I’m a CI and last week my CO sat me down and recorded an informal interview. She’s sent me a record of what was said but I don’t agree with what is noted as having been said. Specifically I was not told what happens next, given a timescale or improvement or notified of any appeals process that may exist. I also wasn’t told of any further repercussions of this or where the minor administrative action fits, should this be the first stage of telling someone they’re doing something wrong?
I’ve tried to understand ACP 20 but I’m just more confused than I was before I started reading it.
I don’t want to sign the informal interview record without knowing fully what I’m agreeing to. I feel like I’m being pushed out of the organisation by my CO this week having been told I was doing a good job in writing last week.
Any advice anyone could offer would be very much appreciated.
Go back and tell your CO exactly what you said here.
If she gets a bit mouthy then tell her you want to speak to you sector officer and get guidance from there.
If it is a half decent CO she will sit you down and discuss properly what it all means but something makes me thing you will be talking to the sector officer
Leave. Send your resignation (by email is fine) in writing to your Wing Executive Officer and Sqn OC.
If your OC is trying to stitch you up with fictional minutes, and has (quite deliberately imv…) left out the information you need to provide even a semblance of fairness then this is a battle you aren’t going to win - you simply don’t have the administrative and social muscle to fight a process that is dramatically skewed against you.
If however you decide that you want to fight this, you should send your OC an email to her Bader email account ( cc-in your sector commander and Wing ExO) just, and only, saying that you do not recognise the minutes that have been produced as bearing any relationship to the conversation that was held, that subjects have been ‘recorded’ that were not mentioned, and that you absolutely refuse to confirm them as being a record of what took place.
Involving your sector commander and WexO will force her hand - it will escalate the disciplinary proceedings and make you even more enemies than you currently have, but will make it more likely that what passes for proper procedure is followed.
Personally, my advice is to just bin it: being subjected to a process that you don’t understand - and aren’t meant to - and that is stacked against you under even ideal circumstances, will be an incredibly stressful, and drawn out, time for you and your family. It’s very unlikely to be worth it even if you ‘win’ - the social networks will just kick in where the disciplinary ones fail.
I’m a CI, and former Army Officer. I’m afraid I know how it’s done…
The truth and the ACO at times make very strange bedfellows as I have found out recently.
I have to agree with the comments Angus made, if you go, not only elevate the reasons why you are leaving but send a copy of your resignation to the Wing commander plus the Regional Commandant and the Commandant RAFAC using a separate e-mail, stating that the comments of the OC bear little relation to the truth.
Informal interview.What the heck is that for?.I have to say id tell them to stick it and as previously advised send it far and wide.Its not worth the candle.
If you want any sort of response from CRAFAC you’d be better off tweeting it. Her emails will be screened by staff and I doubt they let her eee anything negative like this.
I would love to know what you’ve done to have this?
I wouldn’t speak to anyone in this manner unless they have done or said something they shouldn’t and it involved cadets. If it’s staff they can sort it out like adults.
it sounds to me the OC is straight out of cranwell and following the practices they lay down there, regarding dealing with staff. Great in the world of employment total waste of time when dealing with the real world of volunteers
HQAC tell us we are volunteers and not employees and then try and impose workplace practices, which would be written into and explained in contracts.
If a manager in a company tried this unless it was their own business, they’d be in trouble.
I’ve heard of a few COs who have done interviews with staff and tried to impose development plans and made their lives hell if they don’t ‘sign up’. The end result is those not so inclined leave, in the just stop going manner.
Best thing , maybe, is to speak to sector commander first. CO requires a quiet speaking to (without coffee) ref how to treat staff. Personally, i wouldn’t let them get away with thier behavior and ‘unprofessional’ way they seem to have treated the CI. At face value they seem to be on a power trip!
Ultimately,if no satisfactory response , bin it and find something else to do .
For me one of the big red flags is the OC believing that an issue is serious and important enough that a minuted disciplinary meeting is warranted, but not that someone else should be present, or that the OC shouldn’t just print off the information about the process and the rights of the accused and give it to the CI.
It’s either spectacular incompetence or nasty venality. Neither, I would suggest, are good signs.
I’m afraid that none of the people I’ve known who have had to go through the processes have had a good outcome - people might be aquitted or whatever, but it never goes back to how it was or how it should be. It’s just hugely dissatisfying and the people involved just drift off in the end - and sometimes thats after a suspension lasting 6 months or more with interminable investigations and endless stress, accusations, hassle and paperwork.
No one i know has felt vindicated, just sorry they didn’t just bin it as soon as the first accusation was made…
Very many years ago a CI was accused of something, suspended and then found 'not guilty,. The organisation did not back off until they employed solicitors and and threatened the organisation with court action. Result was reinstatement. A week after reinstatement the CI packed it in.
The organisation lost a bloody good CI who facilitated a lot of activities for the cadets and spent a lot of his own time making sure things happened. A great shame and not helped by people on ‘power trips’,!!!
I cannot see why there needs to be any sort of discip process.
We are volunteers, we pick our own way through this maze and that’s the end of it. Why we would need a process for other things just takes up time and should just be a quick chat.
Sounds to me like the OC here is straight out of the 1970s and 80s when one on one interviews like this went on in the employment world .It was and is well out of order and i wouldnt stand for it.After all if I have to interview a cadet I always have someone with me and I wouldnt go into anything like “an informal interview” without an accompanying member of staff with me or in the world of work a union rep.Where the heck does this OC think they are.Also if this is what is being pushed at HQAC they need to have a word with themselves.
HQAC senior management have never lived outside the ‘fence’ and still think they are dealing with junior officers and ORs, unfortunately they have not the experience of dealing with the civil world and it shows.
Squadron OCs should know better, but there again the OC could be a person who has never had supervisory accountability in their civil employment and therefore believes everything HQAC says.
