This Civilian Sh*t is Hard: From the Cockpit, Cubicle, and Beyond

Introduction

I compiled a loose collection of stories through the years about a bunch of weird stuff I experienced at work. I had no idea what any of it meant or, taken together, what purpose it might serve. So, I put the question to a few close friends. What is this?

Maybe it’s a memoir. Maybe it’s a self-help book. Maybe it’s something about leadership or business strategy. My friends were a little unclear on what form the compilation might take. But one piece of feedback was consistent: Wow. I had no idea you were such an asshole.

Asshole? I got defensive. What are you talking about? Where do you get ‘asshole’? I’m one of the nicest guys I know.

You seem like the Dan I know when you talk about the Navy. But as soon as you start talking about one of your civilian experiences, you sound like a self-important, elitist, know-it-all prick.

Ouch. Tough feedback. But these were people who knew me well, so I had to at least consider its validity.

Whatever form this compilation took, I wanted it to be honest, first and foremost. And if these stories painted an honest picture of a complete asshole, I had to accept that.

Okay, I’m an asshole. Or at least, I was. Why?

I was a bitter, frustrated man. The success I so easily enjoyed in the Navy completely eluded me in the private sector. There were many causes, including an epic collision of unrealistic expectations, poor choices, and bad luck. And my resulting inability to find my groove as a civilian gnawed at me day after day, week after week, year after year. How could someone with every possible advantage upon entering the corporate world proceed to fuck it up so badly? With all of the shame and guilt I carried around, it’s no wonder people perceived me to be an asshole.

By contrast, my Navy experience had consistently exceeded my expectations. I enjoyed an uninterrupted streak of excellent choices and good luck for years.

I joined right out of high school. My parents had been clear about college for as long as I could remember: There are too many of you kids, and we can’t pay for it. You’re on your own.

When I discovered in the spring of my senior year that they were serious, I had to scramble to get my shit together. I had an acceptance letter to Michigan State, but not a dime saved to pay for a single textbook. As graduation loomed, all I knew was that I couldn’t stick around my small town a day longer than was absolutely necessary—I was too vain for that. So off I went to the recruiting office and signed up on the spot.

I assumed the military transition would be difficult. After I got over the bad haircut and initial shell shock of basic training, it was anything but. Yes, there was a lot of yelling and marching and all that, but I quickly became accustomed to it. It was the new normal. And when I found out I had to fold my underwear a certain way, make my bed according to exact specifications, and wear my uniform in accordance with a thick, detailed manual, I welcomed it. Why? Because I discovered in bootcamp I was mildly obsessive-compulsive. I had been folding, tucking, polishing, and combing with exacting precision my entire life. It came perfectly naturally to me. Wow! That is a fantastic way to fold a tee shirt. Look . . . no wrinkles! It was almost easy.

And when I left boot camp and got to the fleet, I found people who held the same standards, who looked at the world in the same manner, and valued all of the same things I held most important. Those included hard work, honesty, and a well-stocked bar. The Navy was more than a job or a simple detour on the way to college. It was my family. It was my identity. Unbeknownst to me for the first seventeen years of my life, I’d been born to be a sailor.

My performance in the enlisted ranks earned me an appointment to the Naval Academy. And graduation from Annapolis bought me a ticket to flight school, where I earned the coveted Wings of Gold. And, with those wings on my chest, I enjoyed some of the most amazing experiences I’d ever had in my life.

And then I left the Navy, expecting my winning streak to continue, no matter where I landed. But my luck quickly ran out. I didn’t know the first damn thing about being a civilian. The poor choices I made and opportunities I squandered came as a direct result.

So why did I leave the Navy? Basically, I was looking for new mountains to climb and was accepted to one of the most elite business education programs in the world—Harvard Business School. I expected amazing opportunities to always be readily available, a simple phone call to a fellow alumnus away. I expected to work hard, retire early, and then occupy seats on various corporate boards and an occasional ambassadorship. Yes, it would all be rainbows and sunshine. How could I possibly miss?

What follows is what actually happened. These are the most meaningful moments from the Navy life that shaped me and the civilian experience that nearly ruined me.

This is the story of how I became such an asshole. And these are the lessons I needed to learn to get over myself and eventually stop being one.

MISADVENTURE NO. 1

One-Below for Headwork

I don’t know who that joker was, but I got his number!

US Naval Air Station Whiting Field, Milton, Florida, 1998.

Ah, yes . . . Missss-ter Bozung. You’re back.

I had just walked in from the flight line, completely wrung out. I hoped the duty officer would just sign my grade sheet and let me leave. But I judged from his tone I probably wasn’t getting off that easily.

I just had a very interesting conversation with the Saufley RDO.

Shit. The RDO, or Runway Duty Officer, was the flight instructor who manned the shack at the approach end of the runway. Every outlying field in the Pensacola area, including Saufley Field, was manned by an RDO. He acted as an air traffic controller and safety observer to the fleet of orange and white T-34 Mentor aircraft that filled the northwest Florida skies. Calls from the RDO made to the duty officer back at base were almost never positive in nature. Someone had typically screwed up, and the RDO wanted to ensure the student in question received a proper ass-chewing upon arrival.

"So . . . why don’t you tell me what happened?"

Clearly, there was an ass-chewing in my future. And that didn’t seem entirely fair. It was only my second solo flight. My job that day was to complete four landings at an outlying field and then proceed to one of the operating areas, where I’d practice aerobatic maneuvers for an hour or so before returning to home field. Everyone looked forward to their Precision Aerobatics, or PA solo. It was a chance to have some fun in the plane without an instructor in the back seat criticizing your every move. You got to do loops and rolls and half Cuban-eights, just like Maverick at the controls of his F-14. It was one of the highlights of the syllabus. Why did this RDO want to ruin my good time?

I retraced the events of the day. Everything had started out fine. I launched from home field, climbed to altitude, and made a quick study of my kneeboard card for the approach to Saufley Field. I’d been there a dozen times before but didn’t want to leave anything to chance. All I had to do was get in the pattern, knock out my landings, and then depart. It was the rare student who found a way to screw up a solo flight. And I had no intention of being that student.

Approaching Saufley Field, I switched my radio over to button sixteen. The radios were conveniently programmed with preset channels, arranged in order of most frequent use. Button one was Ground Control. Button two was Tower. Departure Control was button three. Farther down the line, the frequency for the Saufley Field RDO was programmed as button sixteen. It was pretty handy. Rather than punch in a four-digit UHF frequency every time you wanted to switch the radio, all you had to do was click over to the preset channel.

I pushed the button on the side of the stick to key up the radio.

Saufley RDO, Shooter Two Three Six Solo, five-mile initial, runway three two.

Translation: Hey, RDO, I’m flying a plane with the side number 6E236. I’m at the initial entry point for Saufley Field, and I’d like your permission to merge into traffic to land on runway number three two. Okay with you?

It was absolutely forbidden to enter controlled airspace without permission. The RDO had to give their consent for me to proceed inside the initial point, over the airfield for the break—the hard turn from above the runway to get into the traffic pattern—and then to descend to pattern altitude to set up for a landing. I was still sixty seconds or so outside the initial point, so the RDO and I had plenty of time to sort it all out. I maintained altitude and waited for him to call me inbound.

Ten seconds passed with no response. That’s odd, I thought. I could see a couple of other aircraft working the pattern below me, but it didn’t look that busy. Maybe the RDO just missed my call. I keyed up the mic and made the call again. Then ten more seconds . . . and nothing again. Over my left shoulder, I could see another aircraft in the distance setting up for the initial point behind me.

By then, I was only a few seconds outside the initial point, and I still didn’t have permission to proceed. Worse, it appeared my radio didn’t work. Losing communication, or lost comms, was an aircraft emergency and precisely what I didn’t need only my second time driving the car without Mom or Dad. This was a scenario not covered in any portion of my training. I knew I wasn’t going to descend to pattern altitude or otherwise go anywhere near the field. At the same time, I was reluctant to turn around into oncoming traffic. I called the RDO one more time, hoping the situation would just resolve itself. Again, nothing.

I didn’t think I had any choice but to blow right past the initial point, so I did. And then I immediately went to work getting the hell out of there. Just as there were defined procedures to enter the airspace, so, too, were there procedures to exit. I stayed at altitude to maintain plenty of separation from the traffic working the landing pattern below. Then I turned to the prescribed heading to exit the field. I picked up the exit corridor and proceeded outbound until I was well clear. I flew on a few more miles for good measure and then did a slow, 360-degree turn to ensure there wasn’t any traffic nearby.

This is just great, I thought. This little fiasco was eating into my aerobatics time. And the fact I had departed from prescribed procedures, no matter the reason, made me anxious. Good pilots made good decisions, but I lacked the experience to judge whether I had done so.

Time to troubleshoot the radio. I pulled the comms card off my kneeboard that contained frequencies for every preset channel. Then I twisted the appropriate dial on the radio console to display the frequencies that had actually been programmed. Let’s see . . . button sixteen. Did the frequencies match? Aha! They did not. Luckily, a simple fix. I switched the radio over to manual tuning and punched in the correct frequency for Saufley Field.

Just in time to hear all hell breaking loose.

I don’t know who that joker was, but I got his side number! It was the RDO. He was pissed.

I orbited my position several miles from the field and listened to the RDO unload on another instructor in the pattern.

What the hell is he thinking? Some Stud thinks he can buzz my field?

Stud was the pejorative instructor term for Student Naval Aviator.

Well, whoever it was, that’ll be his last joyride. No way is that kid staying in the flight program.

It was quite the tirade, broadcast all over northern Florida for any aircraft or nearby ham radio operator to enjoy.

And, clearly, it was all about me. If he had indeed gotten my side number, it would be easy enough to identify me as the pilot who had buzzed the field. And it was complete bullshit to say I’d buzzed the field, by the way. You don’t buzz anything from the altitude at which I overflew the field. I was well out of the way any other aircraft or obstruction. Buzzed? A touch dramatic, I thought.

But the RDO’s comment about me being thrown out of the flight program had gotten my attention. If there were any truth to the statement, I at least wanted my day in court. I thought I was experiencing an aircraft emergency, for chrissakes. All things considered, I thought I’d kept a pretty level head through the whole thing and stayed safe. Maybe I could convince the RDO of that.

I sheepishly keyed up my radio. "Saufley RDO, Shooter Two Three Six solo. Uh . . . I believe the aircraft you’re referring to was me. I thought I was lost comms. My presets were all screwed up. I didn’t realize it until I was already inside the initial point. So then I decided to pick up the