The Dis-appointing Ritual

As Schoolies we move jobs every two and a half years or so.  We move sooner if you have been on an operational deployment such as a carrier or an attachment to a Commando unit.  There is also the occasional opportunity to deploy for short operational tours in Iraq or Afghanistan, but it is fair to say these are few and far between and are much sought after appointments.   

In charge of all these moves is a chap called ’the appointer’.  He’s called  a lot of other things as well but i’m not here to add to that chorus of disapproval.  I make no mention of the man here as it is the role of the appointer to disappoint.  Each has their own style but in essence they all have the same problem with varying degrees of severity.  The problem is one of expectation v’s service need.   

A young schoolie has a the world at the feet, years to serve and no clue of what the service needs or what they can offer.

A Mid senority schoolie of the Lt varity has a better understanding that to get the world he will have to get on his knees and take what he is given.  

The senior Lt schoolie thinks the world owes him something and therefore promotion to Lt Cdr should be beckoning. but the world is a harsh place and reality sucks. 

The newly promoted Lt Cdr Schoolie thinks that it wasn’t such a great idea being promoted as the additional stress, longer hours, and lack of appointing input for the first job may not be worth the additional £1.50 a day.   

At the Cdr Level things are much better I’m sure.  If anyone wants to put me straight on that then I’m all ears.

What’s a Long Screw Driver?

Ah, the long screw driver, my friend that is, a most special tool. It can screw an otherwise workable plan in an instant, it can double the workload in a jiffy and best of all, those wielding it have no case to answer when it all goes wrong.  The Long Screw driver exists as a management tool of mistrust.  It is removed from the management tool box when it is least needed and often deployed to devastating effect on both the project and those running it.

Those using the Long Screw driver believe their interventions as Management or worst of all, Leadership.  I’m sure on occasions I may have deployed one myself, but my actions and impact compare little to a Cdr with years of ‘driver’ experience. 

I should of course be thankful.  Combine the Long Screw driver with the ‘Good Idea Club’ and we’re talking force multipliers.

Save the specialisation…. not the people in it.

Our lords and masters have held on to the mantra of ‘training, training and more training’ in a similar way that Tony Brown pushed education, education education.  The argument, I’ve often heard, was instrumental in saving the branch back in 1997.  Yet ten years on, the head of our branch has clung to that mantra like his life depended upon it.  With a new threat to the specialisation from the Defence Training review and the perennial question asked by senior know nothings of ’is the branch even necessary’.   My question, is, was he right? 

I ask because the DTR attacked the very core of our role as schoolies.  The cement of the branch eroded with the thought that training can be conducted by civilians and therefore at much less cost to the crown.  I’m all for saving the tax payer cash, but not when its so clearly false accounting.  Ask a class which flavour of instructor they prefer and the answer is always the same.  Barr the absolute cream of civilian instructors, and I’m talking 3-5 per cent, Jack will choose a military, Naval instructor. I know cause I’ve asked them. Time and again.  The reasons why seems pretty simple.  They are more flexible, they they ‘dig out’ to get the boys through and they understand the game cause they’ve been there and done that.  They have recent experience, as opposed to the crusty instructor who hasn’t been to sea in twenty years.  I shouldn’t even mention what happens when the training or delivery requirement changes.  Our civilian friends can deliver, but change on the whole is something they don’t do well.  If you want something doing, something changing, give it the schoolie.  It’ll get done. Don’t pass it to MoD and hope it’ll ever come out the other end.   

as ever I digress. 

I of course ask the question with the knowledge that we have had our requirement endorsed by the Navy Board.  Our requirement fluctuates around the 150 – 160 mark and yet there are some 220 officers in the specialisation.  Could the argument to expand our roles into he more obvious directions been credible and saved not only the specialisation but those within it from a slow, long, downwards career spiral.  The necessary structural changes required using ‘normal manning levers’ means that, for many and most with 6-9 years left to serve, that they can not see a position for themselves past their present commission.  I heard one Officer state that his next visit to the appointer was less about the next job in his career path but more about the first job in his resettlement programme.  Worrying when he has 4-5 years to still serve.   The hierarchy have saved the specialisation from the immediate DTR axe which was being wielded by a particular Senior Officer attempting to climb the pole, but instead have we possibly, though not definitely consigned it, and its mid seniority members to a slow down ward spiral and a feeling of rotting on the vine till we drop off and die.  Thats looking after your people people.  But not to worry the specialisation is safe…………