Judith Eastman
Civilian
Grandma
Posts: 2,593 Likes: 84
Rank: Civilian/other
Position: Civil Servant
Species: Human
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Post by Judith Eastman on Mar 28, 2021 4:55:30 GMT
[Capt. Judith Eastman(-Williams) - Commanding Officer's Office]Judy clasped her hands together. That's where they were. "Right. The train of thought is back," she announced. "That's a nice gesture, but the logistics of leveraging the stewards that heavily on the daily are... messy, that's number one. Number two, it's impersonal. There's a lot to be said for things you do yourself, with your own two hands."She resumed eating.
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Joshua Niles
Security & Tactical
[TI22]
Posts: 649 Likes: 21
Rank: Lieutenant
Position: Tactical Officer
Species: Human
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Post by Joshua Niles on Mar 30, 2021 12:21:32 GMT
[ LT Joshua Niles - Commanding Officer's Office - Front Ear Station ]So yes, that was not the best idea. But, at least, the Captain seemed to think it had merit, though the logistics may have been more complicated than he had anticipated. So, that was back to the drawing board all right. "In that case, I'll probably have to rework my own schedule, and how I do my rounds, so I can get every watch in a reasonable amount of time on at least a semi-regular basis," he replied before further working at the food before him. "Beyond that, I really don't know what I can do. My petty officers, and some of my crewmen, have been in longer than I have, and that's not even touching my Chiefs, some of them who were in Starfleet before I was even in diapers. Relating to them could be... difficult at times if only on the basis of disparity of experience, both in service and life." And that was a challenge for junior officers he knew he was going to have to face. But frankly, that had been really academic for him, and he was not entirely sure how to handle that either.
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Judith Eastman
Civilian
Grandma
Posts: 2,593 Likes: 84
Rank: Civilian/other
Position: Civil Servant
Species: Human
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Post by Judith Eastman on Mar 31, 2021 0:05:02 GMT
[Capt. Judith Eastman(-Williams) - Commanding Officer's Office]Judy chuckled gently, as though she found Josh's fretting over the experience gap amusing. It was, certainly, overstated. "You know, when I joined the fleet, Captain Ellis was 11 years old."Judy spoke these words with evident respect for the young woman who was her onetime superior. "As a more experienced officer, I do consider myself a good judge of character, as many officers and non-coms with experience do, and what I looked for was, in a nutshell, emotional maturity. When you see a young officer rising up the ranks quickly, you want to see that they're grounded, that they're aware that they're neither all-powerful nor all-knowing. You want to see humility. Captain Ellis fits that profile."She gently adjusted her glasses, that most obvious visual marker of her age - and the experience that came with it. "The way to demonstrate those qualities - outside of volatile situations like combat - is to take a deliberative, collaborative approach to your job. You want to seek out the opinions of those under you, whether they've served for 20 days or 20 years. You don't have to accept those opinions, the final say is yours, but you should listen to them."She took a deep breath. "The do as I say because I have pips approach, on the other hand, makes you look like the kind of self-assured moron officer that's every subordinate's worst nightmare."
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Joshua Niles
Security & Tactical
[TI22]
Posts: 649 Likes: 21
Rank: Lieutenant
Position: Tactical Officer
Species: Human
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Post by Joshua Niles on Apr 1, 2021 19:35:53 GMT
[ LT Joshua Niles - Commanding Officer's Office - Front Ear Station ]Of course, the Captain had decades of experience within the Fleet. Just as had one Petty Officer Jarvis, the unrepentant jackanape who'd actually successfully pulled a fast one on one Ensign Joshua Niles when said Ensign's non-bridge duties were that of a mere torpedo room officer, and had claimed that in the 'real world', things could not always be done as per the specs as an excuse for a number of entirely unacceptable maintenance faults and failures. That had been his first true introduction to that 'career experience' that was supposed to make Starfleet's NCOs the true backbone of the Fleet even more so than its officers. "Well, I certainly do try as much as possible. Frankly, I have very few bad apples, and a lot of good ones to help keep them in line. I wouldn't say Tactical runs itself, but I'd say that I mostly have the right people in the right places to require only minimum input from me for routine day-to-day operations. As for putting my foot down, I'd like to think I'm not a tyrant; I have high standards for maintenance and readiness, I run more drills than the mandated minimums, and I expect my people to aim to beat the fleet standards and not just match them. I would like to think that it's a good place to start."
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Judith Eastman
Civilian
Grandma
Posts: 2,593 Likes: 84
Rank: Civilian/other
Position: Civil Servant
Species: Human
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Post by Judith Eastman on Apr 2, 2021 4:22:38 GMT
[Capt. Judith Eastman(-Williams) - Commanding Officer's Office]"Well, I will say that too many drills piss people off, but I think there's a broader way to look at this."Judy took a deep breath. She had a profound life lesson to convey. "In just about every pursuit, the kinds of things you do to achieve competence aren't the same ones you need to achieve excellence. For example, as a citizen, what makes you a competent citizen, a good citizen, is following the laws, but an excellent citizen isn't someone who follows the law even harder; a model citizen does different things, like community service, that transcend the things that made him a competent citizen. Likewise, an excellent student doesn't just study the assigned readings harder; she applies the material above and beyond that framework," she explained. "So by drilling more, you're not actually achieving all that much. You should be focusing on finding ways to achieve excellence, beyond the textbook drills, new ways to challenge yourself and your subordinates."The same point could've been made by a quality vs quantity argument, but Judy felt the tack she had taken was more valuable as a life lesson.
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Joshua Niles
Security & Tactical
[TI22]
Posts: 649 Likes: 21
Rank: Lieutenant
Position: Tactical Officer
Species: Human
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Post by Joshua Niles on Apr 6, 2021 20:09:27 GMT
[ LT Joshua Niles - Commanding Officer's Office - Front Ear Station ]Well, at least Niles just heared was doing something right, even though he'd not gotten that far yet. Perhaps he ought to back off a little on the drills for the Tactical sections, but he was making sure to mix things up, and to provide some challenges that were not in the official manual. It was amazing just so little as working out of a different phaser space or torpedo room could do, or moving people around the room could do. But, one thing he'd found, was that the conversation had been meandering quite a bit, and a good deal of it had been to try and dodge talking about, well, the hard things. Work was easy, even when he was told he was wrong in his approach. At least that was easy to fix: do what the Old Lady said, and odds are it was going to pan out well. Even if she was nothing like the sort of officer that 'supposed' to be out on the frontier of nowhere. Or perhaps exactly because she wasn't the sort of gung-ho cowboy that are supposedly all the rage with young officers... "A lot of my classmates thought this assignment right out of the Academy was exile, while they got the 'good' ones. That this was where people who were a disgrace in some way, while those who were 'favoured' got the 'good' ones. Honestly, I thought some of the same at first. It was a three month trip from Earth, on a ship that's been reactivated from the mothball fleet at the end of the War for rear-area tasks and with a crew so strapped by the need to man new construction that passengers like yours truly got shanghaied to pick up some of the slack. And you know what, even though I feel like the last several months have been using me as a punching bag, I wouldn't trade this for any other assignment."
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Judith Eastman
Civilian
Grandma
Posts: 2,593 Likes: 84
Rank: Civilian/other
Position: Civil Servant
Species: Human
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Post by Judith Eastman on Apr 6, 2021 23:39:56 GMT
[Capt. Judith Eastman(-Williams) - Commanding Officer's Office]Judy nodded. There was no denying that theirs was hardly a coveted post, or that Starfleet's manpower situation wasn't quite as comfortable as it had been when she'd joined the fleet so long ago. And yet, in this place where there was nothing, they could build anything, and to some degree, Josh seemed aware of that potential. "I'll spare you the long-winded lecture, because I think I've done enough of that. I'm sure you have a lot of work to attend to."They had been going on for some time, and the old Captain had her own work to do as well.
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Joshua Niles
Security & Tactical
[TI22]
Posts: 649 Likes: 21
Rank: Lieutenant
Position: Tactical Officer
Species: Human
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Post by Joshua Niles on Apr 10, 2021 21:28:51 GMT
[ LT Joshua Niles - Commanding Officer's Office - Front Ear Station ]Well, one meal downrange, and a long conversation later, it would seem that the Captain's time for her tactical officer was coming to an end. He knew he certainly had a lot of work to do himself, and the vagaries of scheduling had him taking an Ops watch in the afternoon, and an anchor watch on the Mac a little later. And, well, having been exposed to the life of a junior officer with real duties, he had started to learn that the Fleet ran on deuterium almost as much as it ran on paperwork... So, with the Captain's final words, he rose from his seat. "I'd like to thank you for your time, Captain, and have a pleasant day."(Fin?)
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