Holiday Routine! Underway…

 

Holiday routine out to sea is like having a “day off” – except that you’re still floating in the middle of the sea, and probably have some work to do.

 

Sometimes a bit of time off is needed, even if there is emphasis on “a bit.”

It’s Sunday, we are somewhere in the Mediterranean Sea, the waves are pretty high, and more than once we’ve gotten the word passed over the speakers to be aware that the ship will rock as we come about. Then it feels like you’re in a bit of an earthquake with everything moving around you. Nothing falls off, of course, because good mariners know to secure for sea. Which means, you ensure that all your stuff won’t fall off, so it is nice and safe. After all, this is a gigantic vehicle designed to do some crazy maneuvers – if needed.

So, despite the term Holiday Routine, we still have stuff to do. There are some exercises that are going and have taken place already. Also, I finished whatever support I would provide as a daily tasker on behalf of our crew. As I mentioned in a previous article, there are not really days-off-off when you’re deployed.  Just days that you try to have “less s–t to do,” or try to pack the schedule as light as possible. This is important, because people need some “me-time” to function. Right now, after I finished doing all I can for today I came back to my little cocoon and get some time off.  So, I decided to start typing this article. It makes me happy to disconnect for a bit, and not necessarily be on a hurry. With that said, I am always keeping part of my mind in alert, in case something happens, and I need to spring into action.

For most of the crew, Holiday Routine is an interesting term. Most watch-standing people are still going to “work” essentially their “watch” during these days. So, it is not just that they can disappear all day long. The difference is that other meetings or evolutions (even fun morale things) are not added to the schedule.  We also have brunch, and you can wear your favorite hat in uniform. These things help a lot. I know, I know… it might sound mundane about a fun hat.  But trust me, you miss all kinds of crazy things when you are out here.  And some people have some really cool hats too.

It does not diminish in any way the tactical ability of the ship, so I think it is an awesome idea.  After seven-plus months here, any little win is a great investment on morale.

Yesterday, I forgot to mention we did have an Ice-Cream Social and trivia night event. There were many attendees, people looked like they had fun. It was of course a voluntary participation event.  Mandatory fun often backfires, so when it is voluntary it works out best.  Also, because some people at this stage of the game would prefer to be on their own or invest their free time on something else. For example, reading their new book, working out, doing laundry, cleaning their living space, hanging out in their office with their peers, playing an instrument, just laying down and listening to music, watching a movie or binge-watching TV shows they downloaded… or so many other alternatives. I like taking photos, playing my guitar – and sometimes other Sailors join me in a jam session – that’s fun… or typing stuff like I am now.

I always keep my two girls in my mind, but I don’t want to just sulk in the fact that we are apart.  I cannot emphasize enough how much I love and miss them both.  But when return I want to be able to have a lot more to show for our time apart than just sulking in a corner letting life go by for these long months of absence. Also, because I know that when you are focusing too much in a loved one, they can feel you and this will make it harder on both sides.  They have to live and make the best of our separation, as much as I have to do the same here. It is counter-intuitive to feel this way, I am very aware of that.  But when I am pragmatic about it, then it makes more sense to follow this course of action.

Another thing that is good about these holiday routines, is that it allows you to slow down. For a moment stuff that can be done the next day, stuff that you have to wait anyway… you can let it wait. We ain’t going anywhere until then.  So, unless it would be mission critical and we can’t afford to let it wait, then it is good. It will give you a chance to work it out the next available time. Next week will be somewhat hectic for me. I am trying to do something to invest in my future with a class that is being offered onboard, essentially it is a 2-day seminar for Anti-Terrorism and Force Protection. I have a lot of experience on both, but it is always good to have a refresher, and make sure that there are no stagnant points. Also, when it comes to these topics, doctrines do evolve and even semantics matter, a lot. So, I signed up and I look forward to it. I will have to make sure that my other duties are taken care of, but that class is something I’ll be able to afford any way in my schedule. I have become very proficient in getting all my required deliverables in record time.

 

Time waits for nobody, but there is so much you can do per day.

Hey, as I mentioned before I don’t believe in punishing efficiency. If somebody can do stuff well and fast, and each time faster and effectively without cutting corners on required procedures, then good, all that time you earned for being efficient is now YOUR time.  In the Navy we don’t get paid by the hour.

I read somewhere several years back something that made me laugh and think at the same time… I think it was “Dilbert” – credit to author Scott Adams.  In one of the cartoons, I think it was Dogbert who was saying something like “Work is its own reward, so expect to be twice as much rewarded.” That line has come back to my head for years, every time I see supervisors punish efficiency. Not just talking about the Navy, this happens everywhere… supervision is an art form, and not everybody is top notch just because they are given a supervisory position. It takes time and finesse to become an effective leader. In my case, whenever I have a group of people whom I’ve been in charge of leading, I like to nurture them and give them an accurate plan. That way they know, once they finish that task their time is theirs… if it is something we can afford to do. If more s–t will come after that tasking, they will know that too. Somedays we need more work done than others, but how you divide that load is important.

You never want to burn out strong workers by putting too much on them. This will only diminish their spirits. Especially if they realize that they are holding the fort for everybody else who’s doing a subpar job at whatever they are being tasked. For example, how many times have you seen a hard worker get burned out because he starts getting too much tasking? It would start something like that, hey “so and so” – let’s call him “Jimmy” is such a good – insert specialty – and he can always be counted on making things happen.  So, Jimmy is now doing so much more stuff, because everybody and their mothers are going to Jimmy for help.  Then this become a mathematical throughput problem for Jimmy… Jimmy has only 24 hours a day, just like the rest of us, and if his workload increases exponentially, he won’t be able to keep up. Sooner or later, Jimmy will become inefficient because he’s either falling behind, or because he feels “overutilized” when the rest of his team is possibly slacking because they are “not as good as Jimmy.”  I’ve seen this case play out several times in my life. In-fact, I’ve been Jimmy before, and it is not fun when that happens to you.

So, it is incumbents on supervisors to be able to properly distribute the load and train their team so there are no single points of failure. Also, the supervisor should be able to step in and do the “working bee” job if needed. In fact, the supervisor in theory should be able to do the “working bee” faster and even more efficiently than the working bee himself/herself. But I say in theory because that’s the ideal situation.  In many instances, our working bees are more skilled than the supervisor in the particular craft they are entrusted to perform.

Some of our “working bees” are technical experts and have a lot of specific experience on something they do – a different career path if you will. Still, the supervisor needs to be able to understand the capabilities and limitation of their working bee’s technical acumen, and more importantly be able to partition their time and efforts effectively.  It becomes a mathematical issue, and yes… management does require some arithmetic to make it work. Otherwise, it becomes unsustainable long or short term.

Some supervisors were promoted after they were working bees themselves and became technical experts and then can move forward understanding the capabilities and limitations of the team, and what it is expected of them. This is a more ideal situation, but you don’t always get assigned a supervisor who was a previous working bee. But even with a pre-working bee supervisor, there are things to we can watch for. First, the only permanent thing in life is change, and that is true for any technical field. In other words, things might have been different, or radically different when the now supervisor was in the position of the working bee. This could create unrealistic expectations. Also, if the supervisor either had it too ‘tough’ or conversely ‘too easy’ – that might also affect their leadership style, and how their team will perform.

Which brings me to my next point, having a technical expert in charge, does not necessarily mean that they will be a good leader by default. Leadership and technical expertise ideally should come hand in hand. But that is not always the case. I’ve meet copious amounts of “technical experts” in leadership positions that are absolutely terrible leaders. Their subordinates hate his/her guts, though they acknowledge his/her technical chops. But a person like this cannot help inspiring their team to perform beyond their required tasking. You see work centers ran by people like that that they continue to struggle in some basic areas. In some instances, even though the leader is crap, the subordinates thrive… but it is not thanks to “their” assigned leader, but because they are looking for mentorship elsewhere, or in some instances, because the subordinates themselves have a higher standard than the leader himself/herself… so they will succeed because that’s the person they are, not because of the influence of that leader.  In other words, they succeed despite the fact their assigned leader sucks.

This, by the way, good and bad leaders can be found anywhere. I’ve seen these in militaries, civilian, and even voluntary events. Somebody used to say, leadership is like having sex. Every person is different, not everybody very good at it.

For today, I am happy and content enough to be able to disappear from the rest of the crew for the moments I can afford to be by myself.  This bit of solitude is healthy. Particularly for me, I have an INJF (Google MBTI Personalities) personality trait, so I need my me-time in order to regroup my mind and be able to function effectively. Also, it gives my mind and my body a time to recharge. My actual job is inheritably stressful, and some of the stuff I have to read and assimilate for work is downright depressing. The world is a beautiful place with a lot of f—ed up stuff going on it. Most people live in willful blissful ignorance to what’s really going on out there.

 

Some people have no break at all, and I am cognizant of that reality.

As I type this, there are so many thousands of people suffering, dying, being robbed from their humanity, robbed from their dignity. It is awful – what happens in so many sectors of our world.  And you don’t even have to go too far from where you’re sitting now to find those instances of horror. Most people who are unaffected by it, just don’t see it, and erroneously assume that nothing is happening. We sanitize so much of the horror… and unfortunately, that enables for that blissful ignorance to continue happening. Images too graphic to show to the audiences on TV, would be censored. How many times you might see on a strike mission on a war the images of the weapon firing. What you don’t see is what happens when those artillery rounds hit their target, particularly if the target are people. You might see some buildings and infrastructure destroyed and the rubble… but rarely would they show the dismembered remains of humans receiving that firepower.

True power is having the capability of assert the authority (not to confuse with authoritarian) without having to bring violence and fear as a catalyst for compliance. Using fear or violence, that’s an authoritarian tool… it is not bringing compliance, it is bringing suppression. The zeal of a true leader is having the authority to do something drastic, and not ever had to use that power. For example, back in the day… it was common for parents and even teachers to discipline kids with corporal punishment. The respect for their authority was derived from fear, not from intrinsic respect.  These two very different lines of effort would tend to blur and seem homogeneous, but they were not. Worst, the message that some of these kids had, was that in order to enact discipline you needed to enact corporal punishment. Much like slapping the s–t off an old TV that was not working well to see if the image comes back to work properly.  Surprisingly, sometimes it worked… But that is not what you would find in the tech manual to troubleshoot it. At least, I don’t recall ever reading in a TV user manual something along the lines of: “Slap the piss off the TV Set if the image gets fuzzy while calling it derogatory epithets laced with deep profanity… that will teach the little bastard to work…” – Yet, people used to slap the s–t of the TV set and scream all kinds of s–t at it… and it might return to work, temporarily then they would slap the s–t out of it, until it finally the poor thing broke for real.

Now, if they would have actually adjusted with proper electronic acumen, the slapping off the TV set would not be necessary, now, would it?

Ok, guys, thank you for hanging out with me while I was hanging out here by myself. There is a phone ringing… I hope they are not looking for me, because I don’t plan on getting up and answer (I’m not the only person that they could be looking for, and I won’t be going on a goose chase). Unless they call me directly from the speakers, that’s when I need to go somewhere… otherwise my holiday routine is meant to recharge and even for a moment let this small time off be savored and enjoyed to the greatest extent possible. In-fact, as I am typing this, they called over the speakers who that phone call would be for… and I have no idea where that person is, so I would have not been able to do anything anyway. So, you see… I have this uncanny way to smell a fools-errand miles away.  It’s a gift, I know, I know… an intrinsic sixth sense of mine.

Wherever you guys are, thank you for reading this far.  I’ll do another article sometime in the near future. Meanwhile, I am going to enjoy something I don’t get much chance to do… a nap.  Then I’ll wake up to have dinner, and then do my night routine and be ready to start a new week, as refreshed as I can be. HLC