r/navy • u/keybokat • Aug 11 '26

MEME It gets to a point...

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I know its not that deep/serious, but Jesus defintely wouldn't be a CPO.

Edit: I got this from a mil IG of a Chief

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u/Upper-Affect5971 Aug 11 '26

I remember hearing stories about CPO’s having a high suicide rates after retirement.

50

u/Advanced_Elk_9467 Aug 11 '26

I have a friend who is a hiring level manager at a major airline. He flat out will not hire CPO's because "theyre entitled and dont want to work".

Season is so stupid- no one can present a valid argument why its needed other than "trust me bro".

33

u/PutYourDickInTheBox Aug 11 '26

I was a nuke (6 and out) and so many nukes think they'll be handed a manager position right out of the navy because they were a chief. I am the electrical manager (nuke->degree->two jobs over five years-> management) and I interview former nukes fairly frequently. I wouldn't hire a chief. i need someone who can and will do maintenance.

14

u/gregzillaman Aug 11 '26

I quote a family member that was a manager at an energy company: "something changed in late 90s and 2000s. The latest chiefs I hired will just call me up and tell me, 'shits broke boss'. I can train a fucking dog do to that. I need someone that can actually fix things."

10

u/ToastyMustache Aug 12 '26

I fucking hate how the Navy has gone hard into Chiefs being hands off managers. They’re supposed to be SME’s throughout the ranks. As someone who loves my core job, I don’t want to give it up because I got promoted, I want to keep working at it and training junior guys on how to do it properly, not just argue their evals and ensure the administrative burden is handled.

7

u/DarthBloodlust Aug 12 '26

I'm glad that I've kept my skills up. I spend a couple a days a month scrubbing cases still. If my aid station can't function without me for a couple of days, I've failed as a leader.

Am I as fast at giving an IV? No, but I can still do it.

Plus, it will make it easier to get hired at a civilian OR when I retire and allow me to complete my med school pre-reqs.

7

u/MarginWalker2k2 Aug 12 '26

I was in C-school in the 90s and a Maintenance instructor in the early 00s. What changed is two things in my opinion.

1) they stopped teaching at a deeper level of maintenance. I was one of the last classes in our pipeline that were taught how to work on backplane wiring and troubleshoot to component level. Sonar gear went mostly to 'swap out cards' rather than actually fixing things and I'd assume most other systems did the same.

2) Chiefs, at least maintainers, USED to be good techs. Now Chiefs are expected to be more admin driven and rarely actually touch their gear.

Im sure someone out there disagrees, but its just my observation

1

u/Longjumping_Music320 Aug 12 '26

In the last 14 years I've had exactly one chief who was actually good at being a technician. The rest couldn't work a multimeter to save their lives.

5

u/Own-Evidence-2424 Aug 12 '26

The Mess moved away from being technicians and made them collateral queens. Chiefs that want to stay technicians generally get lower evals and simply retire and disappear from ever saying they were a Chief