Aren't scribblies wonderful.....

[BEagle]

Having retrired recently, I was somewhat suprised to receive a letter from my ex-station wondering why I hadn't had a recent ECG. It was dated the day after I retired, some 4 months after my release medical...... Actually I had an ECG in March for my ATPL, but they could have found that out for themselves.

But what was even more amusing was to receive the official thankyougram from the AOC. A very nice letter, somewhat spoiled by the mean minded blunty who sent it out with a damn great 2nd class postage paid sticker on it.

35 years in the mob and some tight arse can't even afford a 1st class stamp. That just about sums up the way things are these days!

IiP - ooh yes......

[Scud-U-Like]

To those who care about these things (and I don't), sending correspondence by first class post is considered rather 'lower deck' (posh people don't flap, apparently). Perhaps they were trying not to offend you, Beags.

[BEagle]

Really? Sounds like bolleaux to me. I don't think that I've ever used 2nd class post since it was first introduced as I rather like my post to be delivered........

[Fox3snapshot]

35 Years dang-nabbit! Gotta be worth a first class stamp surely!

Still could have been worse mate....they could have sent it COD !

How's the retirement thing BEagle, scary concept really....guess you will be logging some serious PPrune time now (not that you didn't before).

Pop the feet up mate, keep the cold tinnies on hand and the remote with a poop load of cable channels to keep you entertained.

At Least now you will be home to say gudday to the Jehovah Witnesses when they pop around for tea and bikkies!

:p

[wessex19]

I didn't realise they would let a Steward hang around for 35 years!!!:ok:

[Huron Topp]

Obviously, he must have exceptional legs.:}

[The Swinging Monkey]

BEagle,

Oh, how I know what you mean.
I left in April this year after a mere 32 yrss. Since then I have had a letter from my AOC, quite nice - shame the bluntie at the other end couldn't get my surname right!
I too have had a letter asking if I need a repeat prescription from the med centre! and lastly, I was informed by those wonderful people in handbrake house that they had 'overlooked' the fact that I was due a bar to my LS & GCM, and was it OK to send it in the post??!!!

I can't remember if they were send first class, second class or what, but I am astonished that even as a civvie, the blunties are still hounding me:* :* :* :*

As for the bar - well em, it just about sums things up really don't it??

Regards to all, EXCEPT BLUNTIES, who are a waste of valuable oxygen!!

The Swinging Monkey
'Caruthers, lets polish my medals shall we?'

[moggie]

BEagle - I remember getting my "thank you" letter when I left in 1995. I was thanked for my valuable service - although surely if it had been THAT valuable they could have let me stay in, which was what I wanted!

By the way, mine arrived about 12 months after I left the RAF and was already on my second civvie job! Looks like second class has improved a bit.

[FEBA]

Beagle
1st class 2nd class makes sod all difference to the speed of delivery.
I was retired recently from the reserve at the age of 45. I received a letter from RA manning and records office at Footscray Kent telling me that my obligations as a reservist were now over and that I was to hand in my kit at my nearest Army depot.
I wrote back to Colonel **** informing him that in civvy street it was customary to hold a leaving party after so many years of faithful service, where did he intend holding mine?
I never got a reply (not even 2nd class) and he never got his kit back.
Good luck
FEBA

[ORAC]

Can't remember if I got a pro-forma letter, if I did it's in a box somewhere. Rubbish anyway, doubt if he could have picked me out of a crowd of two.

Don't care really, as long as the pension keeps rolling in each month.

[Captain Gadget]

All this postie-bashing reminds me of a story I heard on the box many years ago...

Matey receives a letter from his local library informing him that such-and-such a book is overdue and that there is a fine to be paid.

It had taken twenty-seven years to reach him.

Presumably the fine, by this time, would have been beyond the means of the average library member!

The supreme irony was that the librarian had had to walk past matey's front door to post it...

Gadget :ok:

[Postman Plod]

hey, you think the Post Office is bad.... just try one of the other carriers. Charge you 16 times more, and still chuck it in a postbox for Royal Mail to carry! :mad: Dont think their guaranteed services are any different!

At least you know if you pay peanuts you get monkeys! :\

[Art Field]

Also remember folks that it must be the only job where you have to hand back a wrist clock when you leave.

[BEagle]

Wasn't that little pocket sun dial they found on the Marie Rose today your old service timepiece, Arters?;)

[shaky]

Handed in my flying kit in 1974. No letter yet but I think the stamps were Penny Blacks in those days.

[Flatus Veteranus]

BEagle

Welcome to the Old Farts' Club!

My penultimate tour was AA Ankara. Towards the end of it I wrote (for the first time in my life) to the posters and suggested that, since I was clearly unpromotable, the RAF might like to get some useful work out of me in my final appointment. Since they were supposed to be short of pilots at that time and I was still A1G1Z1 I volunteered to occupy any pilot seat as a supernumerary. I got a short letter back saying that, if they did that, they would have to take some other bloke out of the front line and send him staff college to qualify him for the job they were warming up for me. Shortly after that I received my posting to a liaison job in the Army Department at MOD. I believe I was the first staff college graduate ever to fill that post! My predecessor was so taxed by it that, as a keen wood-carver, he kept a work-mate and his chisels in the office.

On retiring a couple of years later, the Sappers were very nice to me, but I heard not a dicky-bird from the RAF. After a bit I wrote a rather pointed letter direct to the Air Secretary reminding him that I had served two consecutive appointments outside the RAF's chain of command and that it would have been nice to have received some token recognition of my services. I very quickly received an emollient letter from the Air Marshal himself. I thought the system had been sorted out by now! Good luck!

[Unmissable]

I was under the impression that one had to draft one's own 'thank you letter', therefore just finding it on your C: drive must beat any postal service (unless you still own a Sinclair spectrum or a 286.)

[Zoom]

My TY letter conveyed The Queen's thanks via the SofS and then AMP - and then, presumably, the bluntie who copied it out of APxxx in the first place and the typist who smudged it. Are they all that impersonal or was mine special?

[Samuel]

These letter-writers seem to be universally incompetent;mine from the CAS RNZAF [who knew me personally]was three years out of date in the rank department, and had the wrong initials.

I returned it, with appropriate comment to the effect that if they couldn't find anyone to do such a simple job correctly, then not to bother!

[BEagle]

Things are looking up. Received my 1983-2003 engraved sqn goodies today.....

Brought round in a poly bag by a mate.

Thanks.

[Zoom]

Engraved squadron goodies, eh BEagle? You don't know you're born! I finished at HQXXX where nobody could agree on a fund for departure gifts. I ended up with a cheap barometer from H Samuel which fell apart during my move. Ah, memories!

[Eagle 270]

Beags, congrats on your posting to field 1, pasture 3. You'll need to pay for your own pprune time now! Your pension might just cover that.

First class? How the flip do you expect the Govn to pay for the Euro fighter or Desert combats if you demand top postage? Get with the programme. You were paid for your service after all. Very lower decks.:ok:

Any usurpers to Beags mantle of oldest serving pprune member? Now that he's civpop, he's become irrelevant overnight. He is after all, just like the old boy down the Legion (is that place PC in this day and age?) with a chest full of curious and obscure gongs on his dusty old lavender stinking blazer with a collection of rambling stories reminiscing about when the comet was god and the big white goony bird was king of all it deafened. You could imagine a 35-year BA pilot replicating and paralleling Beags couldn’t you. Blah, blah, Viscount, blah, blah....Trident, blah, blah, BAC 1-11 etc, etc....but of course, he would own a million pound mansion in Kent, a country house in Cornwall and a place in Provonce AND a Brietling Navitimer as a 'cheers bloke for being a good egg'. What does the pensioner Beags get? A blunties prose regarding his kit list! Queens servant in the days just after conscription.:}

We could all have been flying with Aeroflot if it wasn't for the ATPL's in blue!

[BEagle]

Could I have a pint of whatever you've been drinking please? Would go nicely in the sqn mug.

...and I've always paid for my own PPRuNe time, thanks!

[The Swinging Monkey]

Eagle 270,

well, I've either been drinking too much of the famous amber stuff or something, but you've completely lost me! What the heck are you talking about my friend?
I can only suggest you take more water with it, or hange it for something less powerful - a Grouse maybe??

Kind regards
The Swinging Monkey
'Caruthers, send this Eagle chappie a sample bottle, there's a good man'

[Eagle 270]

Just my way of saying congrats beags on reaching a mile stone. And another way of saying how quickly one goes from king of the 5hits to 5hit of the kings.

May your retirement be long and relaxing, Beagle.

[Mightycrewseven]

Why am I whinging.......

Because handbrake house will not listen. I have been in SSSA for three months now (a very nice flat indeed) and I am still waiting my FIA (about £300 per month.) This is because I am at a place where there is no mess for food/accommodation. Out of this £300, PSF will take out my food, accommodation and council tax charges.

I have chased up my FIA on several occasions now with the usual answer...

"It's in the system sir, it will be in next months pay."

It has not materialised. This tidy some of money is soon mounting up, but I need it in my pocket now.

Today I recieved a letter from :mad: PSF with regards to the immediate recovery of £239 due to 'OVERISSUE' of allowances? When I phoned PSF, the PD clerk stated that they were recovering the said food, accommodation and council tax charges that I owed from my FIA, the FIA that I have still not recieved!
:*
I politely pointed out that I had STILL not recieved my FIA and wanted to know why it is not going to be in this months pay.

"Well Sir, we are still waiting approval." (after 3 months!)

When I asked why they hadn't chased it up........

"We're really busy at the moment sir, incredibly short staffed at the moment."

:\ This was the final straw. The blighters are too busy to chase up and issue me way overdue FIA, but have the time to take RECOVERY action on allowances from the FIA they haven't yet issued to me!!!!!!

What a farce.

[Art Field]

My company sun dial may well have been on the Mary Rose, could yours have gone down with the Titanic Beags?, and my grey cells reduce in number by the hour but I still don't understand what Eagle 270 is on about. Suggest he posts his address to save the white coated gents having to search for him. Could his surname be Hoon?.

[BEagle]

No, Arters - 'twas just my career which went down with the Titanic...

Still don't understand Eagle 270's penultimate post - but thanks to him anyway for his kind comments.

Don't think he's Hoon though (and is it just me, or does Hoon bear a striking similarity to that rather unfunny comedian of the 1970s, Freddy 'Parrot face' Davies? The pratt who used to pull a bowler over his ears and say "I'm thick, thick, thick of it":yuk: ).

Not that I'm one for Schadenfreude, but the spectacle of the various spin doctors and sleezy political slimeballs squirming at the Hutton Inquiry makes me think and hope that Phony Tony, BuffHoon, Camp Bell and the rest might be out on their ears 'ere long....:ok:

[WorkingHard]

What recognition do you want? You have been paid handsomely for the role you have performed so well (one hopes so anyway), you have, after the appropriate service (16 years min.) received a very handsome gratuity (tax free) and pension which when you reach 55 years of age will be inflation proofed, you have had super accomodation and cheap messing and now you want to have a go at the scribblies. have a heart. You have no doubt joined a mess locally so that you may continue to enjoy "cheap" food and drink. Have I missed anything?

[The Nr Fairy]

Yup, you've missed something.

You've forgotten to tell us if you're a scribblie or not.

[BEagle]

'Super accommodation and cheap messing'

Have I missed something.....?? Where?? I haven't lived in a mess (or MQ) since 1976 apart from on brief courses. 'Cheap' - a well-chosen word with more than one meaning.

Recognition? No, not really. It's just the perception (that word again) of the sort of system which slaps a large 'Second Class' sticker on the envelope containing the AOC's thankyougram and which sends out stupid notes 4 months after being told one's retirement date which makes me despair at some of the administrative functionaries in the Firm.

[Scud-U-Like]

Could be worse:

"Welcome to the Royal Air Force Plauditory Correspondence-on-Discharge Helpline.

If you have recently left the Service as a commissioned officer and would like a thankyou letter, signed by an air officer, press one.

If you have recently left the Service as an other rank, goodbye."

[WorkingHard]

Beagle - I really wish you well in your retirement (or whatever you are currently doing) and I understand your ire. However the fact is that in whatever "service" be it military or civilian, those above generally care not one iota about those they consider serve them. I am not a scribblie as someone asked, but I hope to treat my staff as a nearly equal and believe they work with me not for me. For those who have criticised, can you honestly say you worked with all those with whom you had contact? The military above all else must have a rank system but surely not to the exclusion of common decency which is where I think you came in. Please forgive me if I misread the comments made by many. Good luck with your chosen new life.

[BEagle]

Thanks - I think we're at crossed purposes. Perhaps 'scribbly' wasn't the best word to use. Sorry if it caused offence.

[Samuel]

Well Beags, the time has come, and no doubt the one thing you didn't leave behind was your sense of humour; you certainly need it around here what with a turkey masqerading as an eagle and a hard worker missing the point completely.

Regardless of minority [and ill-informed if I may be so bold] opinion, you take with you the enormous satisfaction of a professional job, professionally done.

There'll be a bottle of Cloudy Bay Sauvignon Blanc around any time you develop the good sense to spend some of that retirement time down here!:ok:

[Eagle 270]

As always, Sam, you missed the point.

[Training Risky]

Mightycrewseven:

£239?!.... get in the bl**dy queue mate;) I'm first in line!

Personnel Mis-management Agency want £3000 off me!

This is a retrospective claim for flying pay. A claim made as soon as the relevant AP changed to suit them! You can betcha ass I'm using QRs to appeal though:mad: :mad:

[Mightycrewseven]

Holy muvver

£3000! Ok you got me on that one. However, I note with interest your FP problem. I am now in a similar situation as yourself (apart from the small fact they haven't overissued the FP).

On IOT grad, early this year, there were 7 NCA (including myself) who would qualify for Top Rate FP. We have waited nearly 4 months for Binnsworth to get our pay in order...(the usual airman to officer record change over farce).

Only after several phone calls, over the months, to our PD clerks, we have only now been informed that, according to AP3392 vol2 leaflet 1904, we are only entitled to middle rate FP and top rate would only be due in 4 years. On investigation it appears that this leaflet was updated on 29 July 03 to reflect the changes, backdating them to 1st April 03. The clerks are now interpreting this 'ambiguous' leaflet to indicate we are only entitled to MR FP.

They (who ever instigated the changes) have changed the FP terms AFTER we graduated to bring them into effect BEFORE we graduated to directly effect a substantially large pay change that we were initially entitled to.

How can the RAF get away with changing pay retrospectively to suite their needs and then not inform us of these changes?

Training Risky, I would like to know a little more about your plight and what you have done to resolve this.

:\ Not a very happy MC7!

[Zoom]

There are ways to say goodbye and the RAF appears not to have got it right yet, particularly if, as Scud implies, ORs get nothing at all. That is absolutely shameful, as everyone deserves a pat on the back for a job well done.

Now The Accident Group - they had style! :ok:

[European Crash]

I am a scribbly (currently employed definitely out-of-branch), yet I generally avoid mentioning my Branch in polite company. There are many good administrators around however I cringe when I think of the behaviour of some scribblies (and other trades and branches, for that matter) on operational detachments. I had one clerk working for me during a particularly tense time in the Balkans who expected to have weekends off and would always find a reason to vacate the office at 5, in spite of the workload. This person had no interest in why we were there and what we were doing until there was a shooting incident which spilt on to the dispersal. The clerk then realised that people do get injured/kidnapped/tortured/die. This person did not how to use her weapon and had paid a armourer to clean it weekly rather than get hands dirty on the sunday morning make and mend session; after the above incident, the clerk's attitude did improve, but the clerk was fighting the institutional lethargy of her trade.

At another det, a Flt Lt DAO publicly announced that he was only doing 30 days to qualify for his medal and operated the most restrictive office and cashier hours. He would not issue Flt Sub Imprests 'after hours' until a Wg Cdr ordered him to do so and pointedly refered to him as 'wet pants'. He needed a big kick up the @rse.

Beagle, sorry to hear of the 2nd class stamp matter, but in the Pantheon of Crimes Against Aircrew and Humanity, rather amusing. At least we have an administrative system; my experience of the civilian world is that few firms give one jot about their staff if the 'wobble'. We, the RAF, do try to set people straight, support them (albeit occasionally in an amaturish manner) and give them training opportunities, provide sports facilities etc etc. I am not an appologist for RAF administrative services however we do a h@ll of a lot more than many employers. At least we don't sack people on the spot because of 'corporate restructuring' and have them frog-marched out of their offices by some spotty faced rent-a-cop.

[Brain Potter]

Training Risky and Mightycrewseven check your PMs

[FFP]

Any more talk of scribblies and the like is going to wake Admin Guru !

[wub]

Nooooooooh...!!!! :{

[dolphin 153]

IIP



Investors In Paperwork

[Follow Me Through]

After a year out I am still to get any paperwork from Handbrake House. At least the PMA input for pension and gratuity worked though!

Enjoy the retirement you deserve it. Any chance of hearing about your best b***cking for posting on here whilst still in? Even the worst might be good.

[Charlie Luncher]

Beags old chap

Letter luxury

If it wasnt for the boyz you would have thought I was in the womens auxiliary balloon corp.

I didnt even get a piss off from the RAF as I expected:{

You dont know your born!
Hows the garden looking:D
Charlie sends

[BEagle]

Green, thanks Charlie! Well, actually rather brown thanks to the surprisingly hot summer.

European Crash sums up the situation well. Actually there are many very helpful and professional admin types around - including many at Binnsworth.......

[Impiger]

Have you ever paused to think how much beer you could have bought if you had banked the difference between first and second class post on every letter you've sent since the two tier system was introduced?

PS having read some of your posts on 'I wish I hadn't Said That' I'm convinced you have the missing 56 Sqn line book from 82/83!

Hope you enjoy being out as much as you did being in.

[BEagle]

I do hope that said Line Book hasn't really been lost! Loss of the collective entries concerning Gizzard Puke, BK, Vermin Horrid, The Convex Monitor, Ober und Unterkraut, Hubsch-dot-dot, Marvin, the late Griggles, Buzzy and other Firebirds of the time would be a great blow to aviation history!

Then there was that 'classified' photo album. I shall say no more....

[Flatus Veteranus]

Samuel

Best ask Beags to buy a bottle of Cloudy Bay from Tesco's and take it out with him. Last time I was in NZ I was shaken rigid by the price of local wines!

[Samuel]

Ah, but when they see you Collegiate guys coming the price goes up!