Empty Standards

For starters, I'm not calling anyone out. This is a response to the statement, not the person making the statement. With that being said, I must disagree with this statement. For the most part, people "with standards" are assholes. Now, before anyone screams "HA! You just told on yourself," allow me to explain.

Before I joined the military, I boxed for six years, and the standards in the boxing world were, do your road work, eat clean, don't drink or do drugs, study the craft, come to practice. When I was a novice, I never hated anyone that lived up to those standards. Why? because they made sense. Don't do your road work, you'll gas out and get your ass kicked. Don't eat clean, you'll miss weight and get your ass kicked. Drink and do drugs, you'll become distracted and get your ass kicked. Miss practice, you'll get your ass kicked. That's how it was. If one was going to succeed in the fight world, one had no choice but to meet the standard.

When I joined the military and learned about their standards, I assumed it was the same thing as boxing, where if I don't live up to these standards, something bad will happen. What were the standards? for the most part, come to work on time, work hard, volunteer, do your training, deploy, maintain your PT, make sure your uniform is within the AFI.

What did I do? I exceeded the standard. I came to work fifteen minutes early, worked really hard, volunteered, did my training before the due date, deployed multiple times, got 90's on my PT tests, and made sure my uniform and my boots (back when we had to shine them) were sharp. After doing this for three years I realized one thing.

The standard didn't matter.

On the rare chances they came to work, I'd watch lazy people come in late, because most of their time was spent at "volunteer events" during duty hours. They never deployed, and got 75-79's on their PT tests, with dirty, wrinkled uniforms, and dull boots. These people got the awards, special treatment, and fun TDY's, while everyone else that "met the standard" worked 11-12 hour shifts, came in on their days off, worked weekend duty, and got all the trash TDY's.

The standard didn't matter.

I'd watch "leaders" talk about "standards," and I'd shrug and ignore it. In my experience, most people that talk about "meeting standards" are just liars. They're virtue signaling. "They're just saying things they don't believe in order to sound good. Furthermore, especially now, they're promoting standards that they themselves never had to meet.

While I don't hate (I try really hard not to hate any man) I do vehemently distrust anyone that talks about "having standards" or "meeting standards" or "talking about their standards," and, in most cases, I have met and exceeded whatever standards they're talking about.