The New England Experience

We had guests at the house recently. My brother Erick was in town. The kids loved him and called him Uncle Ick (well, the shorter ones did anyway). His visit was overlapped by my parents, Bill and Jane. We tried to give them as much New England as we could.

Here's Bill with a 3.5 lb Lobster and a Sam Adams.

We ran out to Kevin and Jodie’s to see Owl’s Head Light. Since we know the “keepers” we got to show them inside.

Then we showed them around the Mighty Warship Abbie Burgess.

Later we ran to Acadia on Mount Desert Island:

Wii pretty much did everything that New England has to offer… except Candlepin Bowling. Wii hate Candlepin Bowling. Instead Wii found a different form of bowling. One the kids could enjoy.

Is it Friday yet?

I nearly fell asleep getting my hair cut today. I worked only about five hours this morning. This doesn’t usually wear me down so much. However, we almost got the day off, so the five hours seemed like an eternity. Not to mention that I had only seen my children for about two hours this week at that point. My total sleep hours from Monday night totaled about 22. This doesn’t count the times I fell asleep on the couch trying to spend time with Mary.

Come to think of it, the boat worked more buoys than my 22 hours. I think we did 23 this week. That includes the one we accidentally worked. While we were hauling chain on Grave’s #13, we snagged the chain from the 1992 version of Grave’s. After 15 years sitting at the bottom, that thing was ripe. It still is. When we pulled in yesterday, Deck Force parked it over by the Thunder Bay. It smelled even worse in the 70 degree sun at 7am this morning. Thank God the wind picked up eventually.

I had duty on Tuesday. I only had my signature twice in the logs because we didn’t get in until 9pm. It was my shortest duty day ever. Keven is still breaking in as a watchstander. If I had a long week, he had an unbearable week. He had duty on Sunday and Wednesday, and he’ll have it again tomorrow. He also had to learn how to cook all week. He’s progressing well. Thursday night he served his first meal that was entirely his. It was Baked Ziti (or, more properly a Fake-Baked Ziti as Rachel Ray would put it). He did a bang-up job and the crew loved it.

One thing I have noted as Keven’s been working to learn his job: staying out of the way to let people learn can be extremely difficult when quality might suffer. The last thing I want for the crew is for them to work a 10-hour-pre-dinner day, come in to a crappy, cold, or late meal, and then go out for another 4 hours of work. The last thing I want for Keven is to feel like crap after it happens. But this is all part of setting his feet on fire; he needs the experience, he needs the confidence, and he especially needs the built in pressure that the meal hours naturally create.

Meanwhile I need to have patience and discipline. I have to keep out of the way most of the time to let him work through things. I also need to step in before he gets crushed by an experience that would retract from his development. It’s a very fine line. I imagine this is what a baseball manager might go through with a pitcher struggling on the mound. When do you pull him when waiting to long might destroy his confidence, and acting to quickly might do the same?

Jalapeno Jack and the Great Day

Today was going to be a good ending to a good week. Heading into this morning, I had a great feeling of excitement. I finished week 7 yesterday in school. I have two weeks of work in front of me (most of it done already) before I get my degree. Also, Keven was working breakfast for the first time on his own; I had 45 minutes of extra sleep because of it. This Friday was going to be a morale softball game with the Tackle guys. So after breakfast, I had only shopping and paperwork on my task list. I was more excited about today than I have been about any work day in a long time.

The morale event was cancelled almost immediately. Two of our three department heads were not onboard with having their people leave an hour early on a Friday. With only about seven people playing from our crew (the Tackle has about seven total crew members), there was no way we would be able to field a game. So I ordered tuna steaks from Jess’ Market. As soon as I did, plans changed and lunch was off again. I had to settle into some paperwork and wait for everyone to figure out what the hell was actually going on.

Paperwork was the one thing that went as planned today. I had a lot of issues come up in my recent compliance inspection. As of today, each one of them is resolved. I would actually go as far as to say that it was overly-resolved today. I don’t want any of these issues to ever arise again, so the last two weeks I have been organizing something that I have become somewhat of a specialist in lately: automation. Today was the icing on the cake, and it felt great putting it together.

We finally got the okay to cook lunch on time, and I ran off with Keven to pick up groceries. We went to Jess’ for the Tuna. It was $14.99 per pound. That’s more than the lobsters cost. Speaking of lobsters, I showed Keven how to properly play with the live lobsters in the tank. Then we went to Hannaford, and Keven had some beautiful woman ask for his phone number. No, I’m not kidding.

Back on the boat, we started chopping veggies. We had a lot to do. Today’s menu: Grilled Margarita Marinated Tuna Steaks topped with Fresh Salsa, Black Bean Salad, and Southwestern Corn. Keven started working on the salad, and I got to work on dessert and the marinade. Somewhere in the middle, Keven started in on the Jalapenos. Somewhere in the middle of that, the Jalapenos decided to squirt him in the eyes. He tried the classic rub-the-bad-stuff-out-of-my-eye technique. After 15 minutes of flushing his eyes in the emergency eye washing station, he was ready to return to work.

After the first aid ordeal, Keven and I were looking at about 50 minutes to complete a meal that would take 45 minutes. It was great to have him in a situation like this in his first week; we were rushing to complete a meal that we had no intention of cooking at the start of the day. We blitzed through it, the fish was excellent, and the overall meal was the best I had cooked without Christine in a very long time. Keven got his hands (and his eyes) in it quite a bit. More importantly, he learned how hectic in can get in a galley when it hits the fan, and the importance of being prepared. This was by far the best week I have had at this duty station.

Alas, that was not the perfect ending to a perfect day; as I was writing this, the Sabres tied the Rangers with 7 seconds left in the third. In overtime, the healthy scratch from game 4 put the Sabres up 3 games to 2 in the best of 7 series. Go Sabres!

The New Kid

The new kid arrived at work on Friday. I use the term “kid” loosely, as he is nearly 30-years-old. But he’s new, and they always seem like kids when their new. I think it’s the apprehension. He was in the Army before, so he graduated school as an E-4. He’s originally from L.A. and he’s a big time surfer. His accent would tell you if I didn’t. Much like Keanu Reeves in any movie since “Bill and Ted’s…” you keep expecting him to say “Dude” every time he talks. His name is Keven.

He had never been on a ship before Friday. He also has very little in the way of cooking experience. These two things tell me that a) we have a lot of work in front of us, and b) I am going to find out exactly what kind of boss I am.

I briefed him on roles and expectations, the ship’s routine, and my philosophies about how the galley will be run. I’ve covered some of these things in earlier blogs, but here is what I highlighted:

1. Customer Service – Our ultimate mission in the galley, it’s why we exist onboard. This covers everything from serving good food to creating an uplifting atmosphere.

2. Time Management – The amount of success we have in the galley depends heavily on our skills at time management. I am a proponent of getting as much done as possible as early as possible. This leads to less panic when it becomes crunch-time, allowing for more quality in a safer environment. I’ve always been a fan of less cuts, burns, and bruises.

3. Focused Learning – Here’s the thing: I need this kid to be able to do my job – almost completely – before I can go on leave. And for the first few weeks, he won’t be able to do much of anything on his own. That is fine, and I should expect as much from anyone new. In order to get him where he’s going, I’ll be tasking him with jobs that I would normally (at least) assist with. But he’ll be on his own, with me in the general vicinity. This doesn’t mean that I’ll be kicked back on the mess deck napping [even though I often dream of such things and, most days, would absolutely love to. I like naps.]. I’ll find something for myself. Helm/lookout and Quartermaster qualifications are pending for me. Basically, I need to get this guys feet wet for a couple of weeks, and then I need to set fire to them after that [figuratively Mom, I promise!].

4. Goal Setting – I want to find out what he wants out of this job. Once we get that out of him, it’s just a matter of picking them off of a list. If he sees these things accomplished, his confidence and ownership will rise, and I’ll have a really easy job… again.

I am so freaking excited about this. The whole reason I picked this job was the potential for developing someone brand new. It’s coming at a time where I am finally “settling down” from our transfer that happened oh-so-long ago.