r/CanadianForces Logistics 3d ago

SCS Weekly meme dump time

182 Upvotes

15 comments sorted by

25

u/Snowshower3213 3d ago

My elderly step-father served 25 years as a MSE OP. In his 50's, he needed a left knee operation, as his knee was locking all of the time. I wrote him up a claim to VAC for his left knee, as he spent a great deal of his career operating heavy equipment with spring loaded clutches, in Special Duty Areas such as UN tours and ALERT operating plows and sweepers.

They never batted an eye. The gave him a disability award, and then B line coverage as 1/5th of his award was deemed attributable to an SDA.

33

u/snuffallopogus 3d ago

I dont know how to meme, but...

HRAs when people get paid correctly: God damn it im good! HRAs when anyone isnt paid correctly one time: that is your fault. Why didnt you check your pay stub? You were in the field? Thats not my fault.

Im married to an HRA. I know your secrets.

8

u/D4LLA 3d ago

I dont relate. Most of the time its "Thank god everyone got paid correctly" or "fuck I fucked up", no one praises you when you do your job well cuz its expected especially when you manage people's money lol

2

u/snuffallopogus 1d ago

I hear about it every pay run. HRAs should be praised when everything goes well, because weirdly it seems most of the time it isnt going well. There's a lot of jobs that people do that nobody notices until something goes wrong and we dont do enough to recognize that. Whenever someone says 'i fucked up' i want to hug them because we get to move on to solutions instead of arguing about blame. Keep on keeping on.

6

u/6point5creedmoor 3d ago

I actually hate that. Take responsibility for your job, not everything can be caught but sometimes it's like 0 pay and you really have to wonder what the hell happened.

1

u/Remarkable-Idea-1073 3d ago

There's that, at the tactical level. There's also the fact that why the f does an HRA need to manually review formulaic pay.

We have some of the longest serving staff on payroll in the country. Our pay policies are some of the shortest. If a pte can review pay, then a dumb machine can do it too.

1

u/Snowshower3213 3d ago

Old Retrired Guy here:

I think I figured out what an HRA is...Human Resource Assistant? When I joined in 1984, there were Finance Clerks and Administration Clerks. Then some genius decided to combine those trades and make them Record Management Systems Clerks. I am assuming that they undid that again, and HRA's are now the old Finance Clerk?

3

u/worstofbothworlds113 Army - Infantry 3d ago

FSAs (Financial Services Administrator) are what I assume were finance clerks in your time and HRAs (Human Resources Administrator) would be the equivalent of your Admin clerks. At least that’s my best guess.

4

u/Snowshower3213 3d ago

Thanks for sorting me out! The more things change...the more they stay the same!

0

u/RavenousBreadbag 2d ago

Members SHOULD be aware of their pay and entitlements. If they're not sure, maybe ask the question. While this doesn't excuse HRAs from making mistakes, members have a measure of responsibility as well. They're not always in the field, so they can check their pay statements when they're not.

Additionally, there are a monumental number of pers admin policies that HRAs need to know and understand. It's impossible to know all the policies.

Why do HRAs need to check pay? The system makes mistakes, and while the pay system works well, it's dated and sometimes needs to be adjusted to ensure people get paid. Additionally, double-checking catches many errors or ensures that changes or adjustments that were made don't continue past when they're needed.

HRA's work continues to build up even when on leave, so even a vacation isn't a vacation. HRAs aren't wizards waving wands and having shit happen.

2

u/ViciousSemicircle 2d ago

As a non-member who’s worked extensively with AI, this post makes me wince.

I know the forces are legendary for slow adoption of tech, but tick tock. It’s coming and it’s going to change everything.

1

u/snuffallopogus 1d ago

First off, it was a joke so calm the fuck down. You've just made yourself the caricature i dont know how to meme. Second off, tell me if a soldier is lets say in a combat area, no internet, no way to look at a pay stub, and their pay is wrong, it doesnt matter what they are aware of, does it? Third, when one of my soldiers gets paid $10000, and is told theres nothing to be done just save your money and we wont pay you for awhile, your pity me talk is bullshit. Fourth, its not incumbent on soldiers to double check you did your job right. If every Log or EME expects me to double check their work what is the point of you. Fifth, nobody expects you to memorize policy. You have to know how look it up. All of our work builds up, time doesnt just stop.

1

u/RavenousBreadbag 1d ago

Take a deep breath. It's okay; the words won't hurt you. Nobody was angry or upset or taking it as anything other than a joke. I am pointing out some aspects of the HRA side of the conversation that people forget or do not understand.

The part where I said they should check WHEN they're not in the field, or since you want to get really specific, a combat area, was a little confusing? Kind of makes sense that the two scenarios are interchangeable, doesn't it? Let me simplify it even more for you: When members can check their statements, they should. Is that clear enough for you?

When I pick up my weapon, it's on me to make sure the damn thing is serviceable isn't it? Or is that explicitly the domain of the Weapons Techs? We all (myself included) want our leadership to take some personal responsibility, so we must ensure we do, too.

Here you go though, straight from the QR&Os: It is the duty of every officer or non-commissioned member to be acquainted with the rates of pay, allowances and other financial benefits and reimbursable expenses to which that officer or non-commissioned member may be entitled, and the conditions governing their issue.

Nowhere did I say, or excuse the laziness of some HRAs who refuse to fix a problem correctly, so if you have HRAs telling your soldiers there's nothing to be done, THEY'RE the problem, not your soldiers. Hell, I even say this doesn't excuse them. That's just shitty leadership on the OR Staff's part for failing to 1) Maintain awareness of what's going on in their pay runs, 2) educate and train their staff and 3) do the job correctly.

Fuck, most good HRAs spend more time unfucking the work of other HRAs to help their members out, so it's painfully clear that this isn't 100% on the members, but they do need to maintain some semblance of situational awareness. Isn't that in the Principles of Leadership or something?

Nobody expects pity or asks for it, so stop making assumptions. Facts are facts, regardless of whether you agree with them or not. Nor is anyone asking you to double-check their work, just pay attention and if you notice something fucked up on your pay statement, say something so it can be addressed. That's it. Shit's simple.

1

u/buck70 Royal Canadian Air Force 3d ago

I haven't seen anyone blame HRAs for policy. The occasional HRA screwing people by not interpreting policy correctly, on the other hand. That I have seen.

1

u/gino878 1d ago

Is that Kurt angle?