Great post here on having the right attitude while a junior officer:
http://navycaptain-therealnavy.blogspot.com/2012/03/with-all-due-respect.html
I particularly like this piece:
"However, junior officers must make a genuine effort to be friendly and cooperative to succeed."
As a recovering submariner, I know we often joked about the limited happiness cup. Basically, on a submarine, there was only so much happiness to go around, and the only way to get more was to empty the happiness cup of another JO. This lead to plenty of hard feelings and misery shared by all. Now on the outside, I see that although some people still seem to cling to this mantra, it isn't effective. Most people don't want to be miserable, and don't want to work with miserable people.
Where I am at currently I've helped get my sailors to have a friendly relationship with the neighboring Air Force guys. Besides having additional people to joke and talk with, it's already paid off because we have both shared resources on problems that separately we couldn't solve.
Being approachable and friendly as a junior officer isn't just for style points...it's a requirement in today's world, where relationships will matter as much, if not more, than resources.
http://navycaptain-therealnavy.blogspot.com/2012/03/with-all-due-respect.html
I particularly like this piece:
"However, junior officers must make a genuine effort to be friendly and cooperative to succeed."
As a recovering submariner, I know we often joked about the limited happiness cup. Basically, on a submarine, there was only so much happiness to go around, and the only way to get more was to empty the happiness cup of another JO. This lead to plenty of hard feelings and misery shared by all. Now on the outside, I see that although some people still seem to cling to this mantra, it isn't effective. Most people don't want to be miserable, and don't want to work with miserable people.
Where I am at currently I've helped get my sailors to have a friendly relationship with the neighboring Air Force guys. Besides having additional people to joke and talk with, it's already paid off because we have both shared resources on problems that separately we couldn't solve.
Being approachable and friendly as a junior officer isn't just for style points...it's a requirement in today's world, where relationships will matter as much, if not more, than resources.
