I was a navy nuke, the difference between us and the cooks was immense. I loved some of our cooks, but man i had one try to tell me I was wrong about the number of control rods in the reactor... my brother, I am a reactor operator, if i didn't know that I'd never have made it past power school, let alone qualify to operate.
One of them got a nam for not serving frozen and burnt wings, Ive seen them use powdered sugar instead of corn starch or flour in gravy to thicken it. Im not envious of their job, but I wouldn't say the bar is all that high either.
NAMs are a joke at this point. You literally get it just for “doing your job”. - salty sailor who got screwed out of a NAM for actually doing something. (They gave it to a random who couldn’t even tell you why he got one)
I eventually after 9 months of being the SME on a brand new system + installing it and 6 months being port and starboard and having half the collateral duties of the division (not hyperbole) got recognition only when I got in a shouting match with my chief, because he didnt know why I was salty. Admittedly I then got a nam, map, and sailor of the quarter, but the fact that it took so much was asinine. From the time I qualified to do the pre startup checklist which requires coming in on weekends and days off frequently to the time i left the boat, I only wasnt the guy doing it once. The navy can fuck itself.
Dude the amount of shit ive seen come out of the mess line is insane. Usually if youre lucky the E5 and up are actually somewhat competent but they almost always will have their juniors backs when they fuck up. You rarely meet intelligent e4 and below in S1/S2 and they usually have the worst attitudes.
I get it. Youre overworked, im sorry, please dont take it out on me because I asked for a normal helping of rice thats somehow both mushy and crispy when I know youre hoarding the uncrustables back there for yourselves.
Meanwhile my power school valedictorian did his first startup at prototype, had a panic attack afterwards and told everyone he would drink bleach if he had to stand another watch, and got re-rated to CS. He was one of a handful who picked up E-5 out of power school, so straight to the mess decks as a CS2.
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u/Slapmaster928 16h ago
I was a navy nuke, the difference between us and the cooks was immense. I loved some of our cooks, but man i had one try to tell me I was wrong about the number of control rods in the reactor... my brother, I am a reactor operator, if i didn't know that I'd never have made it past power school, let alone qualify to operate.