Fleet Marine Life #148 – Lightbulb
In the USMC, for every action, there is tons of paper work behind it. Reason being is if something goes wrong, the higher ups know who to blame. And usually the higher ups are not to blame.
Let’s say it’s a 96 (vacation). You want to go to a neighboring state for tourism. Whoa, there! No can do! You’ll need to fill out a HARP (Holiday Accident Reduction Program) form before you think about doing stuff like that! Every 96, you need to fill out this form.
Open it up and look at it. You have to tell your higher ups where you’re going, what you’re going to do, if you’re going to drink or not, if your car is ok, etc. This is another wonderful reminder that the government owns you. The higher ups do this so they can burn your ass if you decide to go somewhere else all of the sudden and do some stupid shit. The system is designed to burn your ass and not the higher ups!
Anyways, let’s see how many forms are produced in the USMC. Let’s say that there’s roughly 150,000 enlisted active duty folks in the USMC. Assuming that only E-5s and below have to fill out these forms, this number boils down to 125,850 (83.9%). That means there will be 251,700 sheets of paper produced during every 96. After the 96, I’m sure these things are thrown away or left to rot.
Doesn’t this seem like a gigantic waste? Well, there’s alot of things in the USMC that requires paperwork. Even the simplest of things.
http://usmilitary.about.com/cs/marinepromotions/a/marineprom.htm (Enlisted count)
How many Marines does it take to fix a lightbulb?
Ten. 9 to supervise and 1 to fix the lightbulb.
or
Five. One to stand on top of the chair and hold the lightbulb, three to spin the chair, and one to supervise.
Uncomplicated Shit Made Complicated since 1775.
Yes! Abso-fucking-lutely true. I on another post how the NAMs are handed out all the time. President Kennedy received it for saving a man’s life and evading capture over several days. We’re getting them for supervising light bulb changes and bringing platoons to mandatory training exercises.
Don’t forget Ladder Training on how to properly stand on a ladder.
…which can be conveniently taken online now.
I’m not even sure if you’re joking.
In Oki, the HARP form doesn’t exist. It was actually weird when I showed up at my second unit stateside as a Cpl, and I was like “wtf is a harp form?” and they were like “You’re a Cpl and you don’t know what a HARP form is? wtf is wrong with you?”
unbelievable. and i thought stuff was crazy and wasteful when i was in which was 67-71.
with permisson and anonomously i will use this info in my book. it would be an afterward as the book is about how awful it was when i was in and this would be a great juxtopositon with current times. if there are more stories please contact me or post there.
really???? a form for lightbulbs and a form to go on a 96 good grief.
No form for lightbulbs. However, everyone would have to fill out a 96 “HARP” form. You write down what you’re going to do so your higher ups have a reason to burn your ass if you do something dumb.
certainly instills trust, yes, last i knew one had to be and adult to be in the military. much abliged for the info. my editor loved the info i sent him.
it will hold a promenent place in the afterward of the book due out in Dec.
thanks again.
BTW: the afterward is only 250 words long and contains no personal information. just some of the ancedotes mentioned here
i was careful not to put in any specifics.
Neat! You can mention my website and the author “K” if you want to or not. What’s the name of the book going to be?
Make a new comic damnit!
God help those Marines when they fail FSMAO inspection for having unauthorized lightbulbs!
Going electronic (using a pad like you say) poses more problems.
1) Hardware problems. If you have trouble getting a lightbulb, how much trouble will you have some some retard breaks a pad or somehow ends up fucking up all the data?
2) Costs. In the short run, paper’s easy to get, manage, buy, and replace. Creating a digital system will take time. Creating the hardware will take even more time and money. And producing something and distributing it to where it needs to go is yet another waste.
3) Sticky fingers, or like the last comic was based on, tactically acquired crap.
4) Who gets the pad? How many logs are there to keep track of? Multiple points 1 through 3 on this list for every different log.
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If you leave it to paper documents, then you have multiple things in the higher up’s favor.
1) It’s written, it’s turned in. If it’s lost, it’s your fault, it’s not the pad’s fault.
2) It’s written, by you. Don’t know how this works in reality, but I’d imagine a hand written signature ties you directly to something instead of an e-signature that anybody can recreate. There’s authenticity.
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Unfortunately, regardless of where you are (Civilian or Government Bitch) you will always have those fuck ups that make the complicated crap a necessity. Logic will tell you to climb to the top and save your ass by making sure that if something happens where the job actually gets done(The bottom), that you can track down whose at fault by tangling them in a mountain of paperwork and signatures.
I was in guard for the last 9 months of my contract and we wasted TONS of paper. You know those green log books? We had Hundreds of them dating back to 2003 or 2004 (it was 2009 then), mostly filled with “the time on deck is —-, all clear and nothing to report” followed by our initials. Then there was the armory logs they kept. And this happens at every area of every marine base. Why not go paperless? When you sign for a package, you sign an electronic pad. How about we stop wasting paper, save money and do that, or am I making too much sense?