The Salvation War: Pantheocide. Part Forty One Up

[Lonestar]

Depends on the circumstances. In this case, where a situation has been thoroughly screwed up by the previous team and the replacement commander brings in their own team who have an established working relationship, prompt dismissals work wonders. In such replacement exercises, its necessary - essential - to get the initial removal done fast, take charge fast and then get everybody back to work before they have time to mull over what's happened. Note also that the person who gave a responsible answer - "I don't know but I'll find out" got public approval. It's when people are fired at random (without consideration of whether they were doing a good or bad job) and without replacements being drawn from a team with established relationships and mutual understanding that things start to go badly pear-shaped.

I'm with you up until the point when the guy who says "We can't do it, we've only just moved into….", is cut off and arbitrarily
fired mid-sentence. It really may be physically impossible for them to meet the time table. We don't know because the guy got fired 9 words in.

[Stuart]

I must say Stuart that I can imagine Suphi doing exactly what Asanee did. BTW, she's finally retired? Oh the stories she could tell.....

She retired at the end of April and she's hoping to get back on HPCA by the end of the year. I have been suggesting she writes her memoirs.

Seriously it is interesting that the Thai army does have female generals.

They've had female officers since the late 1950s. Women are allowed to serve in any unit other than Infantry, Artillery, Armor or Cavalry but that's frequently ignored (I have some pictures of a Thai armored car that was involved in the fighting around Mae Fai and one of the crew members is female). Thailand has a lot of Generals only a relatively small number of which are actively employed.

Going off on a tangent, though. Stuart, I've been enjoying the Science(tm) scenes - just enough science, not too much technobabble - but I'd vaguely like someone to discuss the possibility of sensitive-less portals. How close are they to that now?.

Spoiler

That is a subject that will be addressed in due course. I've got a system to do it.

I'm with you up until the point when the guy who says "We can't do it, we've only just moved into….", is cut off and arbitrarily
fired mid-sentence. It really may be physically impossible for them to meet the time table. We don't know because the guy got fired 9 words in.

In which case, the correct response is "I'll have a movement orders and status report ready in XX minutes" not a knee-jerk "we can't do it." If movement is genuinely impossible then the status report says why and the movement orders offer solutions to the problem. (It is surprising how often the impossible becomes possible when it HAS to be done. A genuine Suphi quote here "There are always 10,000 reasons why something cannot be done. The trick is to find the one way to do it." In this case we had an organization where the mind-set of "we can't do it" had become entrenched and it had to be rooted out quickly. Saint Curtis had this problem when he took over SAC; the organization was completely dysfunctional, nearly all its aircraft were grounded, the accident rate was atrocious and none of the crews were properly trained. Saint Curtis started firing everybody from the top down who didn't measure up. In His words "I have neither the time nor the inclination to distinguise between the incompetent and the merely unfortunate." It was harsh treatment but it worked.

[Baughn]

That was.. not a spoiler. Pity.

I appreciate the response, though.

[Simon_Jester]

"Sergeant Tram? Go to the Sergeant's Mess, talk to the President, find out what is really going on here. Corporal Vung? Do the same for the Corporal's Mess, find out what troop morale and standards are. Rest of you come with me."

Now that is always the way to find out what is going on in any army with a professional NCO corps. The surnames could be changed and it could easily be the British, American, or any Commonwealth Army.

I imagine it would work in almost any other army; it's just that in a lot of armies, the officers wouldn't be willing to admit that this is how to find out what's going on.

"Find out who those guards are and break the entire guard detail to privates. Then assign them to mine clearance. We're at war, nobody should be getting into this base without being challenged. Make that clear to their replacements."

Now that reminds me of a certain air force general. I wonder if it is really true that he chewed out a guard who took a shot at him and missed?

One way to tell the difference between a professional military and an unprofessional one: can some jackass with a fancy uniform bluff his way past a checkpoint?
_____

This is a painful stinker. No more rah-rah characterizations of people you've met, please, lest my eyes roll completely out of my head.

How is it a "rah-rah characterization"? It's light-hearted schadenfreude humor.
P.S. Remember a previous chapter, when the good General was being subtly chastised by Petraeus and missing points?

When was that?

Anyway, I do think this chapter is a good illustration of the difference between good and bad generalship. With bad generalship you get the situation before Asanee arrived: people argue, no one knows what to do, and important things (like making sure there's fuel available) get forgotten. And everyone overestimates the strength of the enemy because clearly they wouldn't be rolling up your troops if they didn't outnumber you; you're not likely to admit that they're rolling up your troops because you can't lead your way out of a wet paper bag.

With good generalship (or good leadership in any sphere), those problems tend to evaporate; the trick is making the transition. Which is why something like what Asanee did starts to make sense. Blasting everyone who doesn't do their job tends to get people moving in a hurry, and in this case the really vital thing is to break Third Army HQ's inertia.

There are bound to be plenty of people in there who are quite capable of doing their jobs (probably including some of the people Asanee fired). But with everyone used to getting away with half-assing things, they don't do their jobs, either because their superiors are interfering by wasting their time or because their superiors aren't keeping up the intellectual pressure. Since the superiors themselves don't know what to do, it should come as no surprise that the subordinates' talents are underused. Look at Kasit the radio corporal for an example: he's presumably a competent radioman, but he's dozing on the job because he has no messages to send.

When that goes on long enough, you get a logjam of incompetence. The general doesn't know what to do, so he doesn't ask his staff the right questions, so the staff wind up running around in circles... which means that the general gets faulty information and any decisions he does make will be wrong, making his existing problems worse and heightening his confusion. The logistics staffer isn't thinking about logistics, so he doesn't correct the inflated enemy strength estimates, which leaves the operations planners scared and makes them pull in the troops, which means there's no intelligence on enemy movements, which makes the inflated estimate more plausible because the enemy can achieve more with fewer soldiers. Everyone screws up largely because everyone else screws up.

By coming in and kicking out everyone she encounters who hasn't done their job and doesn't realize that they need to, Asanee breaks that wall as quickly as possible.

[Morilore]

How is it a "rah-rah characterization"? It's light-hearted schadenfreude humor.
P.S. Remember a previous chapter, when the good General was being subtly chastised by Petraeus and missing points?

When was that?

In chapter 15, Petraeus rebuked Asanee for the incompetence of the Kanchanaburi command staff, then caught her off-guard with his knowledge of history and was two steps ahead of her on portal utilization. Asanee is written as a competent leader, but certainly not a Mary Sue.

[bcoogler]

"We can't do it, we've only just moved into…."

I've not been in the military, but in the IT industry where customer accounts can be worth millions, if you have an agitated customer make what you privately think is an unreasonable demand, it is *very* bad form to begin your reply with, "We can't do it...."

True story. I was asked to participate in hiring interviews, and one of the hypothetical questions we asked during the interview was, "A customer calls up to request a large mountain be moved 100 miles due west. How would you respond?" An interviewee who answered with "It can't be done" or "That's impossible" was dropped from consideration. The response we were looking for was along the lines of, "I'll have to research that and get back to you," then alert your boss to the crazy request.

Besides, when you do put some thought into it, maybe you can find a way to move that mountain. And when the customer sees the time and cost estimate, chances are the request will quietly go away.

[GrayAnderson]

"I was goofing off Ma'am."

Major General Asanee looked at him carefully. "I'm promoting you to Sergeant. You’re the only person I've met in this building so far who knows what he's been doing."

I think that made my day. I like this guy. Another fine section.

It just doesn't work from a suspension-of-disbelief perspective, IMHO. Especially the identical phrasing... frankly it screams FAPFAPFAP even if it has indeed happened.

Dude, it's the military. They invented the stock phrase.

BTW, joined the board just for this fic.

That makes at least two of us. These are damn good stories.

[Darth Wong]

"We can't do it, we've only just moved into…."

I've not been in the military, but in the IT industry where customer accounts can be worth millions, if you have an agitated customer make what you privately think is an unreasonable demand, it is *very* bad form to begin your reply with, "We can't do it...."

True story. I was asked to participate in hiring interviews, and one of the hypothetical questions we asked during the interview was, "A customer calls up to request a large mountain be moved 100 miles due west. How would you respond?" An interviewee who answered with "It can't be done" or "That's impossible" was dropped from consideration. The response we were looking for was along the lines of, "I'll have to research that and get back to you," then alert your boss to the crazy request.

Besides, when you do put some thought into it, maybe you can find a way to move that mountain. And when the customer sees the time and cost estimate, chances are the request will quietly go away.

That is completely retarded. Your interview process was clearly designed by someone who is perfectly willing to lose highly skilled candidates because of some stupid-shit management consulting seminar that he attended, probably at a resort.

Yes, it's bad to tell customers that something can't be done without being sure that it can't be done. But that does not apply to your stupid hypothetical. If you really want to test this attribute, you should make the hypothetical request more reasonable than "move a mountain". This is exactly what's wrong with some corporate interview processes; it becomes a game.

[Stuart]

That is completely retarded. Your interview process was clearly designed by someone who is perfectly willing to lose highly skilled candidates because of some stupid-shit management consulting seminar that he attended, probably at a resort. Yes, it's bad to tell customers that something can't be done without being sure that it can't be done. But that does not apply to your stupid hypothetical. If you really want to test this attribute, you should make the hypothetical request more reasonable than "move a mountain". This is exactly what's wrong with some corporate interview processes; it becomes a game.

The real problem we've always found is that customers don't know what they want. They workon the principle (A) - I know I need something, (B) - This is something, (C) - Therefore I need this. Our first response is always to sit the customer down talk over his problem and from that determine what he really needs. Usually its a long way from what he first asked about. So, in my world, the correct answer to "I want to move a mountain." is "why?"

In a more general sense, there are two kinds of people in the world, those who look for reasons why something cannot be done and those who get a kick out of showing them how it can be done. I know companies managed by the first group and invariably the attitude was running them into the ground.

I agree completely with your comment about gaming interviews. It's got painful, same games and stupid questions over and over again regardless of the job requirements. What's remarkable is how the people asking dumb questions at interviews always think that they alone have somehow got hold of a unique resource.

[Baughn]

That's not just customers, that's everyone. Five minutes playing help-desk in a programming channel would teach one that much.

As a result, I've gotten pretty good at figuring out what they really want, and why; it's nice to hear that this will be useful later, as I was actually expecting large organizations to have people in charge of vetting outgoing requests for that sort of stuff. Maybe that'd be too reasonable?

However, in the "how to move mountain?" interview question, I'd be hard-pressed to take it seriously. It's just too off the wall; everyone knows you really can't do that (unless it's a small mountain), and so I'd assume it's a joke.

[Darth Wong]

However, in the "how to move mountain?" interview question, I'd be hard-pressed to take it seriously. It's just too off the wall; everyone knows you really can't do that (unless it's a small mountain), and so I'd assume it's a joke.

Of course. That's the problem; they're playing a game with you, and so you're now being evaluated on how you play this game, which may or may not relate at all to the way you would handle a realistic situation. It would be like getting two executive candidates to play The Sims for an hour and then see whose character has more money. It bears too little resemblance to reality.

[Peptuck]

It was harsh treatment but it worked.

I really liked this bit right here, because in a time of war that is the only thing that usually matters.

[Bayonet]

"A customer calls up to request a large mountain be moved 100 miles due west. How would you respond?" An interviewee who answered with "It can't be done" or "That's impossible" was dropped from consideration.

It's not uncommon for a client to ask for the completely unreasonable. The question I love to hate is, "Can we do [insert an extremely expensive and worthless task]." My stock answer starts with, "We put a man on the moon. The question is 'Do we want to and what will it cost?'" Then you can get to figuring out what the client really wants."

"We can't because..." response, particularly in a combat situation, should be a firing offense. In the case at hand, it was something he already should have been doing. Don't know the situation? Find out? Or have a plan for finding out. "Give me clearance to move, sir, and I'll have an officer's patrol out the gate in fifteen minutes."

Wars are won by acting faster than the enemy can think.

Can't is never an answer, even when it's true.

[erik_t]

That's an asinine attitude, tantamount to saying that it's better to lie to one's superiors rather than give them an unpleasant truth.

[bcoogler]

That is completely retarded. Your interview process was clearly designed by someone who is perfectly willing to lose highly skilled candidates because of some stupid-shit management consulting seminar that he attended, probably at a resort.

Ha! Welcome to my world, where the Pointy Haired Boss is a role model. Dilbert isn't a comic strip; it's a documentary. Nothing like spending a couple of hours documenting a 5 minute change and getting it approved by people who don't have a clue.

I did think the "move a mountain" question was better than asking, "Why are manhole covers round?" Yes, that's another real interview question that has been asked, though not in my office.

[CaptainChewbacca]

That's an asinine attitude, tantamount to saying that it's better to lie to one's superiors rather than give them an unpleasant truth.

The answer shouldn't ever be 'can't', it should be 'instead'.

I did think the "move a mountain" question was better than asking, "Why are manhole covers round?" Yes, that's another real interview question that has been asked, though not in my office.

Is the answer harder than 'because manholes are round'?

[Baughn]

While it's still an odd question, "Why are manhole covers round" at least lets the candidate demonstrate a basic grasp of geometry. It's the simplest shape that won't let the cover fall down the hole in any configuration, and I don't think I'd want a candidate without that basic a grasp of math.

Of course, if that's not the answer they wanted.. well.

[bcoogler]

While it's still an odd question, "Why are manhole covers round" at least lets the candidate demonstrate a basic grasp of geometry. It's the simplest shape that won't let the cover fall down the hole in any configuration, and I don't think I'd want a candidate without that basic a grasp of math.

Of course, if that's not the answer they wanted.. well.

Bingo! That's exactly the answer being looked for. You're hired!

Knowing myself though, I have my doubts I could come up with the correct answer while sitting in front of an interview committee. No pressure. Never mind I might be perfectly qualified to do the job otherwise.

[Peptuck]

That's an asinine attitude, tantamount to saying that it's better to lie to one's superiors rather than give them an unpleasant truth.

No, saying "I can't do that" is tantamount to admitting defeat, and is especially unacceptable when it comes to gathering intelligence, handling logistics or moving troops. Saying "I can't" is an admission that you cannot do your job, and therefore need to be replaced.

The officer in question was given an order: "I want First Regiment [here] by dusk." His response should have been "yes ma'am," but instead he said "I can't do that," which in other words means "No, ma'am, I cannot follow your order." That's not simply reporting bad news, that's effectively insubordination and refusal to obey orders. The proper response should have been to at least attempt to get the unit there by dusk, instead of simply saying he couldn't do it. Since he effectively said "I cannot follow your order" that leaves Asanee no choice but to can him and repalce him with someone who has the competence and confidence to follow her orders.

Asanee has no time for shitheels who cannot do their jobs and cannot follow her orders. She has a war to fight.

[erik_t]

So if your superior tells you to move leg infantry a hundred miles across broken terrain by nightfall, it's better to say "yes boss" and then get them a tenth of the way there, rather than tell the boss that it's not doable? What planet are you from?

I'm not saying that one should say "Can't." and then sit there with a smug look on one's face. That's not what happened. The Thai general cut the guy off when he was trying to explain why what she wanted was not feasible in his eyes.

I'm sure culturing a circle of yes-men does wonders for individual thinking, problem-solving and initiative.

[Teebs]

While it's still an odd question, "Why are manhole covers round" at least lets the candidate demonstrate a basic grasp of geometry. It's the simplest shape that won't let the cover fall down the hole in any configuration, and I don't think I'd want a candidate without that basic a grasp of math.

Of course, if that's not the answer they wanted.. well.

Bingo! That's exactly the answer being looked for. You're hired!

Knowing myself though, I have my doubts I could come up with the correct answer while sitting in front of an interview committee. No pressure. Never mind I might be perfectly qualified to do the job otherwise.

Are manhole covers round? I'm sure I remember them being rectangular. I'm going to be checking them whenever I'm walking now.

[Samuel]

[bcoogler]

Are manhole covers round? I'm sure I remember them being rectangular. I'm going to be checking them whenever I'm walking now.

Should have qualified that by saying manhole covers *in the United States* are round.

[Teebs]

Are manhole covers round? I'm sure I remember them being rectangular. I'm going to be checking them whenever I'm walking now.

Should have qualified that by saying manhole covers *in the United States* are round.

If manhole covers in the US are round but ones elsewhere aren't then why are manhole covers rectangular?

[Peptuck]

So if your superior tells you to move leg infantry a hundred miles across broken terrain by nightfall, it's better to say "yes boss" and then get them a tenth of the way there, rather than tell the boss that it's not doable?

The correct answer is some variation of "I can attempt to do that, sir, however...."

The Thai general cut the guy off when he was trying to explain why what she wanted was not feasible in his eyes.

Whether or not it wasn't feasible in his eyes, he should not have said "I can't." He should have said "I can attempt to, however...." Saying "I can't" is an explicit indication of inability to follow orders and an implicit indication that you've given up even attempting to follow those orders. Both are reasons to shitcan an obvious incompetent.

Whether or not his reasons for being unable to follow her orders were sound were irrelevant. He lost his position the moment he said "I can't do that" and by extension, indicated that he could not overcome the problems that were preventing him from deploying.

I'm sure culturing a circle of yes-men does wonders for individual thinking, problem-solving and initiative.

As opposed to culturing a collection of shitheel incompetents who have neither the capability nor inclination to follow orders? A collection of idiots whose reaction to adversity is to simply give up when faced with a complication?