A Welcome Separation

October 19, 2009 marked B's official separation date from the United States Air Force!

I say this with an exclamation mark because B was pretty excited about leaving the military. It's not that B is unpatriotic, but he just didn't like his job. He felt like he always had to do things "just to do them" which led to a lot of inefficiency at work. I used to work for the federal government (back in the day), so I could feel his pain. It's sad that my old co-worker's favorite saying was, "It's good enough for government work." That's just what happens for a lot of people in the government. You kind of put your mind on autopilot because there are no real performance-based rewards. The benefit, though, is that you know that you will always have a job and there is no real chance of ever being fired. But sometimes you have to wonder if that's enough to keep you going. For B, it wasn't enough.

So now he works for a great company called USAA (United Services Automobile Association). They provide financial services (insurance, banking, investments) exclusively to active and former military members and their families. Everyone we know who works for USAA loves it. It's a company that focuses on making its employees happy and healthy. The headquarters for USAA is in San Antonio and the campus is beautiful and huge (covering almost 290 acres).

For those of you who know B, you know that B is not into finances. He majored in physics, right? Well, USAA created this special program specifically for Junior Military Officers (JMO) leaving the military. USAA likes to hire people from the military because of the clientele. This program will train them in different departments for the next 3 years and at the end of the training, they will be ready to compete for senior-level positions within the company.

B started his new job about 2 weeks ago. He's currently in the Property & Casualty department, and works in Underwriting Analysis. They get to analyze large amounts of data for all kinds of insurance initiatives and trends. So it's a pretty good fit for B's analytic brain.

Now you're probably wondering if there have been any changes with all of us now that B's in the real world. One big change is having to find our own doctors. In the military, you're pretty much told who to see. You don't know much about the doctors, but figure they can't be bad if you're assigned to them. It's been a lot of work getting recommendations from civilian friends (since most of our friends are military!). The other big change is B's work hours. He wakes up a little earlier (now that he has to actually decide what to wear for work!) and he gets home a little later. He used to get home at the same time every day, but that's not the case anymore.

So far, I think B likes the new job and the new work environment. It's a great change for B and for us (since he's a lot happier). Here is the case in point--on all of B's military ID cards, he had this really serious, unhappy face. But on his very first USAA ID card, he is all smiles. He just looks happier and I think he really is. Yay, B!