We’re Culling you……… but the future’s bright.

Its strange.  We had a conference at which we were told, even with the greatest of spin and positive perspective, that we, as a specialisation were under threat.  Our numbers would be cut, the requirement reduced fora variety of reasons, DTR and a shrinking Navy being the senior motives.  But, the specialisation as a whole was safe.  Hurrah for us.  But experience isn’t bearing out the sentiment of reduction.  There are Schoolies looking to jump ship, for what ever their reasons, but they aren’t leaving or leaving quickly.  The majority of the twelve month notice period being served and a return of service requiring honouring.  That said the Cdr’s of the branch are walking out the door.  Surely good news for those below, but who knows.  Ask the appointer and he’ll tell you we’re in demand.  Newjobs are inbound and the expected cuts from DTR haven’t been nearly as deep as expected.  So where are we……..   No idea, but the future is bright.

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…………

Sport in the Afternoon or a Make and Mend? Either would be nice….

When I joined this illustrious organisation sport was encouraged, and time off mandatory on a Wednesday. If you weren’t within 100 feet of the training commander so was Friday afternoon.  Now the same can not be said.  Not that I decry our predicament or sit here complaining bitterly, but it is worth pointing out one or two of the changes which are sweeping through our organisation.   Where, however do I start………..   Sport and make n’ mend.  Two institutions of the Navy which have been squeezed from existence for a vast majority of the Officer Corp.  We maintain the ’tradition’ for the lads n’ lasses but on the whole the quaint idea has evaporated if you are hairs breadth above a Lt. 

I offer two explanations, 1. we are to busy and 2 we think we are to busy. Let me expand.  We are busy; School liaison visits, visits from women’s, veteran’s, and interested ousider groups combined with a virulent good ideas club has made the life of the average schoolie one major merry go round. We are expected to conduct major change management projects including the development and of training and supporting IT infrastructures with little command direction or understanding.   Notice I haven’t even mentioned the delivery of training?  We are here to deliver training granted, but it takes a back seat in comparison to the busy load of school kids we’re trying to interest in engineering…….

The second reason is we think we are to busy.  The organisation has considerable mis conception of what is busy.  An operational tour is busy, watch keeping strangely isn’t as there are pre-determined times off…..  being off watch is an excuse to close the door and sleep.  Operational Sea Training is busy.  Doing your day job isn’t.  It is the other jobs around the edges which makes life difficult.  I see the same officers constantly declaring they are busy while heading out the door at 4-30pm.  They take every opportunity to tell the world that they have x number of gaps and yet the organisation continues to function.  Training continues as do the visits, and just as telling, so does the Adventure Training, the Skiing Championships and arranging of social activities. Aren’t we such a busy bunch!!

here endeth this rant   

Warship Soap Opera

Warships, large or small carry life as most civilians would know it, but that life is bounded by odd rules and customs which, to the outside world seem baffling.  The things that we take for granted are often not allowed.  Kissing your girlfriend or even holding hands is a no no which gets you up to your neck in it. We live ‘all of one company’, which in reality means you can never really escape your boss.  At 2300hrs the diet coke in your hand may be dis-guarded because the boss wants to review tomorrows plan, again.  Some times he wants to re-write it.  We have a saying, if you’ve pressed PRINT on the plan its already out of date. 

The life of a Warship, big or small has the high drama, jinx and sorrow of any good soap.  Except its real and when people die they really do die.  During an average 7 month deployment, a Ship’s Company may expect to loose one or two of its number.  It may be an accident on-board, an RTA ashore in some foreign port or a serious illness that regardless of location would have claimed Jack or Jill.  Its a strange feeling leaving your home port conscious that not all may come back.  Our land based brethren almost expect it with the fraught tours in Helmend or Iraq, but a Warship should be safe.  Its not and the statistics prove it.  The people most likely not to make it back are the aircrews who fly some of the oldest airframes in the modern world.  The Sea king, in what ever variant is a work horse, but a reliable one.  The Lynx however is known as the submarine of the sky for a very good reason. 

For the most part we look forward to deployments.  Its away from the folks at home whom we miss dearly as soon as we pass the 12mile limit. Its what many ‘joined up for’ and there is a camaraderie(is that how you spell it?) at sea which you get few other places. Don’t get me wrong being away is also really shit.  The hours worked are stupid, the rewards not always clear and we like complaining about not being at home.  We must remember however, the ‘dits,’ (other wise known as stories),  that we can spin on completion remain with us and our shipmates throughout our days.  These dits are legendary, re-spun and embellished for theatrical effect, beating any Soap on the box.  As I’m reminded of Dits from Sea, I’ll post them as such.  I should however remind you that as a schoolie I don’t have many! so the pickings maybe sparse!!!! 

 

 

 

Lets Change our name……… Again.

Its embarrassing. I’m at a conference and I haven’t got a business card to offer the bespoke suited gentlemen standing in front of me who knows so much more about E learning than I do. Why am I embarrassed? I haven’t a Business card, reason; because we’ve changed our name for the third time in the last nine ish months. Its a quick win as management would say. We must be making progress because we’ve changed our names. It’s funny then that every one refers to the Jarvis block collective as ‘was RNSETT’ or the Royal Naval School of Training Technology. We haven’t been that since I don’t know when, maybe 5 years?!

 

Still the suit gets the idea and as I scribble my details down for him I struggle to remember my new number. Of course it changed as part of the restructuring too. The home of the schoolie is both revered and dreaded. We love returning, so many schoolies in one place, but we dread being posted there, as its like a two and a bit year death sentence, where light is only shed by the appointer who gives you a clue as to your next job two years into your sentence. Some get time off for good behaviour, but most have to endure at least two name changes……….

Jack, Jill and Jenny…….. and being a schoolie.

My Name is Jack.

Jolly Jack if you prefer the old ways.

My best mate is called Jack and the girl in my office is called Jack, though she prefers to be called Jill. But in essence we’re all Jack. Jack goes to sea in steely grey warships. Jack visits port and drinks, wobbles up the gangway, passes out in his pit and gets up a few hours later to do it again until the the loud voice says ‘hands to harbour stations’ and the steely grey returns to sea. Jack is the collective for sailors; the tall gangley ones, the short, never going to pass their fitness test ones; the ones that keep those steely greys at sea, beyond the sight of the public at large and beyond the comprehension of most if you haven’t been there yourselves.

Jack asks for little. A 2ft six, by 6ft pit to call their own and some beer tokens in the local ickies will suffice for most. Jack isn’t happy unless he’s complaining. Though to be fair, Jack doesn’t complain he drips…… like a waterfall, about the food, about the cleaning, about the lack of promotion prospects. I am Jack.

Well actually I’m half Jack. But I do train him and his favourite Jill or Jenny. I have the honour of giving these guys the skills to go into harms way (the Dover separation scheme) or into Basra or Helmund province. I am Schoolie. As a schoolie we have our own language, culture and creed. We talk of DSAT and training priorities, of Defence Training Reviews and Operational Performance Statements. We wish more people understood us, and hope in vain that some one might appreciate us. The truth is however, we’re only half Jack but we’re all schoolie.

This is the story of Schoolie and our collective attempts to train Jack.