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Join the Canadian Forces, and live in an office for 20 years.
How does that sound? Want adventure? See the world?
Too bad. Budgets don’t permit that. Sorry.
Stay in your office, and don’t dare gripe. Or they’ll take away your pay and put you in jail.
—20 wasted years
This article appears in Jun 11-17, 2009.
17 Comments
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Sounds pretty sweet to me.
Actually, yeah… Guaranteed pension, benefits, decent pay, signing bonus, so on and so forth. Sweet indeed. I wish I had that guaranteed job and pension benefits, unlike my 80% equity mutual fund and possible layoff. My dad spent 25 years in the military and retired early, fully indexed pension, and health benefits. He hated it till he got out and then he was as happy as a pig in shit.
Well, if you suck, you get an office.
Yes please. I’d rather sit in an office than step on a landmine and get blown up.
I was thinking the same thing, ohno. I bet there are more than a few young people in the desert right now wishing they were in a nice air-conditioned office, safe and close to home.
Agreed. “Oh no, I don’t get to go overseas and get shot at!”. Give me a break.
Lame bitch is lame.
Buddy, you don’t know how good you got it. Your life is basically set with a great compensation package and pension. Suck it up!
Any openings?
Couldn’t you tell it was sucking b4 the 20yr mark?? Maybe remuster?
You poor thing!! Tell your sob story to your co-workers that had to dig out mass graves in Bosnia on Christmas day or are on tour now and risk the chance of losing their lives. I’m sure their hearts will bleed pure piss for you.
umm what part of the forces are you in? My husband has only been in 7 yrs, 3 of which have been ashore doing training, and he has been to some amazing places such as South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. Sounds like navy is the way to go if you want to travel!
Hey you fucking douchebag, take the fucking free education w/pay that we gave you and ply your trade on civvie street if it sucks so bad. How many days leave do you accumulate after 20 years cocksucker? Use those *weeks* and go on an adventure of your own, in Haiti or Afghanistan or some other place where the ‘adventure’ is. Asshole.
If I was guaranteed a desk job I might be tempted to sign up myself.
Hey numbnuts!!
If your trade is slowing you down you can CHANGE trades! It was mentioned earlier… the term “remuster” refers to that.
I was in a navy job on ship that I hated, changed trades and finished my career as a military musician!
I’d give ANYTHING to be able to do that job again (retired at 25 yrs for medical reasons).. and we got to go EVERYWHERE!! (mostly by bus) LOL
But really… depending on where in Canada you’d get posted (only 6 bands in Canada), they all travel, but only (usually) for 7-14 days at a time… a music festival here, a Tattoo there.. I’ve been to Europe over 10 times, enough that I can speak enough of the local languages to get around: “eat, drink and find Mary” LOL We went to Beijing in ’94.. Korea, Australia..
You’re only limiting yourself… get the paperwork started. A memorandum to your supervisor.. Stop blaming the world for your inability to “direct” your own life!! Go to the recruiting website and see what trades they’re looking for.
Get out of the schools!
You think you got shafted. First of all, you shouldn’t have gone into the military with the hopes of touring the world. You should have weighed out all the possibilities of what exactly you would have been doing. Travel? Combat? Office work? The forces aren’t always what they hype up to be. Second, you should be thanking your lucky arse you’re not a quadreplegic, missing both legs, or blind. Third, like everyone else mentioned, you had/have the oppurtunity for free education, an excellent pension plan, and guaranteed employment. I understand that you were looking for adventure, and now regret forfeiting other job oppurtunities. However, you should always go into something expecting the worse so you won’t get let down, and not jump into things impulsively.