Take a couple of months off:
NAVY chiefs battling a staffing crisis have taken the unprecedented step of ordering a two-month shutdown over Christmas, and have told personnel with child-care problems that they can work from home.
The navy has also ordered all ships not deployed on operations home for Christmas to try to combat a 2020 shortfall in trained personnel.
In addition, the number of sailors forced to stay on board ships docked in their home port on “duty watch” as sentries will be reduced from previous levels of 15 to 20 people to a skeleton staff.
Instead sensors and alarms will be used to guard the ships, with the ultimate aim being to do away with the need for any people at all.
Navy chiefs say the drastic measures are part of a plan to combat recruitment problems by creating a more family-friendly environment…
This Christmas 500 navy personnel will remain deployed overseas and in waters north of Australia. If an emergency occurs, other personnel will be ordered back to work.
But thousands of sailors who might previously have been deployed on ships over December and January on exercises or training activities will not be this year, and will be able to take longer than usual holidays.
The extraordinary measures are a part of an initiative called “New Generation Navy” aimed at attracting and retaining more staff by changing the culture of the navy and improving the work-life balance of personnel.
First beer, now a two-month sabbatical.
A generosity of necessity, it seems.
There was a time in the mid-1970′s, I believe, when manning concerns in the US Navy became so severe that a ship CO refused orders to get his vessel underway. Along with some administrative changes and pay raises, Jimmy Carter was brought on board to shepherd the country into a recession. Paid work at sea with three hots and a cot proved superior to “none of the above.”
I believe he’s available. You know: If you’re interested.
I’m sure we could work something out. On very favorable terms.
Two words…Press Gangs
Yes, the Aussies are welcome to President Carter. Perhaps he will institute a 16 knot speed limit to save gas, as he did in the 70s.
I might have to take a day or two off from work, but I live close enough to help him pack.
I want to know how most officers/sailors are able to work from home…
Dan,
Well, first you fill the tub with water…..
Kep in mind, this is the same Navy that just last year justified this:
THE Royal Australian Navy is paying for women sailors to have breast enlargements for purely cosmetic reasons, at a cost to taxpayers of $10,000 an operation.
Defence officials claim the surgery is justified because some servicewomen need bigger breasts to address “psychological issues”.
Who is this Carter you want to send us? She got Big Bazookas?
Guaranteed those sailors will be “working” at home.
Best advise local Naval Hospital of impending spike in OB/Gyn staffing rqmts.
must. resist. obvious. double entendre’.
Sure hope none of their Perry’s spring a leak at the pier (as some have been known to do), cause if they do, it’ll be an easy step from the pier to the bridge.
‘Fish Heads’ (black shoes) always complained about ‘Birdies’ (brown shoes) getting the perks. Must be ‘pay back time’.
Ah, Lex — the ship you are referring to was the USS Canisteo, AO-99, and the time was Spring ’80. Former XO on my first America cruise, Art Frederickson, had just taken command, when he CASREP’ed the ship for the shortage of boiler techs. Proximate cause was three years of Jimmy Carter 4% pay raises, when inflation was running 18 – 20%. Doesn’t take long to destroy your purchasing power with that erosion. Got so bad that second and third term reenlistment rates were below 50%, and Canisteo had no snipes.
Frederickson was a master politician — his timing was impeccible, coming before the fall ’80 elections, he played right into the Reagan mantra. Didn’t save him though — As CO, got a long deserved LOR over the ’83 Ranger fire that killed six guys.
Those dark Carter days — helping my troops fill out food stamp applications, Court of Military Appeals throwing out drug convictions of AME QARs caught with hash because of an “illegal search” (coming across the brow — no “probably cause”!), forty flying days a quarter on cruise, no spares producing a 40% OR rate, pre-VHA geo bachelors unable to move their families to SD — are why I will never trust a Democrat president. You would have thought our only USNA president would have gotten it. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
deleted as a duplicate!
I was visiting Sydney, two weeks ago. While sitting at the Royal Sydney Yacht Squadron, nursing my third cold one, I spied a Fig 7 (RAN FFG1) across the harbor. In tatters. Made my shoe pin want to weep.
If they are hurtin, I would be glad to volunteer for arduous long distance sea duty on a proper FFG. Providin’ the beer is cold.
What do you need crews for, if you’re sinking the ships yourself?
HMAS Adelaide (FFG 01) was the lead ship of the Adelaide class of guided missile frigates, based on the United States Navy’s Oliver Hazard Perry class frigates. She was built in the United States of America and commissioned into the RAN in 1980. In 2008, Adelaide was the second ship of the class to be decommissioned, in order to offset the cost of an upgrade of the other four ships, and is to be sunk as a dive wreck off the coast of NSW.
We laugh, but we’re headed there too.
Over a quarter century ago the author of the “Peter Principle” calculated that at the rate the Royal Navy (UK) was headed, by the year 2050 they would have over 200 admirals and no ships of ANY kind.
Looks like they and everyone else except the Chinese Navy are on the glide path.
aussie aussie aussie/
I see thanks to you that the RAN has it’s PC priorities straight. I guess the RAN plans to smother it’s enemies to death
with it’s “big bazookas.”
Virgil Xenophon: And the “big bazookas” can double as Mae Wests! Mayhaps during the 2-month hols they will install strippers poles too… One blog commenter/taxpayer asked, “Since I’m paying for them, do I get to see them?”
On a similar “New Generation Defence Force” tack, new recruiting posters from last July (story, posters). For real.
Oh well, what do we need a real defence force for anyway? If we get ourselves into strife, the Yanks will do most of the heavy lifting anyway
Don’t know if you respect the work of CNAS (hey, they’re red AND blue, see home page for kicks), but they’ve released a new study today, which these days are flying about (and free!). I’m hardly a maritime strategist; even with arguably modest intellect could I decipher last November’s USN strategy publication.
Interesting take (313, or so, ships) here
Cap’n,
I was but a wee PO3 in the heady days of President James Earl “Jimmy” Carter. Many, many times it was not the CO that didn’t take his ship out, but lack of parts, POL, insufficient crew manning levels and wotnot.
Of course, we also had to deal with ‘No Trespass Zones’ in various ship spaces and a certain ‘pungent’ smell coming from odd places.
Good old days live on in memory.
It’s just starting. I know one warfare enterprise in the USN that is planning to structure its security forces for only port and starboard operations. They refuse to consider 3 section manning and keep calling up Army operations in Iraq as their case in point that we don’t really need more than 12 on and 12 off. Most attempts to introduce reality have failed.
How about that? If PERS keeps you at 100% manning you still cannot permit anybody take leave, get sick, go messcranking….. It’s funny; our little warfare enterprise went from having just 2 admiral billets (1 NCD) to something like 5 or 7 of ‘em. Thank God. Most of the rest of us never had an admiral to call our own but now we get looked after ever so much better.
Another AW1: Hey, you guys need an old school shipfitter to keep her patched up, I work for Bombay Saphirre!
“do away with the need for any people at all”!!!!
Wow, just wow. What if the ship springs a leak? What if the local juvenile vandals and thieves paddle their canoes up to the ships and unscrew and pry loose whatever goodies they fancy?
This is, I can say authoritatively and categorically, Batshit-Insane!
JTG, You never fail to put your finger on the nub of the issue and accordingly seldom disappoint …excelsior… Best
What about we give Jimmy Carter to the Aussies on the condition that they never give him back. The country [ours] will be cleaner for it. And the Aussies are tough, really tough, and they can keep him under control.
Oh, dear. Better not sign this… he still has friends in high places.
Madame X
Marianne & others: Queensland had a peanut farmer as a long-serving State Premier some years back. Another PEANUT in Oz!? No way. We have never forgiven New Zealand for sending him to us: Joh_Bjelke-Petersen
Good catch, Mr Sinbad – I had almost forgotten about Sir Joh. Funny that our Peanut Farmer was about as far to the Right, politically, as America’s was to the Left, but. Then, it was Queensland…
Hmmm…so instead of taking 6 weeks off over Christmas, they’re taking 8 weeks?
An explanation from elsewhere: “Don’t understand the fuss? 25 work days off are the norm in the navy…plus 10 work days off for sea service and 10 work days off for flying makes 45 days leave a year (not including public holidays!)
The only significant issue is that we don’t pay them enough to really enjoy all their holidays!”
One of the catalysts for the extremely poor retention and recruitment rate in the current RAN is the decision, made a few years ago, to replace many shore-based uniform billets with civilians, leaving the poor old pusser without a decent ship/shore rotation.
Yes, sea time is crucial but in today’s world, one must find a fair balance between seatime and time with family, and the Navy cannot provide this now.
Scarcely surprising that many consider this an unattractive proposition.
Mea Culpa–my memory is going fast. It just now dawned on me that it was the Brit, C. Northcote Parkinson, who formulated “Parkinsons Law” of bureaucratic triviality, rather than the author of “the Peter Principle” that projected the RN having more Admirals than ships.
Oh well, I was in the ball-park, a small consolation that both formulas began with the letter “P”.