Am I crazy here?

[Greg Ball]

Thanks all. By the way Michael. I loved your answer regarding the price. That’s classic! I’ll keep it in my files for future use.

Regards-

Greg

[Toby Christopherson]

Suszko,

If you were intending for the tone of your post to sound overly dismissive and condescending toward the Military, then you succeeded admirably. It’s rare for political affiliation and bias to show in forums so far removed from these subjects, but some people just can’t help themselves when they see an opportunity to dig on the Government and Military. Your obvious disdain for Military organizations seems to have made you an expert in mental processes of DOD personnel. You make it sound as if you must dumb down your language to a 3 year old level in order to be understood by this person. I assure you that he would understand all aspects of your job infinitely faster than you would of his were he to attempt to explain it to you. Dismissing all soldiers as dim-witted and incapable of independent thought betrays a poor ability to form opinions based on honest investigation and sound facts on your part. Instead, you seem to embrace the latest anti-administration and anti-military rhetoric floating around and inject it into an area where it has no need to be.

Now, to dumb it down for you… keep your opinions on irrelevant things you know nothing about to yourself.

-C13
USAF

[Mark Suszko]

Bellypants, you read too much into my remarks, but if you don’t believe my thesis, just drop by any local bar near a base, and you will get enough stories about such things to curl your buzzcut.:-)
Just the stories I got from buddies in the Guard were enough for me, and I have done a few things for them over the years, so I know whereof I speak.

I never said I didn’t respect them as a blanket statement, only that, as in many professional organizations, they have people working outside their area of expertise or competence that think they know how to write scripts and plan videos but don’t. And because the military frowns on you telling your boss when he’s being an idjit, it’s harder to solve this problem in videos made for the military. And if you don’t think military procurement has any problems, well, we differ on our views of reality.

Best of luck to you.

[Greg Ball]

Wow, lighten up fella. With a name like bellypants you should have a sense of humor. FYI, the Major turned out to be very nice, and apologized for the bid process, she also informe me that she was adding my name into the mix, when the project gets the go ahead. I’m not sure if i want to do it, but at leeast she handled thiis with respect.

Thanks to all again.

Greg

[Michael Munkittrick]

[Bellypants] “Now, to dumb it down for you… keep your opinions on irrelevant things you know nothing about to yourself.”

We

[Toby Christopherson]

No, you’re absolutely right, you don’t need things “dumbed down” in order to understand them, which was exactly the point I was trying to put across. Nobody likes to be talked down to, and the post I responded to had that type of tone to it… that you have to take things slower with the military types because they live in a world that is so far removed that they don’t understand what you’re talking about. As active duty military, and as someone who has done quite a few projects of this type for various military institutions, that generalization is just flat wrong. It’s not even true of a majority of the people or organizations, but a very small minority.

I do, in fact, have quite a good sense of humor – as most of my productions would show – but digs on the poor dumb soldier and gub’mint contracts and so forth have been done and done to death long before I was even born. It’s just tired and not funny anymore.

-C13
USAF

P.S. Before you ask questions as to my job in the Air Force, I have nothing to do with public affairs or any media producing organization. I do this as a hobby for experience. The projects I’ve done were on my own time with mostly my own equipment. Nevertheless, they are of quality work and the “client” (I use that term loosely) has always loved the product. What do I really do in the Air Force? Well, I’d have to kill you if you knew. So there. 🙂

[Michael Munkittrick]

[Bellypants] “that you have to take things slower with the military types because they live in a world that is so far removed that they don’t understand what you’re talking about”

I might have missed that point, but what I was specifically referring too was the burocracy that slows the entire system down as compared to situations outside of the military. I certainly meant no disrepect to our military nor you.

Michael Munkittrick
Gainesville, Florida USA

[Mark Suszko]

…Says a guy who has been here all of two days. Don’t pretend to know me or my mind, Mr. Pants.

What I suggest is you go back over the very first posts in this thread and read word for word what the military customer said in his quest for the (bogus) quote. Read how he spoke, see how he completely failed to understand what he was asking for, how he refused to even be reasoned with. I have met such people, in the military and outside of it.

I don’t assert all military people are like that. I know the opposite to be true. I was saying that in an organizational culture that is so very top-down and insular, full of bureaucratic circumlocution, one often needs to translate things into English first. That guy did not know what he was asking for, could not communicate it and could not be communicated WITH to determine what the specs for the program were.

Communicating to establish the simple specs of the job, much less the needs analysis for the program, the creative treatment, the essentials in making a productive script before a single word is typed… all these things are hard to get across, because it’s an alien language to them. As it is to people in many industries, but there in particular. Have you ever read real military memos, manuals, and documents? “The maintainer will then maintenance the aircraft” is a direct quote from one such I witnessed. You can’t make up stuff like that.

You are reading your own insecurities into my remarks and taking them out of original context. Have some tapioca and switch to decaf. Pet the dog. Go to church. Walk the beach with Mrs. Pants. Whatever you need to get the rancor out of your system.

The one thing I agree with you about is that personal attacks are inappropriate here, so I’m going to stop; feel free to have the last word but I will not respond further on this matter. I know what I said and how I said it, I tried to clarify it for you and we are not having a meeting of the minds here, so further argument would be unproductive. Maybe over time, you’ll come to realize I am not the guy you’re complaining I am.

[Toby Christopherson]

Just to clear things up, I, “Mr. Pants,” am the one who actually wears them in my family. So, no more talk of this “Mrs. Pants” nonsense.

The whole Bellypants thing is a story best left for another time, and isn’t very funny anyway. I have been an avid reader of the Cow forums for years, but have posted so infrequently that when I wanted to, I was in another place on a different computer and couldn’t recall the screen name I used or the password, and the email account it would send the information to had been closed for months, so I had to register anew a few days ago.

I honestly don’t have all that much rancor, just trying to show that one runs into that sort of person all the time in all sorts of places and organizations… which is pretty much what you already said.

I don’t have insecurities with my chosen profession, or the organization I work for. I save my insecurities for my lack of hair, looks, and other middle aged married man sorts of things.

Thank you for the suggestions on how to chill out. While I do enjoy a good bowl of tapioca, I’d have to say the best way to calm down is a nice warm fresh piece of toast.

-C13