Several good points have been brought up, but first I want to applaud NukeLDO. Thank you for your level-headed response to my point. I didn't get the sense that you were trying to be condescending or antagonistic about "broader perspective", and I tried very hard to reciprocate that in my post. You, sir, are a credit to the Navy and an asset to the NNPP.
SECNAVINST 5370.7C "Military Whistleblower Reprisal Protection"
Thanks for the research! I've never seen this instruction actually in action - do you think it works (or would work, which ever the case may be)?
... His philosophy was that if you get buddy-buddy with the people you're monitoring, then you're more apt to accept their excuses for why they're not operating IAW the procedures. Basically it's to keep the monitor more objective.
You hit it pretty much dead-on. It's similar to the reason a court judge has to recuse himself from a case if he has a personal relationship with anyone on the case. And then finally, there's the fact that HGR believed that anything worth doing, was worth going way to the extreme...
I am glad that the extremism in this particular area is moderating, as NukeLDO pointed out. And I can bear witness as to having seen this moderating trend before I retired earlier this year. And IMHO, the Field Office in the Portsmouth Naval SY is leading the pack in this trend - I've never dealt with an NRR Office which was better to work with in general than them.
How about some more data points that would help sailors see things as NRRO sees them?
One of the reasons why "things always go wrong when NRRO is watching" is because they come down to the boat with the mentality of searching for discrepancies while we come down to the boat thinking about ...
You actually answered your own question pretty well there. For starters, NRRO does have a different focus than Ship's Force. As you illustrated, NRRO's focus is (of necessity) more limited in its breadth than SF's. Even for the members of Engineering Department, Ship's Force does a ton of stuff which has nothing at all to do with nuclear power. PT, GMT, Quarters on the Pier, Ship's Quals, Section Tracking Party trainers (for ERS's, AEA's, and EOOW's), gun shoots, Career Review Boards, OPTEMPO, and on and on ad infinitum. All of these 'other' things can be - and
are - very significant time consumers for SF. When you go down to the boat, all of these things are pinging at you throughout your day. When NRRO comes down to a boat, it's generally for a 2hr Monitor Watch, or to observe some specific special evolution; they are there for a relatively short stint of time, and they have a highly-focused objective to accomplish within that short period of time. As such, they can ideally be
completely nuclear-related (i.e. no non-nuclear distractions are occurring) during their entire stint on your ship. (On a side note, this is actually harder than it sounds - try walking through the Engineroom for two straight hours, thinking
only thoughts about nuclear requirements & ensuring that said requirements are being met. Then, repeat many many times over - you'll start getting a feel for where they're coming from.) And NRRO's undistracted focus is actually a good thing from a plant safety standpoint, because they can point out things that SF is missing while they're battling with the multi-headed hydra which we call day-to-day shipboard life. And finally, if plant safety is at risk of being undermined by non-nuclear time consumers, NR has the clout to rearrange priorities (up to and including cancelling underways and keeping the ship in port) as necessary to ensure that nuclear requirements are given the time and attention that they
need.
One of the things which I misunderstood and underestimated while I was in the Navy is the connection between NNPP and the non-military side of the house (particularly the Department of Energy). For instance, there are a LOT of parallels between DoE RadCon and NNPP RadCon. I'm intrigued by the potential connections between DoE and NNPP now; just how many of the NNPP rules which we know but don't agree with (or perhaps understand) have been brought over to us by NR from the DoE's way of doing business? And similarly, from a purely academic standpoint, how much does the NNPP bleed over into DoE? If NukeLDO or cyclicrings or anyone else could offer a peek behind the curtain here, I would be very interested.
And for JsonD13, "best practices" are one of the best ways to start a fight that I know of - it ranks right up there with politics & religion. Probably the biggest part of the problem is that the definition of "best" is frequently very subjective. What is "best" in one situation (or at one location, or for one person) does not automatically guarantee that it will be the "best" universally. But, the other side of the coin is that any given "best practice" obviously had/has
some merit, or else it never would have earned the label "best" practice.
If a best practice ever came around that I didn't agree with, I took it as a homework assignment because often it meant that there was some benefit which I wasn't aware of or didn't fully appreciate/understand. If nothing else, it became a chance for me to make myself "smarter than I used to be". Of course, after looking into them, some of the touted best practices actually turned out to be low-IQ turds from someone simply trying to inflate their own sense of importance. (And FYI, this particular occurrence happens on the commercial side of things also.) But either way, I usually learned something from doing the research. And don't unduly limit the research that you do into new best practices - pull down books from the shelf that you haven't dusted off in several months, and ask people from outside of your current command. If you don't agree with a best practice, then make good and sure that you aren't just sticking with your side of the story; fully understand the other side before you discount it.
So yes, I believe in well thought out best practices. If somebody has built a better mousetrap that I can use, then I want to know about it so I can look into it. I won't guarantee that I'll use it exactly "as-is", because like I mentioned earlier, "best" is a very subjective term.
To throw another wrinkle into the discussion here, I am not a fan of "everybody has to do everything exactly the same way". For example, let's take a look at doing daily primary samples. Without going into any classified details, I will tell you that there is no such thing as "one best way" to do a primary sample. I myself am left-handed; I will reach around and operate valves/switches inside the Primary Sample Sink in a manner which is not identical to how a right-handed person draws a sample. A standardized routine which works "best" for the majority of ELT's would
actually be detrimental for my performance inside the PSS. Similarly, tall people and short people reach around inside the PSS in different ways; not to miss an opportunity for a pun, there is no one-size-fits-all "best" practice in this instance. For valid and logical reasons, there are occasions where there are multiple "best" practices in friendly coexistence.
And finally, it is my opinion that "everybody has to do everything exactly the same way" stunts growth. I cannot begin to count or explain all the things I have learned from the junior ELT's in my division (even on my 3
rd LELT tour, and during my tour as the Squadron LELT), simply because they had a new way of doing things which had never occurred to me. I could go on and on about all the truly clever things I learned from watching other people doing things in different ways - it is simply not possible to overemphasize this particular point. Of course, the flip side is that without a "everybody has to do everything exactly the same way" mentality, you get some really
dumb ideas popping up too. But the way I see it, you have one of two choices; you either:
Take the good with the bad, keep the "good", correct the "bad", and continue growing & evolving as a Division (and as individual people).
Or you all stay exactly the same today as you were yesterday, doing things exactly the same way as everybody did them yesterday, and exactly the same way you will all do these things tomorrow - never changing, for all of eternity, world without end amen.
For me, the choice was an easy one...
Just one guy's ramblings - I'd love to hear (and learn from) everybody else's thoughts & ideas.
Peace, everybody!
- Greg
