To many of us the word Civilian is the new C word
Well the RAF and CSs have each had a crack, is it my turn now?
I am a civilian defence contractor. I thus have a rank equivalence one grade below prisoner (two below khazi digger). I personally am paid quite well (better than most of my peers) to make up for this, although of course my pension is far worse than the services or CS.
I have had a good relationship with both CS and serving officers in the past and I believe a good reputation with them.
My first observation would only be that there are useless ****s in any organisation, whatever clothes they wear.
My second observation would be that a (say) RAF pilot would laugh if I suggested that I could pilot a (say) Typhoon as effectively as him despite not having the years of training or experience. Yet the same officer might often feel that he could/should (for example) write the system requirements for a highly complex system without any training or experience in systems engineering; or run a complex development programme without any project or programme management training or experience.
All organisations have skills, all have idiots, lets stick to what we are each good at, and try and give the idiots to Starbucks or whoever