What Military Friendly Employers Fail to Understand
While scrolling through one of the base's Facebook groups, I came across a post from a woman struggling to find a job. I cannot find this post now because I am in so many groups between the base we are currently at and the one we are going to. I also wouldn't link directly to it because this was this woman's personal story, and the group was private anyway. But I think the gist of the story is important to talk about and something that many military spouses have experienced.
We discussed military spouse employment a few weeks back, but it is a never-ending battle. This is especially true when we live in a world without much support or understanding of the military community. This woman applied for a job at the commissary. It worked during the evenings from a specific start time until whenever she would finish for the night (the average time expected was five hours, sometimes less and sometimes more). The pay was around $20 an hour. Everything seemed like a perfect fit for this woman.
Except for one thing: her husband goes away on training once a month for about a week, and she would need some accommodations to stay home with her children at night during that time. The commissary responded that they would not be able to give her that time off, especially every month. Even though they are on military bases, the contract comes from an external source. They are not expected or required to adjust for the military family members they might employ.
I do understand that asking for a week off once a month can be a big deal in any job. There are not a lot of jobs out there that would be willing or able to accommodate that. The more significant issue is that this is a company on a military base looking to hire military spouses without an understanding of what that actually looks like.
As spouses, it does us no good to see flyers everywhere that these places are hiring when the reality is we could never accept those jobs. It is not enough to have opportunities—those opportunities need to actually amount to something. I don't personally know this woman, but I imagine she was looking for a job to bring in some extra income, have something to do outside the home, to prove she wasn't a "dependa" (we'll probably talk about that term one day), or any number of reasons that she may have wanted to work.
We shouldn't have to justify why we want or need a job. We aren't entitled to any job either (we can't just "beach" and expect to be on the Supreme Court, for those of us who saw the Barbie movie). But it shouldn't be nearly impossible to find a job that works for our lifestyle, skill level and goals.
I don't know what the perfect answer is. I do understand the value of having continuity with the workforce, which is hard for military spouses to provide. I know how difficult it is to balance home life and work life during a separation. I understand that both sides can feel shorted, and we just feel guilty for letting ourselves down.
There is so much guilt that is easy to take on as a military spouse. We should do everything we can to help alleviate that for one another. And I think for today, that looks like sharing our story about the times we've tried to find a job, whether we were successful or not. The success stories point to where we should go. And the failures point to what needs to change.
I also think we need to start sharing exactly what we need as military spouses to support ourselves and our spouse's ability to serve the country. It is, of course, up to any individual organization whether they want to try to accommodate some or all of those needs. Still, places don't get to claim to be military spouse-friendly if the only thing they do on that front is look at resumes for people who could never accept the job.
Most of our spouses are in the military because it was their dream at one point or another. They may have wanted to serve, followed in generational footsteps or gotten some degree the military helped cover. Regardless of whether that meant (or still means) they would be in for twenty-plus years or are finishing out their contract, it was a dream. And I will stand firm in the belief that no one should put their dreams on hold for years while someone else chases theirs. There has to be a way for the two paths to meet. A piece of that depends on employers supporting our lifestyle (I believe the military should understand the inverse of this and make changes that actually support families rather than being good talking points, but that is a conversation or another day). Our job is to start sharing exactly what we need to achieve our dreams while supporting our spouse's ability to pursue theirs.