The Recruiters Wife

Recruiters get up about 6:00, earlier if they have the energy to workout....(there is no time allotted for PT anymore), or earlier if they have to transport someone to MEPS.   My husband has to be at his office around 7:15/07:30 and start the day.  What the day consists of is calling long lists of high school students from ages 17 (those who will be seniors) and all of the graduates to try and book appointments.   A recruiter has a set number of phone calls he has to make which generally total about 500 phone calls a week.  That's right 500 phone calls in a week, or about 60/70 a day. 

Where do they get the lists from?  Well the high schools give it to them.  They don't have to do it, but they do.  As a parent, I am not sure I like that idea, but that is where the military's info comes from.  

Why are they calling?  To book appointments, those 3 appointments they are supposed to have every day.  They are supposed to have 3 EVERY SINGLE DAY, planning on:  one appointment to not show up, one appointment to show and not qualify and one appointment to qualify.  And they don't just sit in the office for these appointments they drive from one end of the district to the other going to the appointments homes if they do not have transportation to get the hour and a half to get to the office, or their parents need to be in on the meeting, or because they have no money for gas or no car, seems like to me if they have that many problems the Marine Corps would be a sure thing.

And many times after driving the hour and a half to talk to a young person, noone is home.  They book the appointment and noone is home.  They don't call and cancel, they just are not there.  Then the recruiter has to call and try to track them down from their issued cell phone and drive the hour and a half back to their office.  That is already about 4 hours out of their day.  

If you spend an entire day out of the office going to appointments, it is kind of hard to book appointments for the next day when you WILL be in the office.  So in between they are supposed to do ACing/Area Convassing.  They hit every Target/WalMart/Grocery Store/Video Store/Mall/KMART/Library etc every week to find those young people just hanging out. 

Now as a parent, I know in the summer time most teens don't go to bed at 9 and up at 8 so they can hit the mall or stores by 10.....they stay up until 1 or 2 am then they sleep until noonish and hit the stores/mall by 3 or 4 PM to meet their friends to hang out....so no point until ACing until afternoon when they are out and about. 

So a day consists of:  PHONE CALLS AND MORE PHONE CALLS/APPOINTMENTS/ACing/PAPERWORK ON THOSE WHO ARE TRYING TO GET IN/AND DOING INTERVIEWS  Day in and day out.

Then there are POOLEE days.......these are they days when a recruiter meets with his "POOL" of recruits that are preparing to be shipped out.  They range in age from 17 to 29 and they come in once a week (more if there is a POOLee event) and PT.  Running/Playing Basketball/doing pull ups, getting prepared for boot camp.  Sometimes they have mini-classes where they are shown  a video or something to help them be better prepared.  This usually lasts 3/4 hours and the recruiters have to be with them.   So these are hours away from ACing, setting appointments, making phone calls (phone calls that have to be made up the next day or late into the evening.  So maybe he now will have 100 phone calls the next day instead of 60/70.

With caller ID these days, most people screen their calls and when it says US GOVERNMENT on their phone they don't answer.  And sometimes when the kids do answer or the parents answer they lie for their kids and say they aren't there or have the kids hang up on the recruiter.  

Then there are the lists of people who go online and look at the website for the USMARINE.  By providing their personal information to the site they have now created what is called a quicklead or a PPC.   These are forwarded to the office by the District Office and used for phone calls as well.  They are assigned to which ever recruiter has their high school assigned to him or quite possibly the guy who has gotten no one in for the month.  Who decides this?   The Marine in the office that is designated BOSS, I forget the real title for now we will just call him GUNNY.   Sometimes the Gunny just holds on to these and uses them for himself, or waits until the Recruiter has already made a contact on a general phone call, and then he can say "OH I ALREADY HAVE HIM, HE IS MINE."  This list seems to not be getting passed on in my husbands office and it ticks me off.  Just pass the damn things on and be done with it.

My husband got home at 12:30 last night.  Phone calls generally stop after 10:00, people get really angry when you call their home after 10PM, so you ask what could they be doing until 12:30 int he morning, paperwork/paperwork/ACing.   Haunting the stores late at night where the teens hang out.   He came home, ate dinner and fell asleep all by 12:45.   Not much time left for me and the kids.  In fact he has not seen or talked to his kids since last Sunday.  It is Thursday now.

Oh and somewhere in there they have to get their hair cut....and their uniforms cleaned and eat and go to the bathroom.  Since they generally have to eat out because they are not allowed to go home, there is another chunk out of that whopping $450.00 extra pay.

Do you know how many parents will promise their kid anything to NOT join the military?   Well that is another story.