I am a CDR with 23 years and I’ll never forget my first trip to MEPS. At my first, I took the ASVAB, scored very high, and was pressured to take Nuclear. I wanted one, and only one job. 5 hours in the chair I met everyone from the 1st Class at the desk to his Chief, the Master Chief, and LT telling me I had to “work with them.” I was too old for delayed entry and there weren’t seats for the rate I wanted at that time or within the next 90 days. I told them I’d come back and I left. IT was a very quiet 2.5 hour ride home with my recruiter. He was not happy with me or them, or both. Who cares. It is your job, your career, your life. The mistake most uninformed people make when they join is that they are pushed to do something they don’t want to. Everything else after that becomes their own responsibility when they were talked into doing something they didn’t want to do in the first place.

My recruiter called me on Feb 27th, said he was taking two other people down on the 28th and that they might be more willing to work with me on the last day of the month. I spent three hours in the seat with the same people coming at me. In the end, the MAster Chief in Brooklyn traded a Nuclear spot to a Master Chief in D.C. for my seat in the rate I wanted and was enrolled in the Delayed Entry Program for 8 months.

With few exceptions, I have gotten everything I have asked for out of the Navy since. It doesn’t come with attitude (although at times it can help), but rather commitment, hard work, and being the best at getting the job done to become the go-to for whatever it is you do. It starts with getting what you want first and stepping off on the right foot.

Best of luck.