WeatherdoG said:
EDIT: To clarify, I get that you were trying to make a bit of a joke of it all, but it comes across as arrogant and condescending.
WeatherDog,
I get your point as well. I was afraid it might have come across that way, and debated posting that. Since I wondered about it in the first place, I likely shouldn't have, since you are all reading my words and not hearing me speak. Everyone has different experiences - my career started out as a Boatswain in a destroyer - and not everyone will have the same experiences as me.
Of course, it wasn't meant to. Of course I listen to my subordinates' concerns on these very issues. They certainly aren't going to complain to the Base Commander directly on Parking rates or whoever is in charge of PLD, or DCBA on the reductions in whatever thy have reduced this week, etc. As the CO of a small ship, I also routinely hear these concerns directly from OS Bloggins while we are in the smoking pit together. So I have a responsibility to answer them in such a way as to not blow smoke up his or her ass but to also keep their esprit de corps up. And of course I have my own gripes, but I don't get to complain down the chain, only up the chain to more senior officers who are too busy to pay me much mind. I guess my intent, as messed up as it came out in my post, was to look inward at those cool and interesting things that made each one of us sign on the dotted line. I wasn't born into a CO position - it took me 4 years as an NCM and 15 years as a MARS officer to get here. Hell, I don't even get to actually DO the cool stuff like shoot anymore. But for each and everyone of us, SOMETHING attracted us to our individual occupations. I constantly have to try and keep my Ship's Company engaged in the face of these cuts or else morale suffers, which means my operational effectiveness suffers, and both of those things are REAL problems for me. I do the same thing when I occasionally look around and think "why am I still here?" (which I do). And somtimes I have to look harder for the motivation to keep my esprit de corps up, but it is there, just not alway in the most obvious places, like pay and bennies.
Transporter - you are certainly correct. I dread the prospect of life after Command. I will nver get to go back to sea again and a cubicle will become my reality. Doubt I will be able to hack it for very long - hopefully at least until I reach my pensionable time-in, at which point I will likely go back to working in a kitchen if my old bones can still handle it. But I guess that is my solution - if I really, really hate what I am doing in whatever cubicle I am assigned, then I'm not going to be able to get out of bed every morning to go do it. Perhaps, as ERC stated, that 'satisfaction' will take different, more indirect forms and perhaps that will make it fun(?)/worthwhile to stay. I guess I will have to see.
It's not just being an officer, or in my case a CO, where yes, people do treat you quite differently than other officers of my rank. My Coxn wouldn't dream of being an officer - he quite enjoy being a Coxn, but not as much as he enjoyed being a Chief Engineer, and he LOVED having spent his career as a marine engineer, even as an Ordinary Seaman. Whatever vooodoo goes on in the engine spaces - which I will never understand to any great extent and I am certain I wouldn't enjoy - he loves. He finds it 'cooler' than anythinghting that an officer does. The same for my radar operators, radio operators, boatswains, etc. Thy aren't without their complaints, but I think they all love some aspect of their job SO MUCH, that it outweighs the negatives.
I apologize to anyone else who reads my earlier post and thinks me some sort of dink. And I apologize to all the huge-brained engineers who probably do much more important work than I will ever do, regardless of their sartorial style. I am heartened that everyone appears to have seen through my poorly worded ramble and managed to decipher my intent.
Jollyjacktar - I agree with you as well. No dog in the fight and I likely have it 'better' than most - at this specific point in my career. I will also lose my parking priviledge in Septmeber and will pay the 75 bucks or whatever - likely for a spot at the wrong end of the parking lot from my gate of choice.
The Parking fees and our pay and, and, and, are not irelevant things to bitch about. As long as people are complaining then they think there is still someone listening. I guess the tone the thread had taken annoyed me and I just wanted people to remember how cool the stuff we do is...and is that not enough to prevent the sky from falling? (and I'm not even the guy who gets to jump out of the helicopter, at night, onto the deck of a pitching ship)
Thanks,
MARS
