When in doubt do the usual, the routine, the standard.

If you leave a post without turning over your hat and grooving in your relief, you are at risk. You can be called back for the next two years if that post goes wrong.

If your hat says recruit, recruit. Don’t do tool purchasing.

You must HAVE a hat in a folder and its write-ups (all of them) and you must turn it over.

WHEN A POST DOES NOT DO ITS USUAL ACTIONS THESE BACKLOG AND APPEAR AS TRAFFIC AND DEMANDS.

The Hats Officer is supposed to see this is done. It is really his major duty. He must see that it is done and he must be able to attest that the relief on the post HAS and CAN DO and IS DOING the hat.

The post goes into desperation and tries to cope and, failing to do what it was supposed to do in the first place, just goes more desperate.

Hats, checksheets and packs are also furnished by the Hatting Section under Hats Compilations. These are issued as prepared. However there is ALWAYS a hat.

A post will run wrong so long as it does not do the usual. And it will go wronger and wronger.

Anyone on post without a hat cannot be expected to be paid.

Like auditing a pc. Every shortcut, every unusual solution, just makes the pc worse. You can’t go on with unusual solutions forever. The pc will collapse.

If a Hats Officer only compiles hats he unmocks the org.

So it is with a post.

The Hats Officer must be there in a flash at every post change and see that the hat and duties of the post are turned over and the relief grooved in. Records, Assets and Materiel Dept 9 sees that the materials are turned over and are correctly inventoried or the Dir of RAM or the Treas Sec can be hit for any lost items.

Do what the post is supposed to do in the first place. Cope part of the time, yes. But somehow get in the usual action.

This is an old, old drill.

If you don’t you will feel desperate, 9,000 feet up and in a hurricane.

There are standard ways to do things.

EVERY personnel line has gotten in this state.

Any post not so turned over MUST be turned over correctly with hat and materiel or the org will shatter.

Failing to recruit and do the usual has backlogged HASes over the world to a point of total desperation. Yet I see no Personnel Procurement Officers single-hatted on post in orgs. I see no new campaign for recruits. I see no hammer to get standard forms signed.

Thus by not doing the basic usual actions, each HAS is going mad trying to answer people who are demanding personnel. Then the HAS musical chairs the place, destroys the org form.

WHY? Because the usual action of PPOs on post and records and lines and personnel promo were not done.

Not doing the usual resulted in desperate solutions.

This is the way any post goes when it backlogs. It backlogs for lack of the usual. Then it goes into total desperation.

The way to get out of the mess is each day do a couple hours of the usual regardless of traffic and demands.

And surprise! One will dig out of it and get on top of it.

One has to know three facts.

1. The usual solution already exists. One has to find out or work out what it is.

2. Unusual actions will backlog one and if continued will drown one.

3. One can dig himself out if he spends some time each day getting the usual lined up and in.

One’s full hat usually contains the usual. A starter is to get the full hat and know it.