Shabby paperwork!
 

Having left the RAF in December, I recently received my Valedictory Letter.

Not only did it incorrectly state my years of service, but in the covering letter from CAS, my rank was incorrect.:hmm:

Has anyone else been in receipt of similarly shabby paperwork?

I once won something (other than a raffle),
and the civvy CEO of the very large defence contractor who originated the trophy in question (good PR for the company etc) spent 5 minutes eulogising the ace chap who had the special honour of receiving the first ever 'Miggins, Ellsworth & Lugg Brothers' trophy*

So, having listened to the speech about a chap with a different surname to myself, who had - incidentally - been demoted apparently, I was perhaps a little slow to go up and collect the item...complete with silver salver on which my name was incorrectly inscribed.

Delivering a brief to the Staish a few days later I was invited to proceed ...' okay get on with it, Sgt Brown, or Smith, or whatever your f***ing name is'

Dave

* I have cunningly disguised the company involved to ensure they can't be identifed.

The staish was, on occasion, a little under the weather in the mornings, but I thought him a great man for two reasons -
1) He had a sense of humour and a personality, which so few do.
2) He drove his staish's car into the guardroom one day, apparently having discovered that his gyros had toppled.... for attempting to Kamikaze the miserable son of a b*tch plod in the control room I still owe 'Harry' a pint.

When I retired after 40 years, the last 30 with the same employer of which 26 had been in a very senior post, my valedictory letter was addressed to a different person, told me in short terms that my resignation (due to ill health) had been received and reminded me to return any equipment that didn't belong to me. It wasn't even signed.

I couldn't but imagine that someone was glad to see the back of one who asked the awkward questions and, perhaps, had seen it all before.

B@stards.

Maybe they kick 'em out in that condition to remind you of what to expect in future company admin dealings?

I'm leaving after 22 years and PMA just sent the paper work through with the wrong name on it and that I was PVR'ing! Was signed off by a LAC, sent to my HR flight were it rested in someone's in tray for over two weeks before being sent on by a Sgt who missed the spelling mistake and the fact that I've not PVR'd!

Rocket fired back at them as you can imagine!

Many years ago in a very shiny hangar full of VERY, VERY shiny Andover's and Wessex's (wessi?) I was waiting in line to be called, by my WO Eng, to be debriefed on my annual F6442.

Over the previous 12 months, I had been an ace (no argument, an ace) and expected a glowing report.

I was duly admitted into the presence and spent the next 10 minutes having a one-sided interview (without coffee) in which my parentage, my cleanliness, my professionalism and my future within the RAF were put in major doubt.

Having stood for 10 minutes (doing a remarkable impression of a fish out of water) I was instructed to sign the document and get out. I managed to get to the office door (suffering from extreme shock) when the WO Eng barked at me "And send P*****N in".

"But I am P*****N" I said.

To this day, I have no idea who's F6442 I was debriefed on.

I learned about shabby paperwork from that.

Just about 9 months ago, finally left after 41+ years - no letter, no certificate.

Oh yeah, JPA s*****d up as well.

Not angry; more just very sad about what has happened to the organisation.

I received my letter after completing 22 Years, to my shock as I have signed on to LOS 30, does this mean I can have a day off:confused:

Probably mine if the said secret air base was in the Gulf! I got over it though and resolved to do better.

The WO Eng in question was a tad teed off when we next met with me as a sqn ldr :E

At least you got a valedictory letter! Feel a bit miffed since I wrote so many of them for other people. But am I bovvered? :{

Mine was great! It was well researched to the point where it mentioned some (classified) stuff that I thought only a couple of people knew about.

Got a certificate in the post the other day (Valedictory Letters are no longer in vogue). In a nutshell, it listed all my competencies. I was most pleased to note that I left having been CCS and RAFFT current, together with gaining about 40 other competencies. Apparently I have three Flying competencies; this comes as a bit of a surprise as, in 20+ years, the only time I flew military aircraft was as talking baggage.

Now, who do I call to get my flying pay?

As mentioned previously on another thread, mine arrived timely (3 months) was accurate and indeed worthy of my thanks in reply (I didnt expect it!) Maybe this was due to my OC at the time? or maybe (me thinks,,,) I just got lucky!

I left last year having served 23 years and to date have not received a letter nor a certificate; bovvered? - nope!

One of my current work colleagues also failed to receive a letter but he did get paid his terminal gratuity - TWICE!! That truly is JPA at its best.:ok:

When I left in 1996 as a "Spec Aircrew Flt Lt" I received a Formal and a Personal letter from the Air Secretary. I also had a formal letter from (and a personal interview with) the AOC.

I opted to leave in a major Redundancy scheme. If it could be done then; I would suggest that there is no reasonable excuse (given the much reduced size of the RAF) for it not being done now.

I effectively wrote my own valecdictory letter when I left four years ago as my Flt Cdr stated that she would be unable to do it justice as she didn't know me that well!
"That ma'am", I replied, "simply cements in my own mind why I am leaving".

I had to collect my valedictory letter from the local Post Office who demanded cash before handing it over. Tight admin baskets hadn't bothered to put a postage stamp on the envelope - and they spelt my name incorrectly.

Nice to know I am not alone then. Completed 31 years 11 years ago.Still waiting for letter.

All other discharge docs had totally incorrect info, relating to promotion dates quals etc.

It would seem this inattention is now becoming an art form.

I got a badge. Does that count?

After 4 letters and a phone call I finally got a letter confirming my service dates which I needed for a background check. The first three attempts were riddled with errors: spelling my name incorrectly, stating I hadn't left the service and getting my rank wrong were the highlights...

The last line of mine reads, ' I wish you all good fortune in the future'.

The author was no clairvoyant, that's for sure. :{

I was lucky
 

I got mine a couple of months after leaving so no complaints about that. But..... it was addressed to my 27 year daughter (god knows how!) and sent to her home address. The narrative was completed verbatim from my F856 write-up given to me by the discharge clerk on clearing.

After 31 years service what did I expect?

Valedictory letters (a load of B******s)

What use are they anyway?

Thank you for those who took the time to produce such a worthwhile document!!!!!

Letters
 

Well today I put my notice in, take me past my 22 yr point. I want a really big certificate, CAS to give it to me and a Tornado flight. Thats all , I have seriously put RAF first over family..........................After reading this thread the RAF should be ashamed, saying sorry doesnt cost money so should be ok! So apologise the way you have treated people!! I have even written this like CAS sits on PC with PPrune!! lol oh well

No Air`Officer would read PPrune, it might tell the truth!

Not a rant, an educated observaton!

NM

Or not as the case may be..... :ok:

I left a good few years back and they got mine hopelessly wrong back then.

I apparently spent many years working on Jaguars. The nearest I got to one was sitting in a Kipper fleet A/C on the ORP at Colt.

I suggest that this is nothing new. I would be more interested to know the source of the information put on your good bye letter and what else they got wrong :uhoh: during my 15 years.

I retired just over a year ago - no letter - not even dined out..........made me feel really wanted! When I spoke to the Clk at my last Unit about getting my letter (I fancied a laugh!) she told me that I had never been posted to that Unit even though she knew me having passed me practically every day for the previous 2 years as I worked in the same building as her..............clearly another one destined for the higher ranks!!!!!:confused:

After 23 years, some 5 of which were for one particular IPT; my junior Flt lt asked me to put some words together for my valedictory letter. This I duly did, and emailed back a couple of days later not expecting any of my words to be present on the letter should I actually receive it! Two month after starting with my current employer, I received not one but 3 leaving packs from the omnipotent JPAC, each of which contained a valedictory letter with surprisingly exactly what I had written.

Now there's thought for you :confused: