 I joined in 2016. I joined at the time mainly because of the way my job was and the way that the rental and housing market was is that my husband and I couldn't really afford to rent anymore. But we also couldn't afford, because of the rent, to put money aside in order to have a down payment for a house to get a lower mortgage, more affordable mortgage. That mixed with the fact that I was kind of at a, to me at the time, dead-end job. I would had to have either started completely over, gone right back to school again. I already had dissociates and something. I just didn't pursue after I got it, and it just, it wouldn't have worked starting from zero again, especially with us trying to start family. The whole nine yards couldn't afford to have a child. So it's just, everything added up to that the military was going to be the most beneficial for our family and beneficial for our future. My husband was prior service. So that also helped with him A being on board and B helping me with that decision. I have been in the Air Force for three and a half years. I am a senior airman and recently found out that I have been selected for staff sergeant. So with my line number probably March, April, when I should so on, we'll see. My career is weather. The AFSC is 1W0X1, the X standing for whatever level you're at. So as far as apprentice, journeyman, so on and so forth, currently I am a 1W051, which is a journeyman. So I actually signed up in the depth for weather. I had originally joined with the idea of being a animal handler or dog handler with the security forces having been animal control with along with the police force before I joined and then decided no. But I tried to do linguists, didn't make it missed it by one point. So my follow up was weather. So I came in knowing I was joining weather. Originally I had wanted to actually be in linguistics. Unfortunately, when I took the D lab, which is the test you specifically have to make to take in order to be in linguists, I missed it by one little point. So I was unable to do that and you have to wait. I believe it was six months in order to retest and I just couldn't wait six more months. I needed to go. So whether it was my follow up came up on the thing and there we go. So I signed a six year contract. I joined as an A1C because of my prior college I had an associate. So I didn't need to sign up for six year, but I did because I don't know why, but I did. Yes. Tech school was located in lovely Big Biloxi, Mississippi at Keisler Air Force Base. So nice weather. So when I went through, it was perfect timing where I was there from the end of April until the end of November. From what I've understood is when I was there, it was the shorter or longer time frame. I know the change is different now. It's when I was there was eight, eight months. I know that if you're there longer or different timing where you're there during Christmas and it can actually be longer for you because of Exodus. And then I believe also that the curriculum has changed since I was there. It's longer, I think by like a month or so or it's shorter. It's shorter. But when I went, it was eight months long. OK, so tech school. I hated tech school, not necessarily because of the schooling itself, although or the way that the area is, if you get this job, if you go to Keisler and that's where your that's where your tech school is going to be. Enjoy the area. The base itself is awesome. The area is awesome, even with the area restrictions because of AETC, which is the education. It's actually a nice area and I wish I could get stationed there or at least T.D. Wilder or something so I can better enjoy it. So when I went to tech school, it was miserable for me. So I joined pretty old in comparison to how most people when they joined. I was 27 years old or by the time I got to tech school, 28, I'd already been living on my own. I've been actively having a job since I was 15, 16. And I was used to living on my own, having my own space, having my husband living with me. And that was not the case once I got to tech school and the restrictions, of course, and everything like that, when someone else got in trouble, the whole dang triangle, which is the area of where you're at for Keisler, where you're staying in the dorms, which I was in the Connor dorm. It's just everybody got in trouble for one person's mistakes, which I understand, but at the same time, it's so disheartening when you're weather and you're there for so long and you have to deal with all the bullcrap. I personally had roommates who were personnel. So I maybe dealt with them a month and a half and then I got a new roommate, month and a half, got a new roommate where other people were kind of, I guess blessed in the sense of that they had the same person. So they knew the person where they was weather with weather. So it was the same person at least the whole time or if not most of the time, I didn't get a weather person until the very end of I think the last two months of mine. But anyway, tech school itself, the actual schooling, but because like I said before, because of my age, I hadn't been in college or high school, obviously for quite some time, getting back into the actual classroom and for how long it is mentality, you're getting, you're basically getting an associate's within an eight front, you know, an eight month period. It's a lot of schooling. It's a long hours and I had a really rough time with it, really rough time. And it didn't help that the class I was in with was full of guys who were just got it like that. I was literally the only person who didn't get an A in the class. Granted, I got like a B plus, but still the whole experience was very disheartening for me. And I was there. Wasn't able to have my husband there because of he had a job back home. So no big deal. But also because I didn't have my husband there. So he was about eight, nine hours away. Didn't have that support like other married couples did where they were separate, which is when they're there, but they were able to live on base or live in housing with their spouse or their children. If you had children, I did not do that, nor was I really able to because I didn't have an 85% at that time. So it's just really rough. Learning was really rough. Every time I felt like I was doing good, my grades didn't even count towards my main grade. Test that actually did count. I struggled. I failed out. I didn't fail out. I failed once, one test that was so disheartening, but then I re-studied and passed it. But still, it's just, it's a long time to be in one space. As far as with the restrictions of the education group and everything like that. So it's just, I had a miserable time, but I also know people who had a wonderful time and loved learning. It's just rough. Can be very rough, but make the fun of it is all I can say. Just enjoy your time there as much as you can. You're stuck there. See you might as well, right? So with weather, with weather, we can go to pretty much any base. So if there's a pretty much every Air Force base, I say pretty much because I can't be 100% sure, but every Air Force base and just about every Army base. Army doesn't have a weather division. We do their weather. So we are actually are the people who are at the Army bases providing their weather. We're the ones being deployed out with the Army people to do their weather while they're deployed. Also do that with our cell, with our old teammates as far as Air Force is concerned. So we can pretty much go anywhere. There's a base there. There's weather there in one form or another. I love this question. So the one thing that I wish I knew 100% about this job. You are essential personnel. Yes, the job itself, especially if you get a weather, weather hub job, which is what I'm at. I'm at the weather hub 21st operational weather squadron located in Germany. We are a hub similar to how the gentleman from the other video said that he's from a weather flight. I am the hub. So we are essential personnel, which means that we are 24 seven manned. Someone's there at all times, unless something's down as far as systems and we're cooped. But even then it's a, you know, bare bones. Someone's there regardless. That means holidays, normal weekends, stuff like that that you would expect to get off as a desk job as far as like personnel finance or any admin or anything like that. We do not get if you have a holiday office because conveniently your day off falls on that holiday or that your squadron hasn't made it so that you have that time off because of the holiday, which our squadron does as far as for the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays. So the job itself for, I'll speak on the weather hub. So what we do is that we provide forecast briefs and hazard charts. We'll go with that for the area of Europe and Africa. Basically what you do when we'll go through timeline as far as you get there. When I got there, go upstairs for out training, which is not a thing anymore. But you go upstairs and training for two months and then you come down the floor and you produce TAFs, which is the weather forecast of a specific location or base. And then you, those are due every eight hours. And yes, those are due every eight hours. And they're basically letting pilots or even just people at that location what their weather is going to be like. Generally speaking was a hub. What you do is you prepare the TAF. Your manager for that area proves it. You send it off to a weather flight. Weather flight looks it over, gives their input or the changes. And then you make those changes and then you post it out. That's generally speaking what happens for your normal, I just started here job. Eventually moving on, you can become a briefer, which is basically you provide weather briefs, looking at whether you still forecast. You provide weather briefs for pilots. You will look into whether where they're flying from into, as long as it's in your area, from where they're starting. And then you build a brief based on that so that the pilots know whether they can fly or not. Following that, you can work on hazard charts, which are also part of weather briefing, which basically lets, you know, there's icing turbulence, thunderstorms, whatever that could affect briefs, or that could also affect weather forecasts. And then also, but that's, so that's the basic people. There is an ability to be non-essential personnel within weather, where you're upstairs or what we call it being staff, or you're the people who support the squadron during normal business hours, whether it's training ops, dealing as far as like other locations, asking for coverage for our forecasting for their operations and everything like that. So there's a lot to do. And then as far as what can be done in a weather location, as generally speaking, however, as a new airman single, especially if you're only at a location for two months, or excuse me, two years, especially with a hub, you will more than likely be mostly working a desk and producing tasks, where towards the end of your time, you will be a briefer. And then if you're there long enough, which for me, I've almost been at my base for three years, you'll do hazard charts. This is just for my experience at our location within Germany. Generally speaking at my job, what we do is we work five, five on, two off, five on, three off. So your weekends are consistently moving. You don't have weekends off necessarily, unless it just perfectly times up that way. And you work eight hour shifts, normally speaking, you're either a day shift person, which is from 730 local until 3.30 p.m. Then swing shift, which is 3.30 p.m. until 11.30 p.m. And then there's mid-shift, which is from 11.30 p.m. until 7.30 a.m. That's generally how it goes. You can also work, there are situations, like for me, for instance, our squadron is, half of our squadron is deployed currently. So we are on Panama 12, which ours is a little different, but the way that it works is that basically as of, the way our squadron has it set up, every other weekend is a three day weekend, which is nice. You work 12 hour shifts, it's split between a day shift of 7.30 a.m. to 7.30 p.m. And then a night shift from 7.30 p.m. to 7.30 a.m. And generally speaking, you don't work more than two days in a row. Some weekends you work three days in a row, but honestly, it's not that big of a deal. On the aspect of 12s, yes. On the topic of 12s, this is not normal, at least for most weather locations, unless you are so badly manned that you have to work 12s in order to keep the location 24-7 manned. Wing, which is a big guy who takes care of everything, does not like to put locations on 12s. And they will, you actually have, your location will actually have to consistently apply to keep the 12 hour shifts going. Unfortunately, we will be on it until February because of how badly manned we are right now. Basic answer to the question, nothing. Weather doesn't specifically get any kind of certifications or anything like that that you can use in the civilian world or anything like that. The follow-up answer to that is that you, because of how long you're in tech school and how much schooling you get done, you basically have an associates when you finish tech school. I think honestly, it was just with my tech school credits and some of my general education credits that I had already done prior. I was only two credits away from getting my CCAF once I finished everything and finished my training and CDCs, which aren't a thing anymore. They're switching the way they do things now. So all I had to do was clap out to leadership classes and I had an associates with the Community College of the Air Force in meteorology. That honestly is the only thing that's been not necessarily hand-given to you, but hand-given to you just through you going through training and doing some extra work on the side. As far as getting your general education things taken care of and your leadership classes taken care of, which you can also wait and take care of in ALS, but which is Airman Leadership School. But I didn't want to wait. So when it comes to deployments for this job, recently there have been changes where beforehand, whether flights got deployed way more often than weather hubs. There has been a change however where they're flipping that and whether flights are not being deployed as often but and whether hubs are being deployed way more often. Like I said earlier, half of my squadron is gone right now on deployment. I think so it definitely has changed as far as the tempo goes. That being said, if you get sent to an Army location you are way more likely to deploy. Some locations it's six on six off where you're deployed for six months, back for six months, deployed for six months and back for six months. So honestly it depends on the location and whether you're at a flight hub or an Army location. So I am actually planning on making this a 20-year career possibly more depending on what my situation is at that time of retirement coming up. If I am happy with where I'm at and comfortable with my AFC, if I'm comfortable with my rank or if I need to stay in a certain rank for a while in order to make that sweet sweet pay raise in my retirement, I will. A lot of that is based more so on I'm being a little more realistic about my age and about how if I do get out when my six-year contract is up I'm going to have to start over all over again with retirement and everything like that and you know I'm going to be 34 when that happens and I just I'm not ready to do that to myself or my husband or my family in general honestly. So it's a little more on the inwardly why I want to join or not join stay in for that long. Honestly, as far as weather is concerned there's so much to do with weather. There's so many different aspects of weather to go into experience. So touching back on the last question just don't let one aspect of the job be your sale in whether you get out or not. Selfishly wise not even selfishly wise I'll say stability wise I would want a non-essential personnel job when I joined I didn't know about it being an essential personnel job now that I do especially with a young child it kind of sucks not being home when they're home not being home when my husband's home sometimes when especially when I'm on mids I don't see them I see him for maybe an hour and then I gotta go to bed especially on swings too you know it's just it's really it doesn't work so I don't even have a specific job I would want instead of whether it's just anything that's a day job money through Friday nine to five you know what I mean but outside of that honestly I don't think I would trade weather I don't feel personally that I'm really great at it I'm not it's not my kind of nerd but as far as the weather career field everybody I talk to most everybody I talk to especially who have made a career out of it love their job would love doing it love weather I'm just hoping to eventually get to that point myself where I like weather so we're hoping okay so I'll speak a little bit on people who are coming into weather so I've noticed a trend with weather that a lot of people who come here are nerds or at least very intelligent or very confident in their intelligence and don't like question don't like being told they're wrong and a lot of ego gets into this especially when like I said earlier as far as taffs when you talk to a weather flight and vice versa I've gotten into 30 minute conversation over the littlest thing because the person I was talking to just didn't want to drop it and didn't and their backing was better than mine you just have to you know you have to pick your battles so to speak um be ready to be wrong and accept being wrong accept criticism accept getting information from your your peers and from your superior when you get out of tech school all that information is fresh in your head and a lot of it too especially when you go overseas does not pertain to your job so you'll be fresh out of school fresh off the information ready to go ready to do the weather thing but be humble honestly and in every aspect of this job and the career just be humble be kind honestly I know that sounds really cheesy but just be kind to one another especially when you're in tech school and especially when you're in a new location you y'all are stuck there together at least two years why make it miserable for yourself two years when it comes to a base and you know eight eight or nine months when it comes to the tech school just let stupid things go be willing to learn and learn from your mistakes definitely be willing to learn from your mistakes because they will happen whether is the biggest part of our job but mother nature likes to do whatever the heck she wants and she gonna do it so honestly just whether career wise or field wise just be humble be ready to I don't know how many more times I can say this just be ready to take criticism and learn from it learn from it don't just do just learn as far as for the Air Force career just honestly kind of the same thing just let stupid stuff go don't stew on it don't hold it against people don't let one look especially this don't let one location be the say all and how you feel about the Air Force or even just any military career honestly if you're watching these and because Navy and Marines both through weather so I mean we have a lot of Navy folk at our base but just don't let one location ruin your whole experience honestly I've known some people who let one thing one bad supervisor or one bad situation just ruin it and they get out which you know they're adults they can choose what they want to do but just you know learn from it and think it out just don't be stupid don't be stupid think things through honestly I could go on but I'm not going to so plugging wise you can find me on Instagram under simply sicka you can find me on twitch under the same name I dabble in playing dead by daylight like I and overwatch like I think I know what I'm doing you can also find me on YouTube under pop culture psychology it's a project I'm a part of that I really love and would love even if you just give it a look cool thank you for the opportunity