Your Weekly Lex, For Strength

Understanding the culture

Butch in the Box sent me a PowerPoint brief demonstrating the tough love culture of naval aviation.

In the beginning was the jacket, and the jacket was precious on account of the “been there, done that” patches, but it got left behind.

And the Training Officer found the aforementioned bit of flight gear laying adrift, and like any good Training Officer he made things right. And that’s when the unassailable court of squadron opinion was benched:

The evidence –

(Friday, October 15, 2004)
Wally’s jacket is found unattended in Bldg 797 classroom by fellow aviator.
Attempts to locate Wally are unsuccessful.

Jacket is placed in Training Officer’s locker for safe-keeping until Wally and his patch-saturated jacket are properly reunited.

(Thursday, October 21, 2004 8:15am )
Wally sends an e-mail to “all VS-41″ inferring that the jacket has been stolen. He claims to have had it in his possession “just last night”.

(E-mail of Thursday, October 21, 2004)
“Last night at 1600 I left my flight jacket where I left it for the past 6 months, on the back of my chair in room 202 in bldg 797. When I came in this morning at 0730 it was missing.”

(The jacket had been in the TO’s locker for 6 days at this point)

The Charges-

Failure to accept responsibility for his own actions when he lost positive control of his crap.
Not once did he ever mention that the jacket might have been “lost” or “misplaced”.

Implying that there are thieves among your co-workers is not very neighborly.

Acting like a Drama-Queen in describing the loss of his jacket and patches.

Specifically,

“If you might know where it is I’d really appreciate getting it back, it’s irreplaceable and it serves a personal memento of my operational experience.”

Sounds like you’re describing your cruise sock.

The penalty assessed –

If you want to act like a whiny broad, you might as well dress like one too.