Why Maintainers Are Better Than Nonners

Nonners seem to get so upset about being looked down on and so Al thought he would give them an explanation why we think that.

So here’s why maintainers are better than nonners:

1. We are so important that we can’t just shut the flightline down twice a week for training.
2. We don’t have to shut down for training because we already know our jobs really well.
3. Our upgrade training is so complex that it’s done hands-on and we hone our skills every day.
4. Our job is so important that we work three shifts to cover 24 hours.
5. We work weekends and lots of holidays.
6. When it’s time to deploy for war they have to take most of us. But they only take a few nonners just so they don’t feel left out.
7. On TDY’s we can’t take off as soon as the jet touches down and come back right before the return flight.
8. We get our names on the jets, nonners get their name on their cubicle.
9. Nobody ever said, “Do we have enough Finance people to pass this upcoming ORI?”
10. We work. When was the last time a nonner wore out the knees of a uniform, got the blouse so stained it couldn’t be cleaned, or wore the toes of their boots out to the steel toe cap?
11. Maintainers wear steel toed boots to keep their feet from getting crushed. Nonners can wear ballerina slippers.
12. We can get sucked down a jet engine and ground to mush in literally a millisecond.
13. We can get crushed to death in an instant by any number of parts of the airplane, to include being run over by one.
14. The aircraft can literally explode for quite a few different reasons.
15. Maintainers will die if the ejection seat fires while we are sitting in it – nonners might get an owie if their office chair breaks.
16. Maintainers can get poisoned and cancer from being around the jets.
17. We work with liquid oxygen, flares, bombs, cannon ammunition, jet fuel, 4,000 psi hydraulics and nitrogen, and explosive initiators.
18. Jet blast can throw you hundreds of feet and you will die.
19. We have to walk around on top of our jets every day. If we fall there is a good chance we will die.
20. We get airplane bites and speed tape the injury until the job is done – nonners get paper cuts or rug burns on their knees.
21. Maintainers hold people’s lives in their hands. Nonners hold stacks of papers and a computer mouse.
22. Maintainers sacrifice their personal lives for the mission. Nonners consider a 30 minute lunch a sacrifice.
23. Maintainers miss lots of meals and are often sleep deprived.
24. Maintainers have to work harder to get promoted because they don’t get all the built in study time or free time to suck up by doing volunteer work.
25. Maintainers can ground a jet with a simple pencil mark in the aircraft forms.
26. We push and pull heavy equipment around the flightline and hangars. Nonners push ----- papers.
27. Maintainers are a brotherhood. We have traditions and stories and history. We sweat and bleed. What do two Finance people say when they meet? “Hey, do you remember that time when all the computers went down and we had to use paper forms for a day?” “Yeah man I remember, war is hell!”
28. We own the planes and it’s called the Air Force because of the planes. We are the tip of the spear. Nonners are support. Rear echelon.
29. We adapt, overcome, and improvise and make things happen, even when nonners seem hell-bent on keeping things from happening.
30. We can troubleshoot things we can’t see. With our brains and training we can figure out what’s wrong with a multi-million dollar aircraft, even when the manuals have run out of suggestions.

Well that’s 30 and I could probably come up with 30 more pretty quickly, but if you are a nonner it would just make you feel worse.

Listen, we aren’t saying you are useless. You serve a useful purpose and lots of things in life are useful. Like parking curbs, fabric softener sheets, fur lined sinks, and electric dog polishers. We appreciate getting paid and fed. But quite truthfully, if we did our jobs the way you do yours, well our sortie rates would be in the toilet.

You see, if you don’t do your job well then lots of people might get frustrated but things don’t come to a screaming halt. But if we don’t do ours then people die and we lose wars.

So nonners are important – but we are more important – and better than you.

It’s nothing personal. Just a fact.  

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