Fitness test levels dropping

[Downsizer]

You see far less fats these days than you did 25 years ago!

 

[techie_tubby]

To bring it back into some realms of the original topic......

The Army have just scrapped the PFA and have bought in a new modern fitness assessment. It includes water Jerry can carry, something called get ups which look like press ups with you standing up, a fireman carry and a weighted match. This seems to be a more appropriate assessment. The official announcement states they are focussing more on overall conditioning instead of CV fitness.


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[StickyFingers]

I'm sure we trialed this sort of stuff about 10 years ago.

Putting ammo boxes on 4 tonners, shovelling some sand from one box to another.

Got scrapped because folk were racing and not using proper technique and hurting themselves.

 

[Dan_Brown]

@Stevienics - you are a troll, but a funny one.

@Spearmint - secretaries, typing pools - harsh, but fair.

I think you are right with your comment that the admins are not paid the same as an engineer and rightly so, holding the budget for kit is nowhere near on the same scale as having the training and knowledge of an engineer.

Adminners, used to have an important role, but since the implementation of JPA etc, to us outside of the admin world, it seems they are indeed of little use. Of the rare occurrences i have had to use them, my experience has been:

• Closed due to staff training (twice a week, EVERY week? How much training do they need?! Maybe someone needs to carry out a review of their initial training if they can't do the job when they arrive on Unit).

• Closed due to WO PSF closing the office for the day to take the team on a bike ride as the weather is too nice to work.

• Drop off several copies of the same forms and signatures, rinse and repeat several times prior to deploying.

• Re-visit PSF as they have lost forms i have submitted.

• ANY question is met with "don't know, check the JSP" - although an email follow up with the answer comes in at some point.

And the creme de la creme happened only last week. Picture the scene, moi, suited and booted and enter PSF - SAC has no clue who i am. Her opening words, no good morning, or how can i help, or even any acknowledgement, but merely:

"Is this going to take long? I need to leave".

"Right, i'll turn around and come back in and we'll start again shall we?".

I do think admin CAN still play a vital in supporting us, but my experiences have been quite negative when i have rarely required their services

As for the original topic, Army officially drop the PFA in Jan 19 with authority to drop in Aug 18 if they so wish. No idea what that means for us, but hopefully the outdated bleep test will be dead and buried, "I'm a landrover, not a fecking a fecking ferrari".

And breathe..................

 

[muttywhitedog]

I'm appalled to hear that Dan. I hope you continued walking past said SAC straight to her SNCO.

If the attitude of the trade is like that, its probably for the best that I'm no longer part of it!

 

[rocket scientist]

Sounds like a time management issue to me.


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Precisely - so why the need to close PSF completely?

 

[tommo9999]

I'm a bit disappointed some on here do not seem to appreciate just how hard my 6 weeks trade training at Hereford (What a place) actually was! By the end of it I was fully able to issue train warrants, address envelopes and raise new files. Worth every penny of the Higher Pay Band.........DT_Xtremez_30:

 

[Stevienics]

Remember: It's only trolling if there isn't an element of truth in it.

 

[Allflapnofly]

BRING BACK RAF PLIMSOLLS!.......Oh, and the heavy dark blue shorts and those white and light blue V neck T-Shirts.......

I was always fit and in good shape when I wore them.......That's until I left Swindits and Halton......and discovered the real NAAFI bop babes, beer, fags, detachments and front line Squadron pi$$ ups.....and then, gravity.....

Anyway, what's this thread actually about again?.....

 

[Lux_deluxe]

BRING BACK RAF PLIMSOLLS!.......Oh, and the heavy dark blue shorts and those white and light blue V neck T-Shirts.......

Black Plimsolls? Eh? They were always white weren't they? And had to keep them super clean and rub that white stuff on them all the time. I loved my white plimmies, great for running in lol.

 

[Witty_Banter]

Black Plimsolls? Eh? They were always white weren't they? And had to keep them super clean and rub that white stuff on them all the time. I loved my white plimmies, great for running in lol.

What's a plimsoll?

Only thing I was ever issued was a pair of Silver Shadows at Halton. Wore them once, utter rubbish, never touched them again.

 

[Barch]

What's a plimsoll?

Only thing I was ever issued was a pair of Silver Shadows at Halton. Wore them once, utter rubbish, never touched them again.

It is a line on the side of a ship to show the safe loading of cargo / goods in different waters.

 

[Barch]

This is what I was issued with at Swinderby in 76 ...

 

[Witty_Banter]

Good grief, those are awful! And I thought our silver shadows were bad

 

[4everAD]

I remember having to do a cross country run in those plimsolls! The PTI's then insisted they were gleaming white the next time we turned up, fun times!

 

[Tin basher]

The good thing about them was, even when new, the sole was so thin you tell if a coin was heads or tails just by standing on it.

 

[The Nip]

@Stevienics - you are a troll, but a funny one.

@Spearmint - secretaries, typing pools - harsh, but fair.

I think you are right with your comment that the admins are not paid the same as an engineer and rightly so, holding the budget for kit is nowhere near on the same scale as having the training and knowledge of an engineer.

Adminners, used to have an important role, but since the implementation of JPA etc, to us outside of the admin world, it seems they are indeed of little use. Of the rare occurrences i have had to use them, my experience has been:

• Closed due to staff training (twice a week, EVERY week? How much training do they need?! Maybe someone needs to carry out a review of their initial training if they can't do the job when they arrive on Unit).

• Closed due to WO PSF closing the office for the day to take the team on a bike ride as the weather is too nice to work.

• Drop off several copies of the same forms and signatures, rinse and repeat several times prior to deploying.

• Re-visit PSF as they have lost forms i have submitted.

• ANY question is met with "don't know, check the JSP" - although an email follow up with the answer comes in at some point.

And the creme de la creme happened only last week. Picture the scene, moi, suited and booted and enter PSF - SAC has no clue who i am. Her opening words, no good morning, or how can i help, or even any acknowledgement, but merely:

"Is this going to take long? I need to leave".

"Right, i'll turn around and come back in and we'll start again shall we?".

I do think admin CAN still play a vital in supporting us, but my experiences have been quite negative when i have rarely required their services

As for the original topic, Army officially drop the PFA in Jan 19 with authority to drop in Aug 18 if they so wish. No idea what that means for us, but hopefully the outdated bleep test will be dead and buried, "I'm a landrover, not a fecking a fecking ferrari".

And breathe..................

I have never had a problem with TG 1 & 2 getting more money. Period.

Your quote above mentions "engineers". In the RAF you are employed as Technicians or mechanics. There is a massive difference. Some of you may well have suitable qualifications to be classed as engineers in the civil world, but whilst doing your work in the RAF !

The question I have wondered is : do you want money for the job you do or do you just want more money than any other trade?

I only ask as if hypothetically you got paid £10k more, would giving the adminers the same wage still irk you?

 

[Dan_Brown]

I'm not an engineer / Technishun / Mekanik - i'm a scuffer Guv'

But i do think pay should reflect the outside world, therefore an adminer should not be on the same wage as an 'Engineer'. Same as a PTI, in the real world these are minimum wage!

And the pay situation does not irk me, but there is a finite pot of cash and so this needs to be shared fairly and equally which means correlation between role and trade.

I would make a start on the senior officers though!

 

[FootTapper]

I deployed, we won the war and kept the free world safe, I returned and took redundancy - went to the Med Centre to clear...
"We just need you to sign this upgrade paperwork"
"Oh really? So you've managed to fix me then?"
"No, it's just we can't discharge you while you're downgraded, so we're upgrading you"


I'd love to know which med centre that was because many, many people are discharged whilst downgraded! The idea, if your injury was caused by service and likely to affect you once you leave is to refer you for a medical board so the circumstances can be documented and your medical employment standard confirmed.

Standards have obviously slipped......again.

RAF Odiham, and I left in December 2012 on redundancy.

I'd been injured about 18 months or so earlier, at one of the very first compulsory PT sessions (oh the irony) when we were playing football and one of the lads jumped on my ankle. The first doctor said it was "probably a bone bruise" and to favour the other leg etc. 12 months later I deployed to Afghanistan, there was still no clear diagnosis, just lots of Physio and RI for "ankle injury" I was mostly fine walking, but 10-15 mins of run/walk and I was crippled for the following week.

On returning from Afghanistan, as winning the redundancy lottery, I went to see the SMO and asked if it was about time they actually diagnosed it. He looked at the file and said I definitely should have had an MRI months ago and that he'd refer me immediately.

Then he looked at my paperwork, saw I was on redundancy notice and told me he can't refer me for MRI as I was in my last 6 months of service.

When I went to clear from the Med Centre the med boards clerk told me that they'd had to remove my "temporary downgrade" so that I could be discharged.

 

[ninjarabbi]

RAF Odiham, and I left in December 2012 on redundancy.

I'd been injured about 18 months or so earlier, at one of the very first compulsory PT sessions (oh the irony) when we were playing football and one of the lads jumped on my ankle. The first doctor said it was "probably a bone bruise" and to favour the other leg etc. 12 months later I deployed to Afghanistan, there was still no clear diagnosis, just lots of Physio and RI for "ankle injury" I was mostly fine walking, but 10-15 mins of run/walk and I was crippled for the following week.

On returning from Afghanistan, as winning the redundancy lottery, I went to see the SMO and asked if it was about time they actually diagnosed it. He looked at the file and said I definitely should have had an MRI months ago and that he'd refer me immediately.

Then he looked at my paperwork, saw I was on redundancy notice and told me he can't refer me for MRI as I was in my last 6 months of service.

When I went to clear from the Med Centre the med boards clerk told me that they'd had to remove my "temporary downgrade" so that I could be discharged.

*******s. Utter useless *******s and I say that as a medic of 34 years. If I had an SMO or Med Bds staff who did any of that I’d smash their heads off a desk. You should have had an x-ray as a start, I’ve never heard of a ‘bone bruise’. As to not able to be referred just because you were in your last 6 months? Sounds more like the **** couldn’t be bothered with the (minuscule) paperwork. Again, *******s.