I was stationed on a Destroyer from 2015-2017 and subsequently deployed with them as an IT in the radio shack. CIC looks like something out of a movie (and really the only part of the ship that does) - it's very dark, has lots of glowing monitors covered in charts, surveillance feeds, and a whole lot of people. In the radio shack, we worked 12 on, 12 off, 7 days a week. I cannot remember CIC's watch rotation exactly but it was similar. On that deployment CIC had one sailor who went up to captain's mast for falling asleep at his station. I remember emphasising with him - sitting in a chair, in the dark, for hours on end while monitoring a feed that never changes. That being said, it was our only incident in CIC and our captain "Hammerin Hank" took care of the incident appropriately. There are several things in this article id like to speak on:
>He saw kettlebells on the floor and bottles filled with pee.
Peeing in bottles is something i have only heard of engineering doing - in engineering spaces. You will get labeled a nasty-mothafucka if anyone catches you regardless. To fill a bottle in CIC (with the exception of a few curtained off spaces) would require the complicity of several watchstanders. Where was chief? Where was LT?
The kettlebells are really not a big deal - we all would "borrow" things from the gym to get a little pump on watch because there is a LOT of downtime. I can imagine sitting at a CIC station just knocking out some curls to stay awake. We did pull-ups on light fixtures in radio.
>Some radar controls didn’t work and he soon discovered crew members who didn’t know how to use them anyway.
HA! Most of the equipment on ships is ancient. Things are ALWAYS breaking. How we treat the topside steel is analogous to how we treat equipment - prime and paint over it! When something breaks you submit a casualty report to let Big Navy know. If you need a part you have to wait to hit port or receive it at-sea replenishment. Troubleshooting consists of tribal knowledge and talking over the IP phone to a shore station. Watchstanders not knowing how to use the equipment is completely UNSAT (there is of course an "A" team and a "B" team on every ship, but the basic knowledge should be there). While there are a lot of useless bodies on a ship, you should not be sitting a watch station unless you have completed your personal qualification standard which needs to be signed off by someone who is qualified. Some of them even require you sit a board and get quizzed. That also being said, i have traded dip for signatures before.
We had this poster in our chow line that talked about when the exception becomes the rule (wish i could find the quote). Basically, all the little "exceptions" you make to the rules start to become normal and then new and junior sailors think these exceptions are actually rule. These all build and build until you are so far from baseline you don't even remember what baseline was. The fitz and mccain no doubt were a result of this phenomenon. Failures on every level from junior enlisted to the Captain. It breaks my heart these sailors lost their life as the result. I really loved my time in the Navy (and miss it!) but the operation tempo in the current climate is just not healthy and i imagine this won't be the last tragedy to happen unless something changes.
> We had this poster in our chow line that talked about when the exception becomes the rule (wish i could find the quote).
Sounds like normalisation of deviance [1]. The exception happens so many times that it becomes normal, then the exception to that normal and before you know it you’re way outside the original normal and you’ve blown up a space shuttle [2].
The boredom is an interesting risk factor, and I'm wondering what could be done to address it.
For software, I'm familiar with a process of intentionally designing and executing a safe breakage as a sort of drill to keep people's heads in the game---no better way to find where you accidentally didn't have redundancy than by turning off a system that should have a fallback and seeing what else breaks. Is that practical for CIC, or is there insufficient redundancy in CIC to do something like that safely?
I'm really surprised that all it takes to be declared qualified is the signature of someone else who's qualified. That leaves lots of room for slippage and social pressure, like the dip you mention. It also leaves no one specifically responsible for the crew's level of qualification. A cynic might say that was the point of the system: we know this is going to fail, so make sure no one is directly in the line of fire when the shit cannon goes off.
There is generally written testing involved, along with a multi-person board/interview that is a direct knowledge test under that inherent stress of face to face.
I would also add that a paperwork heavy culture around discipline, can lead to all kinds of unwanted behaviors, especially when combined with exception creep. An example from the article was the reference that numerous events occurred that dictated contacting the CO, were the CIC did not. Administrative/Promotion fear is real and can effect behavior.
While I understand the need to honestly record and fit-rep staff. If leaders are not also teachers and if ALL failure has dire consequence, then how do people learn?
You end up with qualification programs and skill sets like there were on this ship. That culture created an environment where questions were taboo.
Technology problems are also people problems, so I am curious about your opinion of the report's comments on the lack of a quartermaster chief petty officer and a "dysfunctional chief's mess."
And, how could the fleet command be ignorant of the culture problems on this ship?
Seems like those NCO issues should have flagged long-term problems to both the ship's command and to the fleet. I don't understand why they would ignore something like that.
>He saw kettlebells on the floor and bottles filled with pee.
Peeing in bottles is something i have only heard of engineering doing - in engineering spaces. You will get labeled a nasty-mothafucka if anyone catches you regardless. To fill a bottle in CIC (with the exception of a few curtained off spaces) would require the complicity of several watchstanders. Where was chief? Where was LT? The kettlebells are really not a big deal - we all would "borrow" things from the gym to get a little pump on watch because there is a LOT of downtime. I can imagine sitting at a CIC station just knocking out some curls to stay awake. We did pull-ups on light fixtures in radio.
>Some radar controls didn’t work and he soon discovered crew members who didn’t know how to use them anyway.
HA! Most of the equipment on ships is ancient. Things are ALWAYS breaking. How we treat the topside steel is analogous to how we treat equipment - prime and paint over it! When something breaks you submit a casualty report to let Big Navy know. If you need a part you have to wait to hit port or receive it at-sea replenishment. Troubleshooting consists of tribal knowledge and talking over the IP phone to a shore station. Watchstanders not knowing how to use the equipment is completely UNSAT (there is of course an "A" team and a "B" team on every ship, but the basic knowledge should be there). While there are a lot of useless bodies on a ship, you should not be sitting a watch station unless you have completed your personal qualification standard which needs to be signed off by someone who is qualified. Some of them even require you sit a board and get quizzed. That also being said, i have traded dip for signatures before.
We had this poster in our chow line that talked about when the exception becomes the rule (wish i could find the quote). Basically, all the little "exceptions" you make to the rules start to become normal and then new and junior sailors think these exceptions are actually rule. These all build and build until you are so far from baseline you don't even remember what baseline was. The fitz and mccain no doubt were a result of this phenomenon. Failures on every level from junior enlisted to the Captain. It breaks my heart these sailors lost their life as the result. I really loved my time in the Navy (and miss it!) but the operation tempo in the current climate is just not healthy and i imagine this won't be the last tragedy to happen unless something changes.