Conversion incentives

USAREC offers like a 20K bonus to soldiers who elect to convert to 79R (Career recruiter). By and large, these are your salespeople. These are the people who get out to USAREC la-la-land and do fairly well. These are the Army's actors; possessing no real core personality of their own, they are malleable enough that they can assimilate themselves into any culture well enough to get "in" with whatever market they are speaking to. These are the white guys who can feign interest in Jay-Z's latest offerings, then turn around and listen to Led Zeppelin with the quasi-rocker/stoner crowd, and the black guys who can throw on a ten-gallon hat, take some dip, and babble NASCAR while listening to Kenny Chesney with the hicks, then put on the chains and black t-shirts and grind with the goths. Not that these are bad people, just that they don't hold anything close enough to themselves to have any real personal identity. They are doppelgangers, and they give most people that same slimy feeling that one gets when talking to a smarmy used car salesman. You know, the feeling like you're talking to someone who's totally disingenuous by nature; they can't help it. Where am I going with this? Well, read on, dear fan(s) (in case I have more than one).

The way detail recruiters are treated is abysmal. The 79R culture expects detail recruiters, who are mostly not salesmen, to be able to do the same things they can do. When we cannot, we get stuck with extra training, we get told how awful we are. In some of the more extreme cases, we get punished (usually vicariously through the things associated with the job other than actual production--they can't "punish" one outright for not producing). It is never the fault of the community for them not supporting their Army (take ownership, America--this is YOUR ARMY), it is the fault of the individual recruiter, who although he has worked his tail off, has not managed to get anyone to enter the fold. It's not the market's fault that we cannot produce, we must not have been working hard enough. Our tools are messed up. It has nothing to do with the fact that DOD averages 5 people a month in an area where they want the Army alone to get 8. Sorry USAREC, not everyone can be a good salesman. I couldn't sell Kirbys, I couldn't sell cars, hell I couldn't even sell candy bars. Pouring on the pressure doesn't make us any better, it just makes us burnt out.