"Beinig in shape" is a life requirement; ergo, YOU, must make time for it. It is NOT a standard nuke mentality, it is a standard for having a life and seeing your grandchildren grow up.
No, it's not a life requirement. If I decided to get fat and out of shape, most private companies outside the athletic world won't fire me over it.
Yes, being in shape is required for police and fire fighters, but both of these professions have time for people to actually work out. And cops who work more than 40 hours a week get paid overtime.
I would gladly trade you five hours a week out of forty for you to keep in shape. Just give me back all my tax dollars spent on free of charge fitness gyms, swimming pools, golf courses, indoor basketball courts, baseball fields, and all those other taxpayer subsidised physical fitness amenities.
Again, in case you haven't noticed, being in shape is a job requirement for people in the military. It would be asinine for the Navy to mandate that Sailors, many of whom make less than minimum wage even if they worked a 'normal' work week, to pay for their own workout facilities. Even the aforementioned police and fire fighting agencies provide their members with fitness facilities...do you want your tax money back from them, too?
If Sailors don't stay in shape, they get fired. It doesn't matter how much nuke oolies they know or how good they are at doing maintenance. Fail 3 PFA's and you're out. Whether or not you choose to acknowledge it, fitness is a part of the job. And while you might consider those 5 hours an enjoyable activity and thus undeserving of salary, there are many who would disagree with you.
I tell you what...you can have your 5 hours of tax money back if you'll give nuke Sailors some more tax dollars for all the times they had to work past standard working hours in port, on weekends, and then went out to sea to essentially be at work 24/7. You're getting more than your money's worth out of that E-5/E-6 salary you're supporting.
Another good one, why in the hell are my tax dollars paying for some non-qual nub student to get a minimum of six months of easy training with three and five day mini-vacations every month when their dink non-qual ass could be field daying a boat for six days out of seven when tied up to a pier or underway?!?!!?
Why are my tax dollars paying these goobers to go to college for six months while they are on prototype hold lounging around in a BEQ? They could be in the fleet field daying and giving the qualified and hard to retain sea going nukes a break?!?!?!?!
This proves my point. Perhaps you define 'working hard' as putting in over 80 hours a week; I don't. Your tax dollars are well spent if they spent a normal full-time work week at training, considering what an E-3 and E-4 makes as a salary.
As for the prototype hold, chalk it up to another reason they need to get rid of prototypes.
Bravo, if you're too stupid to pass nuke school in six months studying as much as you think you can handle you don't belong anywhere near a nuclear reactor, the fleet always needs more paint chippers, mess cranks and stores handlers.
I'm not talking about people failing -- not that many people fail with the standard being at 2.5/4.0. I'm saying that the guy who gets a 2.6 to pass really only knows 65% of the required knowledge. What is wrong with lengthening the program to raise the average score higher and thus produce, on average, more knowledgeable operators and doing it with a less miserable process?
From the enlisted side of the house I think was also done purposely. What's the average age of the enlisted person going through school? 18 or 19? The hours keep them out of trouble. This isn't college where they can go running off to do whatever they want once they get done. Plus, please don't compare Nukes to aviators... it turns my stomach. Do a tour on an aircraft carrier and you'll know why.
You can easily give structure without mandating every hour be spent at work. Many other communities in the Navy do it -- that's why junior enlisted students live in the barracks, have curfews, inspections, etc.
Some of my best friends are aviators. They're generally a lot less uptight about things and don't like making their own lives miserable for no reason.
No, it's not better to lengthen it. Put the standards back where they should be, and deal with the attrition that comes along with it. The world needs paint chippers too.
Yea, this is a real easy stance for people on the outside to take. Right now there are boats on the waterfront who have nukes working well over 100 hours a week to accomplish maintenance because we're in the 80% range for manning. So when you raise the standards and cause attrition to raise, where are you going to get people to stand watch and keep the plant together?
16 actually. Thresher had nothing to do with operators.
The casualty on the Thresher was caused by a material deficiency; however, the operators secured steam to the main engines because the procedure told them to do it, despite the fact that doing so disabled the ability for the boat to remain afloat. Whether or not the moisturized air froze pipes, that action in that situation put the ship at risk.
Following the Thresher incident, NR actually revised quite a few procedures in the RPM.