redtailboas
03-13-2003, 09:45 AM
This is a story of a new boot officer on board our ship. As many of you know, the new or boot officers are brought in as section officers, at the very bottom of the officers Chain of Command. So their way to the top of this chain, climbs through many many different departments. Until at last it reaches the Commanding Officer. And as many of you know, the Commanding Officer of a ship is a law unto himself, he sets his own rules and guidelines and the ship will run the way he says. Most of these rules are in fact Navy traditions, and some are just flat personal preferences.
So what may you ask does the junior officer have to do with the Commanding Officer. Well for one, every junior officer wants to BECOME the commanding officer someday, so he comes into the Fleet headstrong, and full of his own ideas of how to make the Navy that much better.
Now so that you can understand this story better, I must first explain what my job was as Leading Electronics Technician. We had Preventative Maintenance Schedules (Yes PMS) and these maintenance guidelines, were the very backbone of our day to day regiment. We checked EVERYTHING, everyway, all the time, and without fail these maintenance jobs, were scheduled to the actual hour of the day, each day, 365 days a year. We knew exactly which piece of gear would be checked and at what time. These PMS tasks were all neatly organized on a huge poster board, written in ink in very very neat handwriting. These boards were created monthly by myself and my senior chief. This chart was then signed by myself and the Senior Chief and handed to our "new" Electronic Maintenance Officer, for approval and signature., to then be forwarded to the Operations Officer and of course all the way up the chain to the CO.
The thing about all of this is that the CO would randomly pick several of these jobs to "Spot Check", and on those dates and times, the CO would actually watch the preventative maintenance be preformed. Step by Step. Then he would sign off on the task.
Now to the real story. One of our CO's personal preferences was that only he would EVER use RED ink on the ship. Period. End of Story. The XO would be the only one to use GREEN ink.
Well as you have probably imagined by now, our new Ensign decided that the best thing to do would be redoing the PMS chart and using RED ink to write in the chart the date and time of the task that the CO would be spot checking.
Against repeated pleading by myself to not use the RED ink, the Ensign made me do it anyway. Which I then signed, and passed on. He was so proud of himself, right up until the point he presented this "modified" version of the PMS chart to the Operations Officer. Needless to say the chart never went any further, yet it magically reappeared in the ET shop to be redone, this time without the RED ink.
I think he should have personally thanked the Operations Officer every day he remained on the ship, for not taking that chart any higher in the COC.
So what may you ask does the junior officer have to do with the Commanding Officer. Well for one, every junior officer wants to BECOME the commanding officer someday, so he comes into the Fleet headstrong, and full of his own ideas of how to make the Navy that much better.
Now so that you can understand this story better, I must first explain what my job was as Leading Electronics Technician. We had Preventative Maintenance Schedules (Yes PMS) and these maintenance guidelines, were the very backbone of our day to day regiment. We checked EVERYTHING, everyway, all the time, and without fail these maintenance jobs, were scheduled to the actual hour of the day, each day, 365 days a year. We knew exactly which piece of gear would be checked and at what time. These PMS tasks were all neatly organized on a huge poster board, written in ink in very very neat handwriting. These boards were created monthly by myself and my senior chief. This chart was then signed by myself and the Senior Chief and handed to our "new" Electronic Maintenance Officer, for approval and signature., to then be forwarded to the Operations Officer and of course all the way up the chain to the CO.
The thing about all of this is that the CO would randomly pick several of these jobs to "Spot Check", and on those dates and times, the CO would actually watch the preventative maintenance be preformed. Step by Step. Then he would sign off on the task.
Now to the real story. One of our CO's personal preferences was that only he would EVER use RED ink on the ship. Period. End of Story. The XO would be the only one to use GREEN ink.
Well as you have probably imagined by now, our new Ensign decided that the best thing to do would be redoing the PMS chart and using RED ink to write in the chart the date and time of the task that the CO would be spot checking.
Against repeated pleading by myself to not use the RED ink, the Ensign made me do it anyway. Which I then signed, and passed on. He was so proud of himself, right up until the point he presented this "modified" version of the PMS chart to the Operations Officer. Needless to say the chart never went any further, yet it magically reappeared in the ET shop to be redone, this time without the RED ink.
I think he should have personally thanked the Operations Officer every day he remained on the ship, for not taking that chart any higher in the COC.