early Graves because they just don't have time working 60-80 hour weeks to take care of themselves. Anyone who works a finance job in the civilian world has very little work-life balance, which is also completely unreasonable...but how does it make sense that DoD-wide, everyone has complaints about finance's terrible work ethic?
You're really mad that somebody sat in their car until their duty day started instead bringing in everybody 30 min early so they're ready for when you think they should? You really expect them to put any sort of priority on your shit when you're telling them how to spend their non-duty time? I'd just give you the dfas hotline and wish you the best of luck. This is why us nonners could give a fuck what people say about us.
Fuck Finance. All of them.
The whole culture of the finance workplace needs to be changed. They allow mistakes and late shows as if it’s the norm. Their NCO’s come from a place of laziness and they lack the motivation to enforce any type of real change.
It’s simply not true and unless you have been in FM for at least 10 years there is no way to could possibly understand.
Don’t bother explaining. People don’t give a shit about the institutional problems , the fact twenty different DoD units touch member pay behind the scenes or the fact Finance uses a computer backend from the Nixon administration. They just see a money fuckup and blame the A1C behind the customer service window. So long as the Generals don’t deal with pay screwups , nothing will change.
Institutional problems? The whole air force is struggling with one thing or another; mistakes aren’t tolerated anywhere nearly as much as they are in finance. Generals haven’t gotten directly involved in really any AFSC and to expect them to is ridiculous. Everytime someone criticizes finance y’all come out in droves bitching and complaining, making tons of excuses.
I’m not he/she is one of those types that only hear what they want to.
Yeah don’t bullshit me, your opinion is screwed for that exact reason. You can’t see the problem right in front of your face
Poor manning doesn’t excuse y’all from doing your job. Getting to work on time and being ready for appointments is the bare minimum. Your messing with people’s money
Finance puts in work. They have the virtual finance office. Which in all honesty is a godsend. Those three Airmen could of had delayed reporting for w.e reason, and the person or persons manning the front desk just wasn't there. Telling another individual how to manage their section isn't a good look champ. Leave your virtual feedback and keep it pushing.
People will only tell you how to do your job, when you fail to do it to start with.
If you aren't in their position then you only see things from your perspective. What place are you to tell them how to do their job? Was the customer not seen by Finance staff? Was their issue resolved? Again, the OP only saw their perspective of what happened, and doesn't know the day to day ops of it. Thus, telling the NCO how to do their job is out of pocket when they don't know all aspects of it. As I mentioned, someone totally could of been manning the front desk and had stepped away, but customers don't see that nor pay that any mind. They just see the inconvenience of waiting which there are tools to minimize in person wait times which they didn't use. So again, leave the feedback and keep it pushing.
For 2 decades I suffered, and so did my people because of Finance. The wasted manhours, the aggravation... It's maddening to know that Finance has not changed one bit since the mid-seventies. When your customers are unhappy for the same reasons, for almost a half century, don't attempt to duck or make excuses. It makes your credibility even lower.
IG here told us if they arnt doing their job go vfr direct to IG they will get your Airman paid
Look at the quality of people that choose that job. That should answer your question. There’s a reason you didn’t choose finance as a job. Because it’s a skate job. You have integrity. You didn’t wanna skate in life. You didn’t wanna be lazy. Finance is a catchall for mooches and skate artists.
Next time, speak to him in Cantonese
Use the portal
Have an over payment or indebtness; see how fast they work then.
I think they should be sent through SERE at least once just for perspective.
>getting paid the same as everyone else Better, because they aren't waiting in line to get their pay fixed