Job + Army Reserve? Doable or not?

The LandoStander

In the last year since finishing grad school, I got my MA just before the economy and job market tanked, I've begun considering enlisting in the Army Reserve. Both as a means to add some variety to my mostly retail, research and teaching skill set and of course to earn a bit of money while serving a country I greatly love.

I've since landed a job through a Temp agency but the assignment is a long term one, other workers from the same Temp agency as me have been there for nine months or more, so I'm earning enough to stay in my condo, feed myself and keep the power on etc. I still feel though that the Army Reserve might still do me some good. It helped my father when he was about my age get a lot of experience in his legal career field, so I thought it might do something similar for me. But the question is, would enlisting wind up costing me this long term temp job? Given that it requires a weekend every month and then a chunk of two weeks as well.

Of course if the Army's PR department is to be believed every employer around is glad to have someone in the reserves. But somehow I'm not sure that's entirely the case. This of course assumes that the Army Reserve allows me to stay in Louisville Kentucky while I'm enlisted. I know there's a reserve base nearby but I'm not at all certain how it all works.

RUNN1NGMAN

It is illegal for an employer to penalize you for military service. I'm not sure how that would exactly work for a temp job, but I know you can't be fired for doing your reserve time.

Jasconius

Unless there is some tax credit I am not aware of, employers are merely required by law to say that they would like you to be in the reserves.

The reality is that it's an incredible nuisance to business administration to have employees get shipped out for months at a time. Especially if you work a position that requires detailed knowledge and training.

AlyceInWonderland

RUNN1NGMAN wrote: »

It is illegal for an employer to penalize you for military service. I'm not sure how that would exactly work for a temp job, but I know you can't be fired for doing your reserve time.

Exactly this. My boyfriend is in the National Guard, and works full time as a Sheet Metal worker. He regularly needs to put work on hold for a couple weeks at a time (every several months or so) to do some military thing. And he still has his job. SO.. it is QUITE do-able.

Jean Claude Van Calm

Depends, I was on active duty for a long time and have been in the reserves for close to two years now. Like all things military it depends what job you go for. First of all just joining up means basic training, and AIT which takes a while, the worst part being you may wait months to know when you'll actually go.

After that if your unit is not on any deployment schedule you'll be doing the usual one weekend a month two weeks a year thing plus possible advanced schools. An employer cannot "not consider you for a position" because of military service (very, very hard to prove) and if you are already employed and leave for a while when you return they have to put you back in the same spot or an equally paying spot. Since my particular MOS and rank doesn't really ever require me to leave for a long time I've never really run into any problems with the system, someone else should be able to help more in that area but on paper it sounds great. Either way most people are more than happy to help out a soldier and are terrified to make it into a problem.

As for where you will work, most reserve centers are a mashup of all kinds of MOSs just crammed together trying to get everyone some type of weekend training. But, just to be safe it's usually best to see a recruiter and ask what jobs are available at the nearest center. The Army is probably not going to waste your time and their money sending you to a center more than 50 miles away.

VisionOfClarity

You got a temp job and you're essentially going to require they get a temp to cover you while you're in basic. I'd wait until this temp position is over to do basic or bow out of the temp position so they can hire someone will actually be there for the length of the temp contract.

Darkewolfe

This completely comes down to the employer as to how much of a hassle it will be. I will say that everyone I have worked for is very, very veteran friendly. We are thrilled to have active, reserves or retired with us. Sometimes it is simply because they are strong supporters of our troops, and often businesses also want people to know they're vet-friendly.

Talk to the employer and be polite. It is very likely that they will be glad to accommodate you, at least to a point. Even when employers themselves aren't thrilled to go to bat for soldiers, they often realize that it's bad business to mistreat servicemen.

stratslinger

The other thing to make sure you understand is that reserves can be activated at pretty much any time - and with the situations in Iraq, Afghanistan, and North Korea, you should probably plan on being activated for at least some significant chunk of time over the next couple years. If it doesn't happen, great - but at least you'd be prepared if it does.

If that thought makes you at all uncomfortable, stay away. Maybe look into the National Guard, as they tend to get activated a lot less frequently - and then it's typically done by your governor for more local-ish duties.

But I've worked with a few people who were in the guard or the reserves over the years, and while their 2-week stint every summer was sometimes inconvenient to work around, not to mention any lengthy activations, I've not seen an employer hassle anybody over it.

The LandoStander

I do understand that the possibility of activation exists with any Reserves duty. Strangely enough my father was in the Reserves from the middle to the end of the Vietnam War and was never activated or moved out of the US. The way I understand it is that while anyone can be activated or deployed, it varies depending on what it is you do. My father worked legal and then later counter-intelligence, neither of which I guess really required leaving the States.

I'm still gathering information on what exactly I might be best qualified to do. But one of my goals in all this is to gain some experience I might not otherwise be able to get. At present I'm reading up on things more to do with electronics, networks and computers, as I'd like to try and transition into a computer science/IT field in the future. I know that it's not hard to get a recruiter to talk to you, but I'd like to have a good sense of where I'm trying to go and what I'd like to try and do before I deal with someone who's more interested in just getting me to join up at all.

Quid

Hate to say it but if they're mobilizing naval reservist with unrelated jobs to go assist the army there's a pretty good chance you'll get mobilized.

Darkewolfe

A good friend of mine is essentially an IT guy reservist for one the branches. He gets activated, but only for 3 weeks at a time or so about three times a year. Obviously it's going to change wildly based on tons of factors, but you will probably get activated at some point. There aren't really any people not being called up.

Kyanilis

Prior to more recent events reserve and guard units weren't activated as often. Now? You -will- be deployed if you join. This is the norm. Sure there are some exceptions, but they are just that, exceptions. So if you join you might as well go in with the assumption that sometime within your contract you will see a foreign country.

That said, employers legally can't tell you no citing reasons such as because you're military, however they can "consider" you and decide to hire someone else. And good luck proving that it was because of military service. I'm Guard myself, and I know for the job I worked prior to the deployment I'm on I basically had to find someone to cover me for the weekends I was at drill and other than that they didn't mind. Of course it was a job where you couldn't just take time off due to someone HAVING to be there. Your results may vary depending on what your job entails. It is very possible for a job to work out, it's just an extra condition to consider when looking at jobs.