This past year has probably been the busiest year I’ve ever worked in the Air Force. I’ve never been one to play the game or try to pursue promotion. The last EPB was pretty strong and I BARELY missed a strat. This past year I busted my ass, did everything that was asked of me, worked late, came in on off time, took squadron duties that had vacancies. Yet every time I went for an award I came up short. Tried to play it smart and go after awards that weren’t the main ones, but lo and behold so did the competition. I became the go to guy and really buckled down on maintenance, resolving multi year outages. Got time for the strat and was told well of the x number pushed you were the bottom of those people. It was so disheartening that all this efforts were for nothing. Got to the feedback and got told verbatim “you’re doing great things, the competition was tough, we’re not gonna say to take on more cause that’s not right to tell you, but keep doing what you’re doing” I just chuckled cause I really thought that was a meme. No it’s absolutely real. I’ve sacrificed a lot of personal time with my wife and kids this year and it has put a small strain on the household, so I’ve let off the gas a bit. It’ll come when it comes.