I love the callback to the '90s, when every single internet poll, including polls about your favorite ice cream flavor, was won by Ron Paul in a landslide.
I first heard the slogan from the new NRC SEL who just came from Great Mistakes last fall. I felt it stank of management by slogan like TQL and the Five Vector Model. I pointed it out, but he was all in how great it would be.
The back to basics will help, but it seems like sloganeering from an impersonal bureaucracy.
It's interesting to see we are now a "no deficit Navy." (bullet 4 under "Get Real.")
I don't know what that means, and I don't think that, or anything else here, will resonate with a deckplate seaman...or anyone else not on the OPNAV staff.
Looks like a "Look I am really, really working for that exalted place in the Political and Military Industrial job I want and maybe even go on TV!" Mindset.
Then again it looks like Kamala's speech writer was busy in Navy affairs.
Getting Real, Getting Better. Sure. I guess that was the best choice. I took a look at the first round of ideas and here were some of the alternatives:
History does not repeat (exactly) because it can't. But patterns of human behavior most certainly do. Thirty plus years ago, I read "This Kind of War" by T. R. Fehrenbach. One of the chapters is "Proud Legions", (link here, wouldn't be surprised if CDR Salamander already knows and references it: https://erenow.net/ww/this-kind-of-war/25.php ).
TQM, TQL, etc. represent a pattern of human behavior. This is that, on steroids. Proud Legions provides insights about how the Doolittle Board's efforts to bring the U.S. Army into the 20th Century contributed to the early disasters in the Korean conflict. During Korea, they had time (the world moved a bit slower) and a recent national mobilization infrastructure and huge reservoir of experienced personnel to draw on to fix the problems.
We appear to be "racing to the bottom" in both quantity and quality (lack of training hours) for our forces. Most importantly, seriously doubt we will have TIME to correct our deficiencies should another major crisis arise.
Man, this brings me back to when I was a base-level finance officer and the personnel side rolled out a new system that had never been tested against the ancient, COBOL-based DJMPS system that DFAS owns. Shockingly, all new accessions got completely jacked because there was no automatic transfer of data from personnel systems into pay systems anymore and the Air Force leadership’s response was “well, it should resolve. They can live off savings or go to Air Force Aid for loans”. Good times.
I was manually paying dozens of young airmen for months entirely on my own initiative while fighting the MAJCOM and DFAS for the right to do so. (“You know you are PERSONALLY liable for erroneous payments, right? You might want to think twice before doing this...”)
And when they DID finally access, the pay system would kick out a massive payment for all the back pay while the debt for payments would take weeks-to-months to strike, so their pay would be hosed for another six months. When we tried to publicize the issue among the base populace, we were told to minimize it because it would stress people out because “pay is a life issue”. Oh, really? When WE used that line, you told us to send them to Air Force Aid...
When it comes to pay, they don’t care until it’s the FGO/GO’s aide that’s having issues. THEN it’s all five alarms.
Someone needs to "get better" at spelling. What is an "eduring" warfighting advantage? That got me off to a good start with the poster.
Then I hit this: "... by unleashing our people, not by burdening them with extra requirements, policies, or bureaucracy." Sorry, I can't read more due to the uncontrollable laughter.
I have never in my life seen such a sorry bunch of alphabet salad thrown together. At least the Z grams (which this sort of smacks of) were in English.
After I saw the title I stopped reading when I saw the quote from Gilday, figuring Div Thursday had arrived early. Then, out of respect for Sal, a few minutes later I picked it up again. But it does kinda have that scolding feel.
I'd suspect some of this is to get ahead of the problem and preempt Congress writing something uncomfortable into the next NDAA when they finally lose patience with the Navy's continuous pay fiascoes. I retired last year and this is a bit dated, but aside from the technical "hiccups" the TSC consolidation placed several more layers of non-responsive bureaucracy between the sailor and whoever is (hypothetically) taking care of them. COs don't have any real leverage over the (mostly civilian) TSC's and the people that do are... well I'm not sure because it's not exactly clear who is actually in charge. However, if a sailor gets into financial trouble (e.g., GTCC unpaid) as a result, they expect COs to be on them like a hobo on a hot dog. Fair enough, so I started including "how to write a letter to your representative or senator" (with a handy word template) and federal law allowing members to claim fee for late payment from the government as part of counseling for pay issues, because there were so damn many of them. I'd assume others are doing the same.
I'd like to see the Commander rip into the uniform stupidity. We can battle with the jarheads over who has the best uniforms, but the fact of the matter is that the traditional uniforms of the sea services are simply the best looking uniforms in the United States. Is Marine dress blue uniform better than the Crackerjack? If it is, it's only by a hair.
Officers and Chiefs at sea should wear pressed, cotton, khaki pants and shirts. Petty officers and below, cotton dungarees. Simple clothing, time-tested, and suitable to life at sea. Freaking Silicon Valley executives pay $1,000 for a chambray shirt, practically the same shirt boots were given with their sea bag. I cannot believe that the goofy gear current sailors wear is more comfortable than the blue jeans and chambray of old.
Given the superlative product delivered by the civilians of NAVSEA?
This caught my attention;
"TSCs and Regional Support Centers (RSC)"
What percentage of their manning is done by civilians? And how much overtime are they working? (Why be productive when you can get more $$? And I'll be happy to be wrong on this.)
The first bullet under mindset?
a) from an organization that now sends candidate pictures to boards?
b) from an organization that has 9000 gapped sea billets?
c) from an organization that meet recruiting goals?
I love the callback to the '90s, when every single internet poll, including polls about your favorite ice cream flavor, was won by Ron Paul in a landslide.
I first heard the slogan from the new NRC SEL who just came from Great Mistakes last fall. I felt it stank of management by slogan like TQL and the Five Vector Model. I pointed it out, but he was all in how great it would be.
The back to basics will help, but it seems like sloganeering from an impersonal bureaucracy.
It's interesting to see we are now a "no deficit Navy." (bullet 4 under "Get Real.")
I don't know what that means, and I don't think that, or anything else here, will resonate with a deckplate seaman...or anyone else not on the OPNAV staff.
Looks like a "Look I am really, really working for that exalted place in the Political and Military Industrial job I want and maybe even go on TV!" Mindset.
Then again it looks like Kamala's speech writer was busy in Navy affairs.
Getting Real, Getting Better. Sure. I guess that was the best choice. I took a look at the first round of ideas and here were some of the alternatives:
Getting Hard, Getting Tough
Getting Pronouns, Getting Respect
Getting Paid, Getting ? err, Food
Getting A Pension, Getting A Beltway Sinecure
Getting A Brown Nose, Getting Promoted
Getting Qualified, Thank God That's Over
You Fly, I'll Buy (my favorite)
History does not repeat (exactly) because it can't. But patterns of human behavior most certainly do. Thirty plus years ago, I read "This Kind of War" by T. R. Fehrenbach. One of the chapters is "Proud Legions", (link here, wouldn't be surprised if CDR Salamander already knows and references it: https://erenow.net/ww/this-kind-of-war/25.php ).
TQM, TQL, etc. represent a pattern of human behavior. This is that, on steroids. Proud Legions provides insights about how the Doolittle Board's efforts to bring the U.S. Army into the 20th Century contributed to the early disasters in the Korean conflict. During Korea, they had time (the world moved a bit slower) and a recent national mobilization infrastructure and huge reservoir of experienced personnel to draw on to fix the problems.
We appear to be "racing to the bottom" in both quantity and quality (lack of training hours) for our forces. Most importantly, seriously doubt we will have TIME to correct our deficiencies should another major crisis arise.
I vote Ron Paul!
When I read this all it is they tell the Sailor to “fix themselves.” Not leaderships’ problem...
Man, this brings me back to when I was a base-level finance officer and the personnel side rolled out a new system that had never been tested against the ancient, COBOL-based DJMPS system that DFAS owns. Shockingly, all new accessions got completely jacked because there was no automatic transfer of data from personnel systems into pay systems anymore and the Air Force leadership’s response was “well, it should resolve. They can live off savings or go to Air Force Aid for loans”. Good times.
I was manually paying dozens of young airmen for months entirely on my own initiative while fighting the MAJCOM and DFAS for the right to do so. (“You know you are PERSONALLY liable for erroneous payments, right? You might want to think twice before doing this...”)
And when they DID finally access, the pay system would kick out a massive payment for all the back pay while the debt for payments would take weeks-to-months to strike, so their pay would be hosed for another six months. When we tried to publicize the issue among the base populace, we were told to minimize it because it would stress people out because “pay is a life issue”. Oh, really? When WE used that line, you told us to send them to Air Force Aid...
When it comes to pay, they don’t care until it’s the FGO/GO’s aide that’s having issues. THEN it’s all five alarms.
Someone needs to "get better" at spelling. What is an "eduring" warfighting advantage? That got me off to a good start with the poster.
Then I hit this: "... by unleashing our people, not by burdening them with extra requirements, policies, or bureaucracy." Sorry, I can't read more due to the uncontrollable laughter.
I have never in my life seen such a sorry bunch of alphabet salad thrown together. At least the Z grams (which this sort of smacks of) were in English.
After I saw the title I stopped reading when I saw the quote from Gilday, figuring Div Thursday had arrived early. Then, out of respect for Sal, a few minutes later I picked it up again. But it does kinda have that scolding feel.
WTF is right...
I'd suspect some of this is to get ahead of the problem and preempt Congress writing something uncomfortable into the next NDAA when they finally lose patience with the Navy's continuous pay fiascoes. I retired last year and this is a bit dated, but aside from the technical "hiccups" the TSC consolidation placed several more layers of non-responsive bureaucracy between the sailor and whoever is (hypothetically) taking care of them. COs don't have any real leverage over the (mostly civilian) TSC's and the people that do are... well I'm not sure because it's not exactly clear who is actually in charge. However, if a sailor gets into financial trouble (e.g., GTCC unpaid) as a result, they expect COs to be on them like a hobo on a hot dog. Fair enough, so I started including "how to write a letter to your representative or senator" (with a handy word template) and federal law allowing members to claim fee for late payment from the government as part of counseling for pay issues, because there were so damn many of them. I'd assume others are doing the same.
I'd like to see the Commander rip into the uniform stupidity. We can battle with the jarheads over who has the best uniforms, but the fact of the matter is that the traditional uniforms of the sea services are simply the best looking uniforms in the United States. Is Marine dress blue uniform better than the Crackerjack? If it is, it's only by a hair.
Officers and Chiefs at sea should wear pressed, cotton, khaki pants and shirts. Petty officers and below, cotton dungarees. Simple clothing, time-tested, and suitable to life at sea. Freaking Silicon Valley executives pay $1,000 for a chambray shirt, practically the same shirt boots were given with their sea bag. I cannot believe that the goofy gear current sailors wear is more comfortable than the blue jeans and chambray of old.
Maybe it hasn't got to the lower ranks, since the Flags can't do it?
Given the superlative product delivered by the civilians of NAVSEA?
This caught my attention;
"TSCs and Regional Support Centers (RSC)"
What percentage of their manning is done by civilians? And how much overtime are they working? (Why be productive when you can get more $$? And I'll be happy to be wrong on this.)
The first bullet under mindset?
a) from an organization that now sends candidate pictures to boards?
b) from an organization that has 9000 gapped sea billets?
c) from an organization that meet recruiting goals?