Stories From Under A Bootheel (Rants, Laughs, and Tears)

Bonus Chapter Part 3 "2G or not 2G"

The next assignment was brought to me by Bob T. He was also an electrical engineer and had also been a Mather navigator student. He lost his flying status after his first flight when he found out he had a fear of flying which in itself is a rather humorous story, but not for me to tell. The fear was genuine and Bob tried everything including hypnosis to get over it. He didn't realize it until he got to Mather because he had driven his car there from his home in Boston. Yeah, he couldn't even fly on commercial flights.

Anyway, Bob had transferred from Mather to McClellan several months before me. The two bases are on opposite sides of Sacramento. After losing my flying status because of my stroke I was working in the squadron office at Mather. I had been told I needed to find a more permanent assignment to finish my commitment to the Air Force. As fate would have it, I ran into Bob in Sacramento and he told me about these really great jobs for engineers at McClellan and so I ended up in the same engineering section as Bob with him having a couple of months experience on me.

The assignment Bob brought me was another procurement package. This one was for a AN/GMQ-20. GMQ meant ground meteorological special purpose. The 20 identified it as a type of plastic anemometer cups. You know, those little half egg shell like cups that spin like whirligigs on top of weather sensor masts to measure wind speed. So, this was real. Bob had brought it to me because I had been designated the meteorological specialist. Mind you, I had absolutely no training or expertise in meteorology.

I didn't recognize the form attached to the package and so asked Bob about it. He explained that is where you put your findings. He said, "Put 2G in that box there and sign down there.

"What does 2G mean?" I asked.

"I think it means the package is good." He replied.

"Shouldn't I review it first?"

"If you want. These packages have been reviewed dozens of times in the past. Every time procurement has been asked to buy more, they send the same package over. We mark it 2G send it back and they are good to go out on procurement." Bob's logic no doubt was the same logic that resulted in the problem I talked about earlier with the F-105 drop tank valves.

"But what if something got lost out of the package? What if something has changed about the requirements? What if the technology has changed?"

Bob, clearly annoyed by my questions and failure to take simple instructions said, "Whatever. I just do what they tell me. They said put 2G in the box and sign." Bob turned and walked out of my cubical. Bob was the quintessential bureaucrat – do as told and don't ask questions. I knew he wasn't going to be any help so I went and asked Ken, one of the more competent engineers in our section.

Ken explained to me that 2G meant fully competitive. Another possibility was 2B the designator for sole source which meant the procurement was restricted to a single supplier. There was a whole alphabet soup of these designators specifying various degrees and types of competitiveness. 2B was probably a better choice since the Air Force had been procuring the item from The Airflo company for the last twenty years and would guarantee we would get the same product we had gotten in the past. On the other hand, there was a quota of fully competitive procurements that had to be met.

I was not satisfied with just putting something in the box and just signing. I had been raised to believe my signature meant something. Since there didn't seem to be anyone in engineering interested in helping, I decided I would go down to the base weather squadron and ask them what they thought about this item.

The guys at the weather squadron were both shocked and pleased that I had come to them. They had never been visited by anyone from engineering before, much less had anyone asked their opinion before on any of their equipment. I got an ear full.

Before we got to the anemometer cups, they asked me if I knew a Craig M. I said yes, he was in my section and had recently been awarded a prize for saving the government money by proposing a piece of test equipment that would save several manhours of testing. The guys in the squadron all began to shake their heads and laugh explaining, "He didn't save diddly. We're in the military, manhours don't cost us anything. That piece of junk test equipment they're making us buy cost over a hundred thousand dollars we don't have the budget for! Your friend Craig was given an award for costing the U.S. tax payers several million dollars because now every Air Force base has to buy one of those test rigs that supposedly saves a few hours of testing when in fact it just shafts our budget. If you see him, you better tell him not to show his face around here, not that he ever would. You are the first ever. We are not happy with him."

They continued, "And please don't authorize the procurement of anymore of those cheap plastic anemometer cups. The reason we always have to keep procuring so many is because they fly off in heavy winds, land on the runway and shatter. You know, they make aluminum ones now. What do we have to do to get you all to buy aluminum ones that won't break?"

"You just did it." I assured him. "I'll see what I can do." This promise was going to prove to be more difficult than I imagined. Still, I got it done. The government doesn't appreciate you saving them money. Apparently, they only give awards when you do the opposite. I didn't get an award. I did get a lot of friends at the base weather squadron and that was much better. The new cups only cost slightly more than the old ones and don't have to be replaced nearly as often. Dealing with the bureaucracy was bad, but the worst part was the embarrassing situation that was an indirect result. The next section will tell you about that.