PART⚡TIME HITTER Newsletter

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This Week

• We Need a Jared

• The Trouble with ESGR

• Anyone for Golf? Free Golf Lessons for Vets

• Breaking Business School

• The Fratty Guard Updates

• News

Friendly Forces Updates

We Need a Jared

Are you a Jared?

The Friendly Forces team continues to have more work than time. The ultimate goal is to be able to pivot to this work full time, but until then we will just continue working 90 hour weeks ☹️ 

If you think what we’re doing is cool and you’re interested in helping out as some kind of intern/extern (we’d have to figure this out), get in touch. Ideally, we are looking for someone with some research, marketing, sales, and/or consulting experience.

And, as always, we want to get more companies added to the Friendlies List to best service the Reservist community.

Good or bad, reach out and let us know your company’s policy. If it’s good—we want to add them to our list. If it’s bad, we want to partner and help them—and you.

Reach out to [email protected] to submit.

The Trouble with ESGR

Friendly Forces doesn’t really have competition. This is because we are a nonprofit run by serving Reservists and nobody else does (or can do) what we do.

BUT.

There are some organizations out there that make our job harder. The Employer Support of the Guard and Reserve (ESGR) is a DoD program, and it’s one of them (although not on purpose).

Basically, their model in which Reservists can submit their employers for "Patriot Awards” from ESGR erodes any sort of standard for what actual support to Reservists looks like and can create the perception in employers’ minds that simply complying with USERRA law is praiseworthy. I have seen articles lauding recipients of these ESGR awards simply for “allowing” an employee to attend Annual Training.

Congrats, you followed the law. You did the bare minimum.

When employers have meaningless awards like this from credible organizations like ESGR, it makes it harder for Friendly Forces to convince them that maybe they aren’t actually doing such a great job supporting Reservists after all…

BUT WE GOT AN ESGR AWARD!

That said, ESGR does do some very helpful legal ombudsman work on behalf of service members.

I won’t even get into “Military Friendly” badges and that scam except to say that I went as far as to confirm with a former account executive at the company that they will award anyone a “Military Friendly” award. I’ll probably do a full piece on them at a later time.

Anyone for Golf? Get free lessons for Veterans

I almost don’t want to share this one because it’s such an awesome program, but I will.

I recently learned about a program called PGA Hope. Long story short, if you’re a veteran, you can sign up for free golf lessons in your area at local courses.

I did it myself last weekend. Super easy.

I think I registered on Wednesday and was in a 90 minute class near me by Saturday afternoon. We hit up the driving range and the putting green—no equipment required. The classes are taught in groups by PGA certified pros and you can filter by experience level. I took a beginner course.

Again, totally free, and you get to meet other veterans in the classes.

You can register here.

Shameless Plug - Breaking Business School

Fellow Part-Time Hitter and Service to School CEO, Alec Emmert has just released the latest edition of his book Breaking Business School: The Savvy Veteran's 10-Step Guide to MBA Success. He shares the wisdom that took him from being a Naval Academy English major with a 2.85 GPA to a Wharton MBA. We are giving away free copies of the paperback to the first ten people who reply to this survey. If you miss out, it's free on Kindle and Audible as well.

MBA programs view service in the Reserve and Guard as qualifying for veteran status in admissions, so definitely check the book out.

You can hear more about Alec's story and Service to School on the Part-Time Hitter Podcast.

Curated NEWS for the PART TIME Community