The cover story from our Sept. 8 issue, “Crushing demands of job lead some Air Force recruiters to falsify reports,” is proving quite controversial. The command chief master sergeant of the Air Force Recruiting Service, Chief Master Sgt. Charles Lamer, fired back in this week’s issue with an op-ed calling the story “a gross misrepresentation” of the recruiting service.
Air Force Times would like to hear from more recruiters out there. Is cheating widespread, condoned and — in some cases — encouraged by supervisors? Or do you think the anecdotes and opinions reported in our story are outliers, and that cheating happens infrequently and is swiftly punished when it does occur?
Sound off in our comments section below, or email me at slosey@airforcetimes.com. If you’d prefer to speak anonymously, that’s fine.
3 Comments
Having spent 4 years as a recruiter, the term “cheating” is (while accurate, per se) a bit harsh. Pencil-whipping 95% of the time came from having to make 100’s of phone calls a week to meet your expectations. A) it was incredibly time consuming, and B) it just wasn’t fruitful. Telephone prospecting is a successful tool if you live in 1998, but we have caller ID and nobody is wanting to deal with recruiters calling. The majority were no answer/hangups/hostile.
Food for thought, be careful how you group pencil-whipping phone calls in with the idiots who risk people’s careers by having them cover up medical conditions. That is serious business.
You got to be kidding me, stressed out and over worked, try being EOD, Security Forces or working the flight line and then come talk to me, 3 jobs that cheating can leave you or somebody else dead. So if your a recruiter and your stressed out, you need to get real and maybe it’s time for you and your leadership to come back to your real Air Force job and maybe even deploy a few times so you can feel some real stress.
Wow are we playing the “one up” game? EOD, Security Forces, Flight line? How about a real job slaying dragons? You stay out on patrol forever and one mistake, one lapse of judgement and boom the world explodes! Get real. As a Chief (if you really are one) you’ve probably put expectations on your subordinates. You’ve probably held the proverbial axe over someone’s career for doing the minimum. If you’ve never been a recruiter or have had to deal with what recruiters deal with maybe you should keep your asinine thoughts to yourself. Because as a Chief in any of the jobs you mentioned I doubt highly you’re out disarming IEDs, or securing the base, or repairing damaged aircraft. If you want real “im getting marked down on my EPR over things I can’t control” stress, then go be a recruiter.