Crazy week

[selenay]

It's been another of those icky crazy weeks. I'm very much wishing that I had the time to slow down a little - at the moment I seem to spend a couple of hours a day on the job hunt (betweeen phoning people, emailing and applying...) which leaves me with very little time for other things. Such as that important French college work.

I plan to do a fair amount of that tomorrow.

I have an idea for my next Teyla/Weir story that I've been wanting to write for months. I need a little help and I'm sure that my lovely friendslist will be able to help 'cos you're all so smart and adorable.

::flutters eyelashes becomingly::

If I'm creating a low-ranking soldier or airperson (preferably female) for Atlantis, what would her rank be? She'll be in the Air Force, but for the purposes of the story I'm not sure whether she'll need to be an officer or not. So, some guidance on the lowest ranks of both would be helpful.

Also, some guidance on who her superior/supervisor type person would be for either option would really help. Not having even the faintest idea of ranks in anyone's army, beyond Colonels being higher than Majors and Generals outranking most everyone, I could use a little help here. Pretty please?

Comments

[feather-autant.livejournal.com]

It depends on the job the person is doing. The lowest ranking officer is a Second Lieutenant.

The lowest ranking enlisted is Airman, but I'm fairly certain no one with such little experience would be sent to Atlantis. Probably a Sergeant would be the bottom rank. A good rule of thumb is, if the job requires a college degree, the rank is officer. Here's a link I found.

http://www.military-quotes.com/ranks/air-force-rank-insignia.htm

[selenay]

Thank you! That gives me a much better idea of my options before I start assigning a rank to these characters. And their rank will determine a little bit of their background, too, which is important for my junior character.

[danamaree.livejournal.com]

You probably know by now, but they have a listing of ranks on Wikipedia.

You might want to remember that not all the military personnel are American, so they may go on another system depending on their country of origin.

[selenay]

Thank you :-)

As for nationality, for the purposes of this plot an American suits better than any other nationality. But it is something to keep in mind for later characters. Possibly dropping the odd Brit in there...

[paranoidangel]

Maybe this is why I'm not getting very far - I don't even spend 2 hours a week job hunting. Mostly I just go through the job sites once a week, find there's nothing new and that takes 10 minutes. On the occasion that I do find something, applying takes another 10 minutes and that's it.

[selenay]

I was told last year that a really serious job hunt can be almost like a second job - it certainly feels like it to me. Maybe I'm just feeling rather desperate to get out, though :-) But yes, more time put in does seem to reap more results.

[paranoidangel]

After I left uni I used to quite easily spend most of the day job hunting. Now, though, I just can't find enough to do to fill up that amount of time!

[selenay]

When I was job hunting after uni, the demoralising part was how few jobs I seemed to find that I was vaguely qualified for and how rare it was to get call-backs from agencies. Now I tend to get several calls a day from agencies that I have spotted my CV and want to talk about a role! And then there are the ones emailing me to sort out each evening. I am actually only applying for two or three things each week, most of which I never hear about, so a lot of my time is spent on people who have contacted me.

It's a little weird after last year's dead silence. OTOH, probably only two or three of those each week are for things that I want to take further and am actually qualified for - some people just seem to blanket email candidates who have indicated the teeniest ability at something, rather than actually checking whether they have the 5 years experience on their CVs that they're actually looking for.

And then there's a couple of hours a week making sure that my portfolio is up to date and keeping the blog on that current and, hopefully, vaguely relevant.

I am absolutely not doing this again for a long time. Can't wait to actually find something and have the pressure off again.

[paranoidangel]

When I was job hunting after uni I hardly ever dealt with agencies and they were all useless. I was going to about three interviews a week, though, and once I did three in a day.

most of which I never hear about

I hate that, it drives me mad.

I found that when I updated my CV on the job sites recently, I got a sudden influx of agencies interested in me but not having anything I wanted. Then after a while they go quiet. I'm thinking I might need to update it for next year's Rotaract stuff (the Rotaract year starts in July) to get them all to contact me again.

Although in the past week I've had a couple of agencies ring me and promise to call back, and do they? Do they bollocks. And they all seem to pretty much refuse to deal with me outside of working hours and can't understand why I can't speak to them while I'm working. Hang on a minute, let me think about that...