Perpetuate to Validate

When I arrived at my current duty station, there were seven (7) officers in the TOC: Terry, Bob, Dave, Jake, Angela, Selmer, and Mark. Currently there are three (3): Terry, Jake, and Lara. You would think that with a cut in the work force of 57%, assuming all officers contribute equally, would stress the officers who are left. I do not believe this is the case. The case, rather, is that tasks are created to match manning instead of the opposite. In at least one case, an officer who would weekly brief the commander and all of the staff with a brief series of slides left and with him left the slides from the brief – shorter and no value lost. Jobs are not made to accomplish tasks, but to fill time and make people feel like they are contributing to the team. In another officer’s particular case, her fifteen minute brief turned to minute and a half brief when her job was taken over by a moderately junior sergeant. I think the only reason we even include what used to be her briefing is so that she does not feel that she was just wasting her time (she was moved out of the TOC to replace another officer who left).

John Paul Jones once said, “I wish to have no association with a ship that is not fast, for I intend to go into harm’s way.” I think that JPJ would have stayed in port rather than gone to war with the joint effort that is Operation Iraqi Freedom, 06-08. I once was offered by a Navy O-4 that he would show me how to brief my actions as a member of a staff so that the boss knew how much I contribute. It’s a rain check I still possess.