What should an IT person do in the Russian army

“He has nothing to do there” - you will answer and you will be absolutely right. However, according to the legislation of the Russian Federation, almost all of the mature male population of the country are subject to recruitment into the ranks of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation, so many IT people still have to serve, although they really do not want to, yes. With this article I want to outline the prospects for those who want to (need, have to, make it necessary to underline) serve, but it is desirable nevertheless closer to computers. Well, just curious.

First, a few words about myself to explain what inspired me to write this article. I am 24 years old, went to serve in May 2012, having graduated from the university, having worked in parallel for a couple of years as a programmer in a small but proud Singaporean game dev office. Frankly, during the last 10 years I spend about half of my life behind the monitor, so I was somewhat uncomfortable at the thought that for a whole year I would be deprived of this pleasure. Well, somehow I got used to read news and mail in the morning, in the evening Habr and Wikipedia, and here you have a bummer. However, the breakup did not happen, although I do not know whether to be happy about it or not.

About mobile devices in the army

At the moment, phones and even laptops (!) In the army for army conscripts are officially allowed. In practice, everything depends very much on the part where you get: from “one hour on Sundays” (the rest of the time the technician is in the safe of the company / battery commander) to “at any time when you are not in the ranks and do not work”. The overwhelming majority of soldiers have telephones, more than half of the military personnel have even more than one - the simplest one surrenders to the company / battery commander, the second (third, fourth, sometimes even fifth) nyks in distant form pockets and carries them all the time. A laptop is already a rarity, I would not recommend them to acquire until you understand what is happening in the place where you serve. In addition, a rare soldier serves the whole term in one part, and when moving, a laptop is a wild headache.

Which phone to take with you is up to you, but I would advise you to take some dialer with a microusb power connector (otherwise you’ll get tired of looking for a charge when you lose / break yours, which will happen necessarily) and (optionally) a simple Android phone to at least a little to brighten up the harsh army weekdays, after scoring the entire memory of the phone with any movies of ~ 300-400 MB in size. Having a collection of 50-200 films will greatly help you in building relationships with colleagues, I give you a tooth. The remaining subjects, which in my experience should be taken into the army, are not included in the consideration of this article, if necessary I will answer in the comments.
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About hackers

"Hackers", "computer scientists" in the army slang are called soldiers who spend most of their day at the computer. “Hackers” (I also don’t like this term, but their name is so) can be divided into 2 groups - “part-time” (a fighter who prints documentation and settles all computer problems within a company — the same time as everything, just sleepy) and “on a permanent basis” (a soldier working in the headquarters; does not participate in the life of the company or participates to the minimum). The advantages of working in the headquarters are obvious - a minimum of army idiocy, like painting grass in summer and bringing snowdrifts to a cubic view in winter, close contact with senior officers, who are usually more adequate than platoon / mouth commanders; the disadvantages are not so obvious, but significant - separation from the army team, increased personal responsibility, lack of physical / combat training.
How to get the position of a hacker? By experience, nothing special needs to be done for this. In the army, even now there are very few, at least a little bit technically competent soldiers, I did not expect. I never did anything to get to headquarters, but I still quickly got there. I just didn’t hide that I can print in a Word.

Work at the computer in the army

I will not hide, work related to the computer in the army for the most part boring to yawn. Endless printing of reports, orders, documents in Word and Excel packages. Compilation of inventories, reports (for example, on fuel and lubricants), nomenclatures. Printing plates, tags, books and magazines. Refill inkjet and laser printers. Minor repairs of everything that has chips inside. Setup, firmware, installation of programs on phones, laptops, computers. Recovering lost passwords to everything in a row, learning the basics of working with computer commanders and superiors. Conducting the Internet. However, occasionally there are interesting problems, even creative ones. For example, I used to draw from my head a plan for the protection and defense of a field camp, build a scheme of satellite parts using satellite images, write a program for a diploma of one cadet, forge scans of nonexistent orders ... I can not say that I learned something fundamentally new for technique, during the army service, but, let's say, the number of the same phones in which I had a chance to dig deeper, exceeded the number of phones that I held in my hands for the rest of my life before the army.

As you can see, no special skills are required to get a job at headquarters. Enough confidence in MS Office and a print speed of at least 200 characters per minute. The ability to work in Corel Draw is very useful. Who are able to draw everything else - in general, like hot cakes. In general, there would be a desire, but you can always get to the headquarters. But in advance, be prepared for the fact that you will sleep the least. Good luck.

PS: Before publishing the article, I tried to find out in which hub it is better to publish it, but I never received an answer. Therefore, I publish in GTD, “Getting Things Done”, although the topic becomes weakly related to the topic of this hub.