The wrong kind of relief

Today my first sergeant got removed. This is the second time it's happened in four months.

My first one got moved because of a DUI incident soon after I'd taken command. The maximum is 0.05%, and he had 0.057%. Just looking at the numbers, it doesn't seem really bad, but Korea has really strict rules on this and rules are rules.

It was hardly an international scandal, but he probably would have been removed anyway because of his performance.

This one, though, really caught me by surprise. I'd known she was having trouble getting along with the section NCOs, but I didn't know it was at the state it was. Usually a string of counseling statements precedes a move like this, but when you've lost the confidence of the sergeant major, I suppose there's no sense in dragging things on.

Nevertheless, it was very painful to see this go on because it reminds me a lot of when I got fired in 2005. At the time, I thought I was the one who was right by trying to teach English in the most effective way. But to my superiors, that didn't matter -- I was not communicating properly with the people whose opinions really mattered.

In this case, I saw how the same thing. The first sergeant's prior experience led to assumptions about what would work best, and other people's perspectives were less important. Unfortunately, dogged adherence to the "right" way of doing things led to blame-shifting and the perception of arrogance.

So the NCO support channel will choose a replacement sometime soon. I hope for someone who can complement my skills set, and accomplish some of the things I need to get done. My second first sergeant was better than the first; perhaps my third one will be even better.