Wriging

Yes, I have. But I have also realized that the best way to solve any conflict is to confront the matter. Blogging about it take the frustration off my chest, so to speak, but it will not solve the problem.

All the best to you! :D

It's a double edged sword to use your blog to complain. On one hand, it can make a difference, on the other, it can backfire on you. The trick is to always back up what you say with a valid point. Even then, personally, blogging for me does nothing but get it off my mind. I still need to do something about it. I've never taken it any further than having the other party confront me about what I have to say.

Hope you make a difference with it.

I try not to make it a platform for personal grievances as it (from my experience) can possibly drive away my readers.

In your case it may be different but it would be like going to TUAW.com and plowing through personal gripe posts to get to the content... I would leave.

I think RightOn makes the crucial distinction in my mind. I try hard not to blog my personal grievances. I do however sometimes "complain" about ugly design, muddled thinking, the state of the world, etc.

That said, if you consider your blog a more personal and intimate thing, I'm not sure it would be out of place. A personal blogger (dooce, for example) could complain without it feeling even remotely out of place.

david did a good job filling in any blanks in my comment :D

Sure. But I would never, ever, ever, ever use my blog as a grandstand to complain about my job. I've many times been surprised to find out who reads it.

True jensized. I've seen FAR too many news articles and follow up blog posts about losing their job for using their blog to publicly complain about their job.

Seems like that is the only use I have for a blog.

Ralph, hate to break it to you man, but welcome to the military. My husband was AF for 24 years, and frankly, you'll be lucky if that's the last thing of this nature that gets shoved down your throat. If it's always the "other guys" from some other squadron and never your own CO that gives you shit and thinks you're worth nothing and that you don't matter, you'll be doubly lucky.

And no, it's not all negative in the military, but honestly, all it takes is ONE dipshit CO who takes a dislike to you to ruin your chances for promotion. With the AF, it tends to be a slower promotion rate than the other forces anyway, and all it takes is ONE jerk to completely stall it for years. This is why my husband retired as an E7 after 24 years of active duty, and he'd worn the rank barely long enough to collect retirement at the E7 rate at it was. Just one Colonel who was a jackass and gave him one not so good review at about the halfway point of his career effectively stalled it. Being in the manpower field (the slowest promoting one in the AF, it's said) didn't help the matter, but the Colonel sealed the deal.

I also wouldn't recommend blogging about it quite so openly. No matter what the average person's rights to free speech are, in the military you have NO rights to free speech, really. You don't get to say what you want from what I've seen, and the military does watch out for active duty members with blogs now. Maybe you don't have access to classified info, and maybe you'd never blog about that if you did, and maybe you just want to grouse about your treatment, but if somebody decides you've said something you shouldn't have, well, do you really want to take that chance?

Just my two cents, guy. Good luck to you.

*Edit* I changed the above to read E7, because my husband reminded me that he retired as E7, not E8, which makes the whole point about promotion even more valid.