How do you decide which rate you are?

[KAMFRO]

I have never played warcraft, thank you very much.

[Fermi2]

When I was in it seemed the Machinists Mates were the ones who were into Dungeons And Dragons, the Warcraft of my era. My roommates at Nuke school would set up shop in the common area we shared with the other 3 rooms in our quad and have a game every Friday and Saturday night. I had weird room mates! I'm like, It's Orlando! There's stuff to do, gorgeous women, WHY are you inside playing a fantasy game after being in a class room all week? They said I'd never understand. They were right, I didn't.

Mike

[DarkMesa8]

My MM class had over 50% of the people addicted to World of Warcraft (myself NOT included).  We found out near the end of A school that we were actually kind of known around NFAS as that wierd mechanic class addicted to WOW. 

[ChiefRocscooter]

You know Mike I was in the class behind you so I saw the same guys (geeks) playing and let me point out that it was not "A" game Fri and "A" game Sat!! Those fools played their game right thruogh the night and into the next day!!! I remember coming in for Rosies or JJ Wispers at about 3 or 4 in the morning (depending on my luck/skill factor that night I may not have come home on some occasions, but never mind that ) and the same guys were playing then that were playing when I headed out the night before. The sacrry thing was that when I got up at 11ish to head to the beach or one of the many other places where the fairer sex could be found in lesser attire these geeks were still at it, and when I got back to nap and get ready for Sat night they were still there!! and you wanna guess what they were doing wen I came in early Sunday morn? You got it rolling dice and arguing about who had the magic cape or sword or ring!! HAHAHAHA Oh well I guess it made the odds better for us!! (not that there were that many geek seeking girls in the clubs that they could have taken from the more polished "players"    

Rob

[DJM75]

If you want the easy life become a Surface Electrician.  Those guys have little to nothing to do and there are a ton of them. They have the best watch rotations and are the cleanest.  They don't have the MG's to keep clean like they do on the boats.  I think surface EM's are the only ones that do less work than the ELT's.  Dirty Smags!!!
  Don

[Roll Tide]

If you want the easy life become a Surface Electrician.  Those guys have little to nothing to do and there are a ton of them.

But does it provide for successful post Navy careers? (Yeah, I know it's a separate thread already...)


If you wanted the easy life, you would have stayed home and gone to the community college while flipping burgers. You joined for training and experience, and it is a great choice. Don't look for the easiest rating in a challenging field, but the one that will challenge you the most.

[DJM75]

But does it provide for successful post Navy careers? (Yeah, I know it's a separate thread already...)


If you wanted the easy life, you would have stayed home and gone to the community college while flipping burgers. You joined for training and experience, and it is a great choice. Don't look for the easiest rating in a challenging field, but the one that will challenge you the most.

 Actually yes!  That is if you decide not to stay in power generation afterwords.  One of my best friends was an electrician and got out a month or so before I did and he had quite a few more opportunities than I did.  These were outside the power generation field and all in the NW.  So I don't know what it's like outside the NW or in power generation.
  Don

[ender17]

Simply put

ELT = S.M.A.G.
ET and EM = Smooth crotch
MM = GOD

There, I now leave you to your dreary lives. 

[Rifleman]

I certainly don't have enough time on this pond to really toss the BS flag on anyone, so I'm not throwin' down on anyone...

but I got to say...

the difference between submarine and "target" ELT's is night and day...

I've had the frickin cond and brine pump motor sitting on my chest while I lay in the salt/oil mung under the evap, waiting for them to rebuild the seals, cuz it's just too damn much trouble to worm my azz out from under the steam basket...  I've replaced the port main engine boot...  I stood MM watch stations up to ERS, in port and underway...  I did a butt load of valve repair on primary systems... simply because I could be both the mechanic and the rad con coverage at the same time  (fookin CD-81 leaked like a sieve)...  We had some lace underwear ELT's but most were extremely capable mechanics... maybe that's just because there weren’t any "extra" people on the tube for anyone to be a slacker.

I know the skimmer ELT's had life a bit more relaxed... but everyone in the silent service worked their azzes off... alright the radiomen were a bunch of slack dog, AC load, do-nodda's but they got you your family-grams so that made up for it.

Grass is always greener and what have you.  Choose your rate, choose your fate.  Just be prepaired to work if you are in engineering, first to show up, last to leave, and some material readyness bull cheeze is always on the board if the rack spits you out.

[M1Ark]

Cruiser ELT's on my ship ALL stood watch once a month all at the same time from Noon to 5 PM with specific instruction from the CO to not change the ordered bell.  They were allowed to stand ANY mechanical watchstation to satisfy their Senior in Rate Quals to get their supervisory Pro-Pay (That rule didn't apply to regular MM's).  We had to show them where the readings were prior to relief because they simply didn't know.   My EAOS was the day we pulled in from a patrol.  I stood watch 7am to Noon on my EAOS.  The ships policy was to turn in your TLD 1 week prior to EAOS but the faggot ELT's wouldn't take mine because we would have gone port and starboard in M-Div on 1 watchstation.  They were afraid that one of their guys would have been forced to (gulp) stand my watches for me.

I had $1100/quarter to spend on consumables for 34 guys.  ELT's had the same budget for 8 guys..... never mind.

Sorry guys.  I forgot I've been out 13 years.  A previous post reminded me of how I felt about my fellow surface ELT shipmates.

[Rifleman]

That would never fly on a pig boat.  Just aren't enough people to allow it...  We (all the MM's) were 3 section under way, with a midnight cowboy if we were lucky.  The underway ELT was pretty cush and kick back, if you knew what you were doing you could have everything done by 0600 and have the rest of the day to yourself.

but in port all the ELT's were on the watch bill.  We stood the shutdown watch AND did the samples and surveys.  We went to M-div training  (and then we got to hang around for another hour of RL-div training)...

maybe that is why I was attracted to subs, more of a team atmosphere then competion/friction...

as I said, a totally different world.

I always wondered why there was so much distaine for ELT's from guys on skimmers.  I had a bird farm MM working with me for 4 years... and he really had nothing good to say about ELT's the entire time we worked together... also didn't help that he would pull some bone head stuff and the two bubble heads he worked with (one an ELT) would call him on it...  He had a NAM from the Ship yard, he wasn't a slack dog ELT, so shut up...

it really bothered him... now I know why.

[ender17]

Well, most carriers now days (I believe all), have gone to having the ELTs qualify SIR for either primary or secondary side.  Then they stand proficiency watches once a quarter to maintain that.  When I was deployed with the Carl Vinson back in 2001, we had an ELT that stopped by the M-Div office every week requesting to be put on the watchbill.  He stood lower level for us.  I asked him why he did this when he didn't have too.  He said he liked standing M-div watches more than standing ELT.  I didn't argue that.    Though, they still slack off (on carriers).