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NukeWorker Menu Starting mm a-school with Pregnant fiancé. Looking for advice honeypot

Author Topic: Starting mm a-school with Pregnant fiancé. Looking for advice  (Read 15729 times)

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Offline ipregen

You won't be the first to do this or the last. Keep in mind that it is doable. Honest effort and holding yourself accountable to your family and what you signed up for will help you out. Keep your mind on the long term goals of successful completion of the program

Offline MGH

Simple scenarios requires simple answers.

First, quit screwing around and marry her.

Second, quit looking for opinions.

Third, be a man and suck it up.

It won't be easy.

Keep a stiff upper lip and work and strive until you drop.

Go to nuke school.

Focus, focus, focus.

God bless you young man.

Offline spekkio

It can get you a pink slip....but not a big chicken dinner....and it takes ALOT to get that pink slip at most places.  Our leading ELT was giving us day after duty at 1200 hours if all the work was done.  The Mdiv chief found out and "told on us".  So that stopped after a week.  Would have loved to be part of the Navy you are talking about....never saw it that good.
Yea, well, there are plenty of people I've encountered that I wish we could give a pink slip to, but couldn't. Especially at the E-6/E-7 level because we didn't follow the advice from NRTB Vol A and let them stick around past their maximum level of competence. Fun times when ISIC tells the CO that he can't DFC an LCPO even though there's a stack of paperwork 1" thick on him. The dirtbag junior enlisted Sailors who don't show up to work on time? Small potatoes man. Small potatoes.

Having said that, the amount of NJP cases I've seen come out of chronic lateness or general poor performance is big fat goose egg. Zero. Nada. Every NJP I've seen was a result of the Sailor/Chief/Officer breaking the law or violation of integrity. I don't deny there are COs who might be more fast and loose with this, but I haven't encountered one, and I think that submarine force senior leadership doesn't want COs using NJP for poor performance except as an extreme last resort when all lesser means have failed.

Anyway, it's not all rainbows and unicorns. Plenty of examples of poor leadership and management that can make people's lives miserable, like the one you just pointed out here and GLW's below.

Personally, this is what an Eng tour taught me about the topic at hand:

-Nuclear Chiefs (and 1st Class Petty Officers) are very technically competent, but universally need to be taught how to really lead and manage Sailors. They just don't have enough experience thanks to the fast-track promotion. The good ones pick it up quick (~6-12 mo), the bad ones never learn. If you have an EDMC or COB who can mentor the CPO quarters it's a godsend. I didn't. Unfortunately, it took me two years to figure this out and get good at it (by that I mean what techniques worked and what didn't as far as getting movement on priorities), and then the next new Eng who has to figure out how to keep his head above water comes in. But even then, things are received differently by the goat locker when they come from a MCPO than a LCDR, especially these types of topics.

-Nuclear Chiefs and DIVOs (the latter are usually not submarine qualified) are poor communicators to their Sailors. Frequent litmus test: put out a tasker (e.g, hey CRA we need that cooldown chemistry plan to get to the CO by Thursday), wait a watch (or day), then ask the LPO whether he has heard of it (hey LELT how we doing on that chemistry plan?). Far too often got a deer-in-headlights look. From the LELT/ELT perspective, he's being 'knee jerk tasked' by the Eng...but the tasker went out a day ago and died in the CRA's notebook. Another litmus test: if the LPO is going to officer/LPO call or night work meeting for the Chief and has to write something down that was covered the previous day. A 'fun' side effect of this phenomenon led to more than one occasion of me having to explain perfectly reasonable policies that my EDMC and I came up with (with CPO input) because a Sailor didn't understand what was going on and went straight to the CO instead of asking.

-"Slow is fast" is the worst expression to ever hit the Navy. This phrase gets hammered into nuclear Sailors' heads and they use it as a crutch to not be ready and as a result fail to move efficiently through evolutions. Time is a very valuable resource, and using more of it than we should need actually matters.

-Don't trust A-Gang (smilies and stuff).

The vast majority of the time, when there's a mismatch between policy and experience at the deckplate, the 'root cause' is poor leadership/management by the DIVO/LCPO/LPO. Unfortunately there's just not enough time in the day to watch over everything a bad LCPO/LPO might do to make his Sailors' lives tougher than it needs to be. If the MLPO came to me and 'told' on people going home day after duty at 1200, I'd ask him why he doesn't do that for his own division - at least for the guy who had the mid-watch. But I'd be lying to you if I told you that I had time to spend more than about 30 minutes walking the ER in-port before 1700, so nothing is stopping a guy like that from saying 'fuck that guy' and keeping everyone at work anyway (even worse if he blames the Eng for it). I thankfully never had that experience (in fact, my first MLCPO was able to cut his entire division out by 1300-1400 with all maintenance accomplished); I haven't encountered an LCPO who doesn't want to get his guys out as early as possible, and I've never encountered an Officer who gave a shit that an LCPO was cutting someone out early day-after-duty as long as the LCPO had a plan for how to get the high priority work done.

There are a lot of initiatives lately that focus on improving Sailor QOL, because over the decades we've learned that grinding people into the ground generally isn't good for retention. My last two COs had a hard stop that the work day will end at 1600, not 2000 as stated by the SORM/SOM. I don't think that's a coincidence; I think that's what the Navy is teaching at SCC/senior leadership courses.  And both of my COs and all 3 of my XOs were very sensitive to "CO suggestion box" comments. Yet when I would stand duty (all 1-2x a month), invariably someone would come to me at like 1540 to start maintenance. "This PM card says the maintenance takes 2 have CO's permission to work past 1600?" "Uh, uhm... Chief told me to..." Those were fun conversations, especially since now I know that the JOs weren't enforcing the CO's policy when they stand SDO.

But if you're on a poor performing boat, life is going to suck. Lots of extra hours getting back up to speed. That old saying "if you don't have time to do it right the first time, when will you have time to do it again?" And if you have a bad chain of command, it can make your life tougher than it needs to be.
« Last Edit: Jul 31, 2019, 08:53 by spekkio »

Offline spekkio

I was 1980 to 1988,...

manning was tight,...

it's why a lot of us did five year sea tours,...and more,...
It's 2019, not the 1980s. Manning is not that tight, and there's a sea/shore flow that is relatively strictly enforced so that nukes can man critical training command billets. Point being, it's not a good practice to paint a picture for prospective nukes that no longer applies or exists based on your experience from 30-40 years ago.

the point is in CIVLANT you cannot be confined to base or a ship for playing hookie with work,...

a pink slip is as bad as it can get,...

and pink slips come really quick and easy and painless,...

the Navy equivalent of a pink slip is only rarely quick and easy and painless (if ever),...

consequences are not the same as pain in this point - counterpoint,...
Lots of this covered above, but a Sailor generally needs to do WAY more than it would take to get fired in a civilian job to get themselves busted in rank/on restriction. In fact, the only time I've ever seen that happen is for DUIs, drug use, or blatant integrity violations. Across 5 COs, I have never seen a Sailor to NJP and put on restriction for general poor performance or chronic lateness.

those who live before the mast have a much different Navy experience than the officers,...

including the little "extras" that make the married officer's experience very different from the married enlisted's,...

[provides example]
The experience isn't all that different. Just recognize that where it is different, it's largely due to the difference in perceived 'peer pressure' that you point out and the maturity of one's 'peers.'

I'd call the example you provided another example of poor management. What should have happened is the LCPO takes the Sailor aside and says "look, you've been milking this time off for family issues thing. Here's the list of things that meet the criteria of the MILPERSMAN for special lib/being left in port, here's the list of things that we'll cut you lose if ship's schedule/worklist supports, and here's the list of things that normal working adults are expected to realize aren't that important." He should also address this with the division. If he's an excellent LCPO, he'd recognize that this belongs in a command liberty instruction to set expectations for every Sailor in the command and not just his division, and would work run it by the COB then work with YNC to get it routed, but that's a Nirvana we'll never reach as a force.

Instead, according to your account, he allowed this problem to fester over a long period of time and then, when the Sailor made a poor decision, took the opportunity to jettison the Sailor. Pretty sad story.

But I digress; people who milk the system exist in officer and enlisted alike. If you have good leadership, they recognize it and put a stop to it without hanging the guy to dry at NJP.
« Last Edit: Jul 31, 2019, 08:52 by spekkio »

