command perception

Okay, loyal readers (can I even pluralize that yet?) I've been slacking on the blog. I'm gearing up for my transfer which means all kinds of fun stuff. Paperwork, relief letters, pass-downs, going away parties, and so on. I also advanced to E-6 on the 1st of the month, okay so that's not an excuse for the slacking, just something that's happened since my last post.

Today I'll discuss the disparities that can be found between the command cadre's understanding of how their unit is running and how it actually is being run when they are out of sight and out of mind. An Unofficial Coast Guard Blog had an outstanding post regarding this topic, so follow the jump for the Parable of the Boat House.

As always, I'm going to base this off my own experiences. Most of my time at Gloucester was spent under the command of an outstanding Commanding Officer (CO). He asked a lot of his crew but was also very reward oriented. We went from doing approximately four hundred boarding a year to one thousand. The boats were maintained to the highest standard, and gained the reputation of being some of the sharpest looking boats in the District.

Having worked his way up through the enlisted ranks himself, the CO had a very precise idea of how he wanted the station to be run and how he wanted his people treated. But at a small boat station, the command is typically on board the unit five days a week and during normal business hours. It is up to the section leaders and Officers of the Day (OODs) to carry out the CO's wishes when he isn't around on the nights and weekends.

The work schedule changed throughout the year. In the summertime, when we did the most Law Enforcement (LE) and Search and Rescue (SAR), we usually worked from 0630 to 1300. We worked short hours because the Coast Guard has fatigue standards to determine if a boat crew is well rested enough to perform it's missions. Each hour of work counts as a half an hour spent underway so an eight hour work day would subtract four hours from our maximum underway time in a 24 hour period.

Now this is all Commandant Policy type stuff. The basic idea was the CO didn't want us wasting our energy on projects at the station of it would keep us from doing the real jobs (LE and SAR).

Sometimes we hadn't finished our work list by 1300. We wanted to keep the command happy so we would wait for him to leave for the day and then hammer out whatever was left. He ended the day with the satisfaction that he was taking good care of his crew, even though this was based on his limited perception of what was actually going on.

Another good example is what the Coast Guard calls "holiday routine". It's a modified work day that is usually used on national holidays. At a small boat station, everyone can't just go home because we have to maintain our response posture for SAR. Instead, the CO would declare that he didn't want any work done, he just wanted us to relax and stand by in case we had to launch a boat.

I can't count the number of times in the past five years that I've been working during holiday routine (usually punctuated by another Coastie sarcastically asking "how's that holiday routine working out for ya?").

To quote Funk #49 "don't misunderstand me". I'm not saying I minded working later hours to get the job done, or putting in some time during holidays. I'm just trying to show the differences between command perception and deck plate reality.

Luckily, my CO was aware of this fact and implemented certain measures to counteract it. He held quarterly meetings with all of us, and did it by pay grade. He would meet with all the non-rates, then all the E-4s, and finally the E-5s. The meetings with the E-3s tended to be the most informative for him. Lets face it, if he was working the crew too hard then it ultimately fell upon the non-rates the most. These meetings were extremely beneficial and the setup was great because most of the time a non-rate would hesitate to say certain things to the CO if his E-4s were in the room.

The Coast Guard also gave units a great tool by having them complete anonymous online surveys. It addressed all aspects of work, from morale to supervision to safety and everything else in between.

I remember at one point the survey results came in and the command saw that the scores for morale were low. We started having morale days every few weeks where we would all play softball or football together. The command also started encouraging us to join different sports tournaments, and if possible would give us time off to participate.

I think that about covers it. The basic message is that it's easy for a command to fall out of touch with its crew, but with the tools at their disposal nowadays, it's a conscious decision to continue on in ignorance.