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CRCN Message on the Steward Occupation Town Hall (Steward trade elimination)

Depends on the threat situation and the weather (which can be a threat situation!) and of course the trade/position. I'll only speak to at sea.

Weather is bad, and everyone is seasick there will be a "pipe down" where if you are not on watch or essential pers go to your rack and try to not vomit. Minimum crewing levels.

When the threat situation is low the watch rotation will be minimized so that more people will be off watch at a time than on watch. Get some PT in, or relax a bit etc... I've seen the Ops room basically empty with people on call instead of just sitting at their station.

When the threat situation is high you go to what we call 1 in 2. (7hrs on , 7 off, 5 on , 5 off) Which basically is half the crew awake and at stations at a time. All the weapons and sensors are crewed and ready to fight. If we go to emergency or action stations the rest of the crew jumps too and goes to their assigned station. 1in 2 can only be done for relatively short stints (like a week) as it can get exhausting.

There are new watch rotations now like crazy 8's and 4Alpha which all have different awake and off watch times.

The non-Ops types like Naval Technical Officers, Dept leadership, or the Logistics Dept (all ranks), are called day workers and run a normal daily routine. Of course at sea you are often working late or on call, particularly the NTO's who can't just sleep through an engineering problem (unless the on-watch PO1 has it covered).
Umm.…I was on a ship that did a 1 in 2 watch rotation for 55 days straight. It can be done for a lot longer than a week….
 
The Wardroom could be staffed by a cook, and a scullery hand. Alternatively, the Wardroom could mix with the C&POs for meal hours, and eat there. It's a small issue, not something worth retaining a trade over...



I'm pretty sure that if the RCAF cared about Stewards they wouldn't have given up the Air DEU ones a couple of decades ago. Much like with my occupation, they abandoned us, and now cry because they aren't getting the support they want. If you want a capability fight for it, otherwise you get no say in how the owner decides to use it.
Imagine someone going on leave and being asked what they do in the CAF. I am a scullery hand.
 
Umm.…I was on a ship that did a 1 in 2 watch rotation for 55 days straight. It can be done for a lot longer than a week….
I personally didn't mind 1 in 2 when I was a watchkeeper but some do. Perhaps I'm confusing it with a different watch rotation. Then again I haven't done 55 days straight at sea either.
 
I personally didn't mind 1 in 2 when I was a watchkeeper but some do. Perhaps I'm confusing it with a different watch rotation. Then again I haven't done 55 days straight at sea either.
No, it is the hardest watch rotation.

55 days straight at sea was “special”. At least I got off the ship nearly everyday to fly. There were ops room types who claimed that they did not see sunlight for the entire period. I believe them.
 
No, it is the hardest watch rotation.

55 days straight at sea was “special”. At least I got off the ship nearly everyday to fly. There were ops room types who claimed that they did not see sunlight for the entire period. I believe them.
Was that during the OP Apollo CO dick measuring contest? God that was stupid.
 
I think the record for that was 78 or 79 days....and having spoken with one of the crew who was subjected to that foolishness, they did switch in the middle of that period - about day 35 or so...they did a double 5 hour watch and switched the rotation supposedly.

My longest stretch was 31 days straight at sea on Gatineau during Strong Resolve '95. I found out on Saturday that I was sailing on Monday. Good times. We left Halifax, went to Norway, did the 3 week EX, then went down to Liverpool for a 6 day port visit.

Other than that, most of my trips/deployments saw me at sea for at most 21 days between ports - usually 14. But during that period if you were on the Mids, you'd see the sun maybe once or twice....getting your head down was most important.
 
Was that during the OP Apollo CO dick measuring contest? God that was stupid.
The COs were not the only guilty party. Excellent friend of mine was NAVO on the VAN. Apparently, the CO took a vote of the ship's company. They voted to go for the record. They began regretting that the populist response won about day 35 or so.
 
My normal 'day worker' routine on the MSEO side at sea (from ph 6 onwards) usually started around 5 and went until I crashed (usually between 2300-0100). Doing drills outside of 0600 was the greatest thing ever.

The stewards also did a lot of food prep and cooking; the breakfast was pretty much a total standalone from the main meal line, lunch was half and half and supper was mostly from the main kitchen. Usually one of them started around 530 for breakfast preps, and others helped out in the main galley as well when cooks were short.

With reduced crewing eating the C&POs probably makes more sense, so assuming we won't do that at all.
 
With reduced crewing eating the C&POs probably makes more sense, so assuming we won't do that at all.
Oh God Reaction GIF
 
Talked to my Brother's spouse last night.

She is a Steward. They were caught completely offguard by this and were very surprised. Especially because they had just had an occupation meeting about all the changes they were going to be making to the trade and what the future of the trade looked like.

I guess there were questions asked about a severance package or a buyout and the company line was none would be given.

She had a lot of concerns because she just signed an IE 25 and she felt the pretenses she signed it under were no longer there.

She is unsure what she wants to do at this point. They have a newborn and she was adamant she wasn't going to a purple trade because that would mean going to Borden for an extended period of time and she is unsure whether she wants to go back through the training system again.
 
It's not a job it's a secondary task various departments fill in the ship.
There are specific billets associated with the scullery; one belongs to the MSED. Because there are no training bunks when the ship is full it's used for QL3 qualified martechs that need to do their OJT.

Usually there are a few people in the other juniour billets so you rotate them around, but you have apprentice mechanics/electricians scrubbing pots and peeling potatoes.

Nature of the beast, and did it a few times myself as a phase 6 but it's not a 'secondary duty', it's the person's full time job and they are working on shifts.

Similarly, the steward jobs are full time jobs., and they are also on shifts (with a few doing night steward jobs, which helps out the night cook and does the mids meals as well as overnight prep).
 
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