TDY Update

For those of you who have kept up with my blog daily you know that almost a week ago now I had to say farewell to my family for an entire month. Now some of you may not know what TDY stands for.  It simply means temporary duty. Basically they have sent me to another post other then the post I am stationed at in order for me to gain some sort of beneficial knowledge that I couldn't have otherwise received there. The course is so far pretty great and very informative. I know the basics of all that we are learning however the instructors really break down the nitty gritty of it all and get very in depth with the subjects. All of which very much so pertains to my field of work. On a sad note our living quarters are less then acceptable in my opinion. To some that may make me sound superficial or just a big over dramatic complainer, but this is my opinion of it all and I am entitled to my feelings and opinions on everything in life that involves me. And honestly I'm just an overall blunt person the majority of the time so I wouldn't care if others judged me for it or not. So let me start with traditionally when a soldier goes TDY they are payed per diem to help with extra food costs as we are not usually afforded a facility where we could purchase and cook our own meals. Secondly when someone goes TDY they usually are giving lodging within the posts hotel. When it came down that I was going TDY for a month I was very excited, it was a new experience and myself and a group of eight were the first of the company to go on a TDY outing. Upon getting here however I wanted nothing more then to hop back into our vehicles and run and humanly far away as possible. Our company deciding we deserved less then sub standard living decided that instead of paying for hotels for us to stay in that they would instead coordinate barracks for us. Now I have lived in barracks on two seperate occasions and not once did they ever compare to these. The moment we all laid eyes on them our hearts sank to our toes. I immediately thought to myself great I'm gonna catch staff infection and lice here, how exciting. We get inside to get issued our room keys. I of course inquire whether they have wifi both so I could catch up on some blogging and so that I can be on constant video chat with my husband and children. They have no wifi in the building none that I can even pay for. So I'm already less then impressed both my lack of wifi and cleanliness at this point. Then they issue me my key and ask me to go to the third floor and see if my key works. I go to my room I insert me key and I hear the locking mechanism twist. My keys works. I slowly open the door, two my left there is a beat up old bunk bed with two beaten down old blue mattresses. Of course the bottom one looks disease ridden so me being afraid of heights I still choose the top bunk. We had to bring our own bedding as none would be provided to us. I was thankful I did because I couldn't even imagine what they would have supplied us. I walk deeper into the room to find an ancient mini fridge with rusted out shelves barely cooling not worthy of placing food in for fear of contamination and a small microwave that was probly the least of my concerns. I continued to look hoping magically tucked behind a shell I would find a bathroom. I didn't of course, just my luck. I walked down the hall to find the bathroom. Quickly seeing the urinals as I entered I realized that this was deffinetly not a female barracks and built solely for males. I then realized the showers we also open bay, no curtains, no hiding your private parts from the world, you know in case you had different private parts from what the rest of the building has. I rushed down the stairs. I explained that well the showers were open bay and that there was no way for me to lock the door and keep the males out so that I could shower. I was outraged and my husband is very protective was even more furious. There solution of course is to put a piece of paper on the door designating a bathroom on the third floor as mine. I'm the only female in the entire building by the way. They say they had no idea a female was coming or else would have better accommodated me. However if you can better accommodate me, why arnt you? I made a complaint to my chain of command however they tried to fight for me but ultimately the command told me to suck it up. Now I know nothing probably will go wrong while I am here but if it does I will reign now a wrath like no one as ever seen before for putting me in a bad position. So for all my military ladies out there if your going to go TDY make sure you get the exact information on where you will be staying because let me tell you I have made it very clear that this will never happen to me again or they can kiss my rear side because I simply won't go!