Order Mania

I haven’t really posted much since the promotion. Life here at WRAMC has been steadily amusing. And I don’t mean that in a good way. Let me take you back to last week. Here’s a little teaser of things to come in this blog. You read my last post, right? The one where I got promoted? You know how I found out I actually got promoted? I happened to log on to our HR website and noticed that my rank was changed there. Nobody called me to tell me the good news; nobody patted me on the back. In fact, I didn’t even get any orders. When I went to the staff here, they said they couldn’t pull up my orders. They told me to go to another office on base. I walked there and they could not either, they sent me to another office. The last office said they could not either. So here I am, I know I got a promotion, but I have no way to prove it because I have no orders. Without the actual orders in hand, and can’t wear the new rank. I’m going to stop here on this story. Remember where we left off, okay?

Speaking of orders… I needed orders assigning me to WRAMC. Easy enough, right? When I came over here the week of April 23rd, they started to in-process me. My other orders were set to expire on April 27th, so they put in a request for orders (RFO) assigning me. They finally came on the 26th, but I thought the start date would be the 28th, they came with a start date of the 23rd! This really worried me since I had already paid for a week’s worth of lodging in Rosslyn. Anyway, without getting too complicated, they amended my original orders that ended on the 27th to end on the 22nd, and then they amended them again putting them back the way they were to end on the 27th, finally they cut a new order rescinding the original order that brought me to DC in the first place so that the medical retention processing (MRP) order bringing me to WRAMC could take effect. Confusing? You bet. That’s three orders, remember that. To make matters worse, I then had to go to the Malogne House, which is like a hotel here, to get what is called a statement of non-availability (SNA) to say that the hotel was full and I had to stay in Rosslyn so that I could get paid for the week I was worried about. Here’s the clincher… you remember the three orders? Nobody here could produce those for me either. One guy gave me one of them, but I needed all of them.

So I had three assignment orders and a promotion order somewhere out in space that I could not get. So you know what I did? I made a few phone calls to the place I was working here in DC. I called up my co-worker Angela and she gave me some numbers for people I knew could help me. I called up the office that could help me and within fifteen minutes I had all four orders in my inbox. I love having connections.

Other than that, last week went okay. I had a dental exam and they didn’t see anything to worry about – I just need a cleaning in the near future. I also talked to my neurosurgeon, Dr. Rosenbaum, and he is going to work to get my NARSUM completed. In fact, I got a call from one of the neurologists over at NNMC who is working with my neurosurgeon and neurologist to get it done. He said it should be completed early next week. You see, that’s why things here take so long here. One thing has to happen to trigger something else. And if one thing gets delayed, everything else gets delayed. Patience is key, but it is hard sometimes.

Lastly, Friday afternoon, I got a call from my Platoon Sergeant. She said that since I got promoted, I was no longer eligible to stay in the room where I am now. I was going to have to move out into another building that is supposedly a step up from where I am now. That has been an adventure in itself, but more on that tomorrow.