Learning to Read

August 27, 2010

I have to say that jumping into this new job at the time I am, has been one of the biggest learning experiences in my life. Most of the time in my life when I have had to learn a great deal of information it usually takes place in a classroom environment. The good thing about the classroom environment is that there is a significant period of time set aside for you to learn. Unfortunately I have not had this luxury in my new job. Yes I did learn about some of the aspects of my job in a classroom but we barely scratched the service of what it means to be a Human Resources Officer. And I am in an interesting position now because I have been placed in a job that is made for a captain, a captain would have had a least three years of experience to get to that rank in this field so you can see the challenges I face having no years of experience in this field.

So I am definitely learning a lot about systems, promotions, evaluations, reporting numbers along with other random things specific to my unit. I have also had many firsts in this past week and will continue to have them in the next year, just today I had my first command and staff meeting where I briefed the commander on my sections updates for the week, I had my first dress rehearsal for an officers' promotion ceremony in which I will get to perform my duties as the adjutant by calling everyone to attention and reading the order to promote the officers, and I also had my first experience in being the right hand of the executive officer in my unit when she called me to take her place in briefing all the staff duty officers on their duties this weekend. These were all good firsts and I feel like I am starting to get a hang of things but these next two weeks will be trying as I will be expected to know more and be the subject matter expert on everything involving personnel.

Well besides for all that boring work stuff I am learning a lot more. Throughout this past week I have gotten to learn about my staff. I have 14 soldiers and one civilian who work in my section. I was extremely blessed to be assigned to a unit with a knowledgeable and great leader as my highest enlisted soldier who is the non-commissioned officer (NCO) in charge. He basically runs the day to day operations that all the enlisted soldiers do for the unit. He has been a huge help and we get along fairly well. I have faith that he will steer me in the right direction in the next months. There are two other NCO's in my section as well, they also help in directing operations and looking after the younger ones. There is a female staff sergeant and a male sergeant. Then there is all the junior enlisted soldiers there are 9 of them, 8 who do human resources ops and on legal specialist. They are all younger soldiers, most under 21 so they are young and vulnerable in the Army but they seem like good kids and they work really hard. Only one of them is male so there is definitely a huge disparity of males to females but that's ok. Lastly I have two Koreans on my staff. One is the civilian who is probably in his late 30's early 40's, he seems very nice and speaks English well. His actually job description is to be my personal assistant...not going to lie it feels pretty cool to not only have a staff but to have your own assistant :)

The other Korean I have a KATUSA on my staff, this is a Korean Augmented to the United States Army. One of the cool things about working in Korea is we literally work hand in hand with the South Korean Army. Every South Korean male is obligated to serve the government in some capacity for two years during a certain time frame after they turn 18. I am not clear on all the guidelines but the ones chosen to be in the Army are then evaluated further and the smartest and most literate become augmented to our units for two years. In our unit we have about 20 spread out across our companies but I am lucky enough to have one in my office. He works in the same capacity as the rest of my junior enlisted soldiers but I think it is a very unique experience for our soldiers to have.

I have a learned a great deal about all of them. About half of them are leaving in the next 4 months so I will be getting in new soldiers but I think that's a great part of my job too. Hopefully I will get to positively impact them as they come and go.

By now you have been reading for awhile and may be wondering why I titled this blog post "Learning to Read." Yesterday I was sent up to Daegu to meet some personnel folks who help us out up there, I got some good training and then had to make my way back to Camp Carroll. With all the traveling I did in the city yesterday I couldn't stop looking at all the signs. I would say there were only about 5% in English all the rest were completely Korean, which I expected when I came here but it still strikes me in an unsettling way. Not that I expect any of the signs to be in English but it is just so weird to not know what anything is because I can't read the signs. Until I stop in I wouldn't know the different between a restaurant, a bank, clothing store or strip club. It definitely makes me a lot more empathetic to those in our country who can't read or speak the language. I just wish there was a magic jacket I could wear, so I could understand everything that was said, I could speak back and I could read. Its definitely a goal to learn conversational Korean by the time I leave. Tomorrow I am heading up to Daegu with a few new friends to explore so hopefully it will give me a good chance to practice my basic Korean and learn my way around! More to come!