When Transitioning From the Military, You Need to Have a Plan B

When I was transitioning from active duty, my plan was I would target the Hechinger Company for my next chapter in what had been a successful life so far. The Hechinger Company was the premier Do-It-Yourself Home Improvement Company of its day prior to the arrival of Home Depot. I had just completed the requirements for 2 4-year degrees; one in Management; and one in Human Resources Development, and I was sure I could work my way up from the bottom in the Hechinger Company.

Let me set the stage: I had achieved everything I could as an enlisted man and I did not complete my degrees in time to be considered to become a commissioned officer. Also, I had recently gotten married and knew if the Marine Corps wanted me to have a wife; they would have issued me one. So, I was committed to Family and starting over.

So, in the beginning of the year I was going to get out, I started moonlighting at Hechinger’s. Being a young stud, I was assigned to work in the warehouse at a whopping $5 per hour. I was engaged, helping the customers, stocking the shelves, unloading the semi’s with my forklift, reordering stock where shelves were bare, life was good. As it would turn out, I wasn’t working at just any Hechinger’s but the number one grossing Hechinger’s out of the 84 stores they had at the time. I worked my way up to Warehouse Supervisor at a cool $6.45 an hour.

By September, I had worked up, what I thought, was enough good will in the company to visit the store manager and make my career move. I tightened up my resume, ran up the stairs to the manager’s office and proceeded to tell him all about my experience and education. I asked if he would endorse me to corporate headquarters for the Management Training Program.  He gathered his things and looked at me and said, “Son, you have to work on the floor for 10 years to get into the management training program.” Wow, that hit me like a ton of bricks! I had anticipated being rejected but I thought I would just re-double my efforts and apply again in a reasonable amount of time. 10 Years?! I’ve got bills to pay.

I have 3 weeks left before my discharge, what do I do now? I sharpened up my resume again and tightened up my SF-171 (Government application) and mailed them out (no online application processes back then). I was able to get a number of interviews but nothing substantial. Employers had specific hiring needs and were not willing to take a chance on a generalist.

Finally, discharge day came and all I had was a 100% commission job as an Information Technology Headhunter, so I started doing that the next Monday. They offered me a “draw” on future earnings that I would have to pay back upon my first commission. I was asked, “How much of a draw do you want? You can have anywhere between $4.25 (minimum wage) and $8 per hour.” Since I knew I was going to be successful, I said, “Give me $4.25 per hour.” I thought to myself, how hard can this be? Cold calling IT companies and telling them about my candidate of the day; if they did not need my candidate, I would ask them if they have any hard to fill positions? Then the next question would be would you be willing to cover my fee if I brought you a suitable candidate? One month passed without billing, no problem. Another month passed, I started to get a little nervous. Finally, another month had passed without billing and all of my built up savings had been drained. I went in the next day and handed in my resignation. I went home crying to my wife for I had just failed for the first time in my life.

After getting all of the crying out of my system, I started the next day by sending more resumes and 171’s. I also went to the unemployment office to apply for unemployment and ended up with a much different result than I was expecting. The good news was they told me I did not have to pay back my draw since I never billed. It must have been connected to the minimum wage law since an employer cannot expect you to work for free. Then the counsellor approached me with a computer printout and asked me, “Mr. Collins, what is this income from the Hechinger Company?” “Oh crap! That’s my part-time job I work on the weekends,” I replied. He went on to tell me that I was making more per month from my part-time job than I was eligible for from unemployment.

I called some friends and told them what happened. One of my friends knew the director of human resources at Navy Federal Credit Union and gave me a reference. I was able to start rather quickly in the telephone loan room. There, I started at $9 per hour. I was able to work my way up to $10 per hour but after 6 or 7 months of working both NFCU and Hechinger’s was not paying all of the bills and I racked up enough debt that I felt like I had to go back on active duty for the remaining 8 years needed for a retirement. I completed my physical and was going to go back as a Sergeant/E-5.

Still working at the NFCU call center, one of my co-workers told me to unplug and go talk to the telephone room supervisor. OMG, what have I done this time? It turns out I had a call. Whew! I took the call and it turned out it was the Defense Mapping Agency calling to offer me a Management Intern position at GS-07 ($19,825 per year) because I had attained a 3.5 GPA while going to night school. The offer also had guaranteed annual promotions to GS-09 and GS-11. The start date was September 25, 360 days after my discharge. The program was perfect for a management generalist as it was sponsored by 6 management career fields; Human Resources, Contracting, Finance, Logistics, Security, and Facilities. They selected 20 of us and we were able to rotate through the various career fields. At the end of two years we would select our final career field. The offer was still less than fifty percent of what I was making on active duty. I worked 4 jobs (Government, Reserves, NFCU, and Hechinger’s) to make ends meet but with the guaranteed promotions, there was finally a light at the end of the tunnel.

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I tell my transition story to numerous veterans to try to drive home the point that you may know where you are going with your transition but everything may not go as planned. Spend some time developing a Plan B and even a Plan C which you can turn on, in a moment’s notice, just in case your primary transition plan falls through.