And he said, when the lines were singled: “You did everything I’d do, but 30 seconds later.”

It is a real statement made to me, after morring at Naval Weapons Station, Yorktown, VA for an offload of ordnance.

about 45 minutes earlier, Captain Maixner asked “Have you ever taken one (SPRUANCE Class DD) to the pier without tugs?”

What brought this stroy back from the memory banks is the current events…of how one can sit and listen to someone for 20+ years, then decide what is being said is depicable…

More later…work calls…but…it is a good story about life aboard a Navy vessel…

Last week, I began discussing the Ship’s Servicemen and my experiences.

At the present, work is busy (and good), so I have to catch up with the story of CDR Lightley and the laundry aboard USS MILWAUKEE (AOR-2). I promise it will be of great entertainment value to those who have “been there” when things went haywire (or, in this case, whites came back as grays…). Return late tonight, or tomorrow ro find out who did what to who…

A trackback, now and then, would be nice, but…no pressure.

Continuing in the vein of the last two weeks, more on the (mundane) life at sea: The SHs. Ship’s Servicemen. Function: Four main things, to me, a non-Supply type, looking at how it affected my life:

• Ship’s Barbers
• Ship’s Laundry
• Ship’s Store Operator
• “Gedunk” Machine Fillers

First: Ship’s Barbers - Yes, they cut hair. Somewhere on the ship, there is a small to medium sized space, in my case I have seen from 3 chairs (on an AOR) to one (DDs/FFGs). On the door, the day’s appointment times, maybe tomorrows, too. Walk by and scribble your name in the 15 minute block. Some ships allow call in appointments to all, some to officers and chiefs. The shop isn’t open 24/7, but usually human like “business hours” and some evening periods, too. For me, an an XO, the Barber shop had more than one purpose. It was a 15 minute Q&A period with an SH1, plenty seasoned and with a finger on the pulse of the crew, where information flowed both directions. He would clue me in on issues not getting a fair shot, I could provide more detailed explanations for situations/operations for the general edification of those not getting the gouge via the chain of command, or in need of clarification. It was a great safety valve. Not only was this a feature I used, but one day, the CO asked me to schedule him for a haircut. I later provided him the time. That evening, as we sat after 8 o’clock reports covering the day, he commented: When you set me up for a haircut, it’s with SH1….we smiled, knowing why. Done, was the response, and it always was henceforth.

Readers: Got a good “sea story” about the barbers aboard? Drop it off in the comments. I know there are plenty. Other SH stories? Hold them and come back weekly to connect them to the functional areas above, please! The last week of SH stories will be noted and then batteries released for any topics not covered.

Next week: The Ship’s Laundry and activating the bleach.

Post your trackbacks!

Last Wednesday, I “scribbled” some recollections, in a narrative format, or how life at sea is not always exciting, and sometimes, it’s mind-numbing, and tough to stay awake, let alone alert. The words were from a first person experience, as I stood Bridge and Combat Information Center watches most of my sea going career, with a 1/2 of a tour (the other half was spent in drydock for an overhaul), as an Engineering Officer of the Watch. Below decks, there is a world seldom considered in the detail that is intrinsic in keeping a vessel operational, in port, as well as at sea.

I didn’t ask to be an engineer, well, there was the third blank on the “preference card” that had to be filled in, as my chosen career field gave me but three choices: Combat Systems, Operations and…yep, Engineering. I put “it” last, having served my prior 5 years mostly in Combat Systems, with a beginning tour of two years in two of the Operations Department divisions. I wanted to be where things left the ship with purpose, at high speed, to damage and destroy those formed against us on land and sea. Someone in the detailers shop (I know understand they are “career managers,” but we had other, more colorful names for those who wandered the halls of the Navy Annex (then in Arlington, VA) treating us like so many cards in a playing deck, sending us to do the bidding of “The Navy.”

So, I went to a tour as Engineering Officer (which I have blogged about before) and found it engaging, rewarding, tough mentally to keep all things to all standards demanded by the many upper levels of the chain of command, but, when all was said and done, fun. Not without it’s degree of boredom, mind you, but only standing the EOOW watch, spared me from having to live what my men did: Those who kept the “plant” operational and safe, day and night, alongside the pier, at anchor, or while slicing through the tall waves of an angry sea. A new appreciation grew within me for the “snipes,” who made it happen.

Engineering watches varied from sitting in a space for several hours, which might also have been air conditioned for the electronics of the gyros (and later inertial navigation system), or hot, and humid areas, such as the “Main Spaces.” If you had a watch in a space, there were many tasks, firstly, to keep the systems within the space in the operational condition as required by the Ship’s current operations. Many times, that was a handful, especially during drills, be they for the engineering readiness, or for the “upper deck” guys. Other times, the turbines and compressors and pumps and generators would be doing the same thing all watch. Then, there was routine checks to be made. Just about every space had a clipboard with log sheets of various design that the watchstanders would record readings of various equipments. More often than not, it was on an hourly basis, unless you suspected something wasn’t running well, but it wasn’t out of spec yet. The men knew these things, when the unit wasn’t sounding “normal” to them. The logs would be reviewed by supervisors, who would circle reading outside of the accepted ranges in red. Those items would then attract the scrutiny required (or should) to determine if maybe services, like cooling water, or air, or fuel might be misaligned, or if there was a failure at hand. The Engineering Officer of the Watch was the interface, to be consulted, and then to determine if the Engineer Officer was to be called, or, in a more immediate case, the Officer of the Deck.

When there weren’t reading to be taken on a long watch, there was usually plenty of preventive maintenance to be taken care of on off line equipment. And, when those tasks ran short, professional manuals/correspondence courses could be read. That’s not to say a paperback or two of a few hundred haven’t been read under those circumstances, but being ready all the time sometimes left that opportunity.

Besides in the watches who spent their 4 hours in a single space, there was the rover, the “Sounding and Security” watchstander, who, armed with a clipboard of sheets, a flashlight, and a sounding tape, would patrol below the main deck, keeping an eye on equipment in unmanned spaces, and also checking that locked spaces were, good order and discipline was in effect, and that where we had fluids in the ship, they were at the levels we projected, neither increasing or decreasing in volume beyond what operational requirements imposed. He also was charged with monitoring everywhere he traveled for general fire safety.

These things happened 24/7, even when “Cold Iron” (the main plant being secured, most often when alongside a pier and receiving shore power and water), albeit with lesser manning and the EOOW responsibility shifted to the Engineering Duty Officer of the day’s duty section, himself a qualified EOOW, in the event the ship had to “light off” and put to sea.

All the while, these men (and now women) made sure the “twidgets” had 60hz power, as well as 400hz power, air conditioning, water, chilled water, and lights to make a mere ship into a warship.

For the crew at large, they made sure the berthing spaces had water, to include hot water for showers, working “facilities” and air conditioning, too. They did and do this 24/7/365. Most often, they are never thanked properly for their daily and nightly exertions, as it’s just expected they will make things go. Almost all of them are below decks when entering port, returning home from the long deployment, where they can’t wacth for the family and friends on the pier. When the whistle blows and the words “MOORED! SHIFT COLORS!” is announced, they have several hours of work head to “wrap up” the plant before changing into either a dress uniform of their civies to head home. Due to various FAA and other restrictions, just about everything used by the topside sailors has been secured for hours, such as air search radars, missile and gun systems. The engineering plant stays running until the CO is satisfied the ship if properly moored with six standard mooring lines, doubled fore and aft. At that point, shutting down the plant begins, and, now having large metal components being hot from being operational, specific , time tested procedures are in place to let equipment, such as the propeller shafts, to slowly rotate the gear until it is basically at ambient temperatures, lest you find a “warped” shaft next time you prepare to head to sea.

Beyond that, shore power cables have to be hauled aboard the ship, connected and then paralleled with the ship’s electrical power, before the generators may be secured. This is a physical task, which, requires precision for the power shift to avoid damaging major electronic components of the Combat System. Fresh water and sewage system connections also have to be made and checked for operation, at the same time the rest of the crew is busy streaming off the ship to be greeted by the crowd ashore.

That’s by a small glimpse of what happens to make the ship operate, out of the eyes of the public, and sometimes taken for granted by some of the crew, as well. My tour in Engineering allowed me to see the hard and tedious, yet vitally important work that makes warship out an otherwise “shore battery.”

Don’t forget to thank your local “snipe” for keeping your gear supported and the hot showers you enjoy.

Sea stories? You want sea stories? Later…and I plan to bore you with one about life at sea….no kidding. More when I get “re-attached” at lunch time.

OK, it’s later. Life at sea…it’s not a wonderful life. Yes, the stars assail the eyes with displays “landlubbers” seldom are witness to. The sea life far out in the ocean will give you pause and let your mind settle on the moment for some time, considering the very different environment they occupy, where you are but an interlopper for a brief time, passing through, as it were, on your way to another part of the solid ground that emerges above the wave tops. Large and small, and sizes in between, were something of wonder to myself and my shipmates, mostly in a visual sense, but the sonar technicians also experienced the audible dimension of the creatures.

While we sail in formation, in the company of the ships of our battle or amphibious groups, where you have come to recognize voices on the radio, particular speech patterns, and associated watch changing schedules, there are many times you are “in transit,” alone with the sea and those trapped aboard with you, sometimes for weeks, but maybe only days at a time.

You may be far from the sea lanes, where merchants ply the most cost efficient route from their departure to their destinations. There are times not even air travel crosses the sky above. It is a blessing and a curse. The radios, for the most part, remain silent. Even the usually cluttered VHF for international bridge-to-bridge communications speaks nothingness to the bridge watch team. You scan the horizon, straining for some glimpse, not a breaking wave some 7-8 miles away, but the hint of a tall mast, of some vessel “hull down” on the other side of the line that separates sea from sky, but none comes. The Quartermaster of the Watch brings you the weather observation message, coded in short, well established groups, to be released at under your signature, in the stead of the Commanding Officer, so the world may know the sea surface temperature, wind direction and speed and cloud cover in your locale, a time honored tradition, suspended only when your track is classified. It is the work of centuries of sailors, mundane in each instance, yet monumental in it’s reach, to pass along a greater understanding of the weather patterns of the planet.

The sweep of the radar beams only disclose “noise” in our eyes. Rough seas and periodic anomalies in the density of pockets of air are not items of great interest, but worthy of note. Grist for the mind’s mill, with possible indications of the future environment to be experienced. We still stare at the blackened background, and just behind the ghostly green or orange “sweep” indication, as it completes each revolution, and seamlessly starts over, without hesitation, to uncomplainingly do it once more, and many more times, too. You can suddenly realize, much like a long drive on a empty interstate, that you have been awake and almost sleep simultaneously, for having focused so intently on ensuring you would first see the track of a target appear.

The striking of the Ship’s Bell, to indicate the passage of the watch in unconsciously heard and recorded. The “Ship’s Routine,” from the pages of the Ship’s Organization and Regulation Manual (SORM), is passed, as modified by the Plan of the Day (POD), as it has been for days now. Those regular events, such as Muster for Instruction and Inspection, Officer’s Call, Messing and Berthing Inspection, early chow, the regular meals and the setting of the watches, once more, have become a part of your natural circadian rhythm, and you haven’t even realized it. Your body responds by going somewhere, or making certain log entries in a stage of awakening just below the surface. The words are even routine, to the newly assigned and those who have sailed the seas before you. They are placed there by those of the US Navy, and the British Navy before that, a part of custom and tradition and expectation, and, most importantly as a definition of normality, easily scanned by the eyes of the chain of command and others who may trouble themselves to peruse the records in the future, gathered from the Naval Archives, to help them tell a tale of events and lives at sea.

The sunset comes, lighting is altered, “darken ship” curtains are rigged in passageways leading to the weather decks. Despite the lack of any detected traffic, above, on or below the sea, only navigational lights will be displayed to any eyes, human or otherwise. Internal checks are performed by the damage control petty officers, to make sure spaces not in regular use for the night hours are secured, protected from flooding and fire. Others sweep assigned areas, and collect the trash, as the “20 to 24″ watch teams settle in.

The darkness adds another dimension to the day. The body tends to relax and despite the mandate for full alertness, the tiredness becomes observable. It may come as inattention to the task at hand, preferring to “shoot the bull” with shipmates on things of other topics, or in people showing physical signs of the inability to stay alert. It is not the domain of the enlisted or officer, but that of all aboard.

Despite the low level of local activity, the ship is never out of reach of routine reports required from “shore duty” sailors and civil servants, nor the umbilical of communications via radio, with the requests and “ADTAKES,” that can flow like a small stream, or a breaking dam. In addition, the exercise of regular maintenance and training continues, providing a full daylight working experience, that still leaves other tasks undone. All who have them steal time from sleep in order to catch up, then hope to bag some shut eye before they must rise, dress, brush their teeth, maybe eat, before saying “I relieve you” to a shipmate at midnight or at 3:45AM.

On the bridge, your mind prods you to continue to seek out something “non-routine” just to keep the synapses functional so as to shun the tiredness. You try to comply, but the outside world does not comply. You find a gap between the commercial radar set bracket and a mounted radio speaker and handset along the front of the Bridge, where you might substitute their support for that of your own skeleton. The goal:  Remain upright in a posture of alertness to the eyes of the other observers, yet accepting some respite from the hard decks under your feet.  You lean in and are both refreshed and relaxed for a moment. Then the conscience goes to work, silently speaking words like “duty,” “responsibility,” and related ones to you, all the while beckoning you to close your eyes and allow the rest you need to be fulfilled.

In the Combat Information Center, or Combat Direction Center, seated at your console in a large padded chair, complete with arm rests, the call is greater, the struggle to resist more intense. Here, most watch standing tasks do not allow you to be able to rise and move about, which at least, the bridge team has the luxury of doing.

The night goes on, the sunlight, possibly muted by cloud cover will come, soon, soon, you hope, before you are numbed completely.

And then it begins again, with the coming of the dawn.

Post your trackbacks in the meantime, or anytime.

A home for wayward links is now available here.

Sea Stories delayed due to work assignments…

I’ve got a short story today, one related to the current political buzzword: “Change.”

At one command, I worked for a driven man. He slept some during the day, but mostly spent his nights awake, once making the remark “That’s how you get out of writing night orders!” (forgetting he only edited and signed what the navigator handed to him, but that’s another sea story).

Anyhow, the scheduled change of command was coming, and we were looking forward to “change.” In our minds, this sort of management style was, shall we say “difficult” to perform under, yet we drove on, knowing the tunnel was a one way traffic flow, and the several lights we had seen ahead had turned into the virtual trains that are joked about, but this time the lighting at 000 deg relative was natural light.

An amount of work had been backlogged by the leadership’s working ethic, or perhaps I should say desire to determine exactly the right tone, wording and nuanced references. Many, many edits took place of reports leaving the command. So, there we were, at sea, during a fleet exercise for the upcoming deployment, with full watch standing responsibilities, with the direction to get everything wrapped up.

Needless to say, once more, sleep was an almost unheard of luxury for about a week. One late evening, the Ops Boss and I were in the donated staff space on our guest vessel, slogging through our assigned tasks, adding some manufactured cheer to our attitudes, when all of a sudden, he looked at me and said: “What if he’s (the incoming commander) worse?” Hard, in that moment, to imagine, but there was that possibility. We got quiet and went back to work. At about 0230 on the morning of the change of command (at sea, working environment, with the Battle Group Commander heloing over to speak), I was told, as the signature went on the report that had been in the works for 6 months, that it was my fault that it was late (2 months at that point). A cheery “Aye, aye, sir” was all I could dare to respond with. That job was now done.

“Change” occurred about 1100 that morning. After lunch, we were ordered to the commander’s cabin, he looked about, with a big grin on his face and asked “did everyone get enough sleep last night?” Oh, no….He continued, as no one said a word: “Get to bed. I can’t afford tired people making bad decisions. I’ll take the watch and call you when I’m getting tired.”

Needless to say, there was major change in the working environment.

Open trackbacks here.

Sea story? I’m going “green” and recycling this post It was part I of a many part serial posting titled “The Value of the Military Skill Set.” I wrote it while trying to encapsulate what it was I, and others working around me, had learned in the service of the country and how that might translate into useful knowledge for a job in the civilian world. Take any shots you want at the writing. Make it better.

Thanks for the inputs in advance.

Update: Link to the Feb 2005 post is fixed….

Found while “surfing,” but it rings so true for me:

From the USS KIRK (FF-1087) website:

* I liked standing on the bridge wing at sunrise with salt spray in my face and clean ocean winds whipping in from the four quarters of the globe - the destroyer beneath me feeling like a living thing as her engines drove her swiftly through the sea.

* I liked the sounds of the Navy - the piercing trill of the boatswains pipe, the syncopated clangor of the ship’s bell on the quarterdeck, the harsh squawk of the 1MC, and the strong language and laughter of sailors at work.

* I liked Navy vessels - nervous darting destroyers, plodding fleet auxiliaries and amphibs, sleek submarines and steady solid aircraft carriers.

* I liked the proud names of Navy ships: Midway, Lexington, Saratoga, Coral Sea, Antietam, Valley Forge - memorials of great battles won and tribulations overcome.

* I liked the lean angular names of Navy “tin-cans” and escorts - Barney, Dahlgren, Mullinix, McCloy, Damato, Leftwich, Mills - mementos of heroes who went before us. And the others - San Jose, San Diego, Los Angeles, St. Paul, Chicago - named for our cities.

* I liked the tempo of a Navy band blaring through the topside speakers as we pulled away from the oiler after refueling at sea.

* I liked liberty call and the spicy scent of a foreign port.

* I even liked the never ending paperwork and all hands working parties as my ship filled herself with the multitude of supplies, both mundane and to cut ties to the land and carry out her mission anywhere on the globe where there was water to float her.

* I liked sailors, officers and enlisted men from all parts of the land, farms of the Midwest, small towns of New England, from the cities, the mountains and the prairies, from all walks of life. I trusted and depended on them as they trusted and depended on me - for professional competence, for comradeship, for strength and courage. In a word, they were “shipmates”; then and forever.

* I liked the surge of adventure in my heart, when the word was passed: “Now set the special sea and anchor detail - all hands to quarters for leaving port,” and I liked the infectious thrill of sighting home again, with the waving hands of welcome from family and friends waiting pier side.

* The work was hard and dangerous; the going rough at times; the parting from loved ones painful, but the companionship of robust Navy laughter, the “all for one and one for all” philosophy of the sea was ever present.

* I liked the serenity of the sea after a day of hard ship’s work, as flying fish flitted across the wave tops and sunset gave way to night.

* I liked the feel of the Navy in darkness - the masthead and range lights, the red and green navigation lights and stern light, the pulsating phosphorescence of radar repeaters - they cut through the dusk and joined with the mirror of stars overhead. And I liked drifting off to sleep lulled by the myriad noises large and small that told me that my ship was alive and well, and that my shipmates on watch would keep me safe.

* I liked quiet midwatches with the aroma of strong coffee - the lifeblood of the Navy permeating everywhere.

* And I liked hectic watches when the exacting minuet of haze-gray shapes racing at flank speed kept all hands on a razor edge of alertness.

* I liked the sudden electricity of “General quarters, general quarters, all hands man your battle stations,” followed by the hurried clamor of running feet on ladders and the resounding thump of watertight doors as the ship transformed herself in a few brief seconds from a peaceful workplace to a weapon of war - ready for anything.

* And I liked the sight of space-age equipment manned by youngsters clad in dungarees and sound-powered phones that their grandfathers would still recognize.

* I liked the traditions of the Navy and the men and women who made them. I liked the proud names of Navy heroes: Halsey, Nimitz, Perry, Farragut, John Paul Jones, and Burke. A sailor could find much in the Navy: comrades-in-arms, pride in self and country, mastery of the seaman’s trade. An adolescent could find adulthood.

* In years to come, when sailors are home from the sea, they will still remember with fondness and respect the ocean in all its moods - the impossible shimmering mirror calm and the storm-tossed green water surging over the bow. And then there will come again a faint whiff of stack gas, a faint echo of engine and rudder orders, a vision of the bright bunting of signal flags snapping at the yardarm, a refrain of hearty laughter in the wardroom and chief’s quarters and mess decks.

* Gone ashore for good they will grow wistful about their Navy days, when the seas belonged to them and a new port of call was ever over the horizon.

* Remembering this, they will stand taller and say, “I WAS A SAILOR ONCE.”

Author Unknown

Well done, Unknown.

Tracked back @ Cao’s Blog

Found in an un-named SWO forum: Why it’s better to work at MacDonald’s than on a Sub:

1) No McORSE
2) If you have to take a piss, you can go take a piss. No questions asked.
3) You’ll never have to go port and starboard on the fryer.
4) Better pay.
5) The sun.
6) Air.
7) The boxes of food at McDonald’s aren’t stamped “Rejected by Hardee’s” or “Not fit for human consumption”.
Cool The ability to call in sick.
9) The ability to quit.
10) McDonald’s doesn’t get their uniforms from the same company as the state penitentiary.
11) McDonald’s doesn’t deploy.
12) They have actual janitors.
13) No McDrills.
14) The grill breaks, you CALL someone to fix it.
15) At least your boss accepts that he’s a clown.
16) No McResin Discharge.
17) No all night hydro on the fryer.
18) Cool One word: overtime.
19) Every day is slider day!
20) At McDonald’s, you will never, EVER, worry about being put in prison for ten years because you told your wife what the secret sauce is.
21) They pay you for training.
22) You’ll never die a horrible, excruciating death from the crush depth implosion of a McDonald’s.
23) No steam piping.
24) No time at McDonald’s will you hear your boss give a thirty minute dissertation over the P.A. on the importance of being at the register 15 minutes early.
25) They won’t ask you about Taco Bell operations on the advancement test.
26) You get to leave work EVERY day at the end.
27) McDonald’s will eventually fire the really stupid employees.
28) Cool Two words: Happy Meals.
29) McDonald’s doesn’t look like a big black turd.
30) Grimace doesn’t do Vulcan Death Watches.
31) McDonald’s has a slide out back.
32) To do something at McDonald’s, you look at the color coded chart, not OP umpty-squat, chapter whatever, reference 3, ACN B, rev 17.
33) If McDonald’s catches fire, you LEAVE.
34) No McSmall Valve Maintenance.
35) No McCOB.
36) Leaving McDonald’s in an emergency doesn’t require a steinke hood and a lot of praying.
37) The coffee’s better.
38) Cool Someone else makes the water.
39) You don’t have to live there to work there.
40) The only cones come from the ice cream machine.
41) McDonald’s doesn’t go into dry-dock. (again and again)
42) ALL the tests are multiple choice.
43) Their TV commercials are a lot cooler.
44) Three words: Sea Foam Green.
45) Stock in McDonald’s is worth something. The Navy is a part of an operation that is 6 trillion dollars in the hole.
46) Special sauce isn’t “hand made”.
47) No McBilges to clean.
48) Cool Opening for business doesn’t require a full day of preparations and everyone to show up for a brief at 0230.
49) Three words: Stupid ass hats.
50) Personnel inspection requirements are written on the door. (No shirt, no shoes, no service)
51) At McDonald’s, dislocating your shoulder is not considered getting the good deal.
52) McDonald’s never had an accident that cause a person to be stuck to the ceiling impaled on a french fry. (i.e.. No Mc-SL1)
53) Because you deserve a break today.
54) Even the little Hamburglar is cooler than a goat.
55) Mayor McCheese doesn’t wield a righteous thumb of indignation.
56) You can choose which McDonald’s you want to work at.
57) If you want to buy your boss a beer, that’s okay.
58) Cool If you want to tell your boss to screw off, that’s okay too.
59) There is no Uniform Code of McDonald’s Justice to deal with.
60) The news comes from USA Today, not Ric Crawford, GS-12.
61) No one will rack you out at 0200 in the morning to start the grill.
62) Chances of you getting called back after you get off work are pretty darn slim.
63) Putting the pickle on the hamburger doesn’t require an QA-34 and a signature to be used against you in a court of law, should they want you.
64) The only guy in a silly yellow suit is Ronald.
65) How many McDonald’s were sunk in W.W.II?
66) Fixing the register doesn’t require a rubber room and a rope man.
67) Nothing on the menu contains the phrases, “Horse cock” or “baboon ass”.
68) Cool At McDonald’s, the riders would have to leave at closing time.
69) $2.99 is a meal price, not a daily wage at McDonald’s.
70) You don’t have to go single register operations if someone spills a Coke.
71) McDonald’s doesn’t require a 24 hour Shutdown Register Operator and McRoving Watch.
72) McDonald’s doesn’t call your house at 0530 in the morning blaring some awful antiquated song about a bugler just to wake you up.
73) No McRadcon.
74) At McDonald’s, your boss will never make you drive him around for two and a half months so he can spy on Wendy’s.
75) You will never be locked in for 24 hours pretending to operate everything. (i.e. no McFastcruise)
75.5) You don’t have to come in to work at 0700 only to wait around for an hour waiting for your boss to tell you things you already know.
76) At McDonald’s you will never hear, “Shake machine troubleshooting team, and all off watch drink makers, lay aft.”
77) No McGMT.
78) Cool At McDonald’s you don’t have to route a 1250 for a new stack of cups.
79) If you burn a hamburger they won’t take away half a month’s pay for two months and restrict you to the playground.
80) Knowledge of the material of construction and variable operating characteristics of the grill are not prerequisites for operation.
81) You don’t have to take apart the shake machine once a quarter just because.
82) You don’t have to share your bed with two coworkers.
83) You don’t have to shave off your goatee when the district manager comes.
84) At McDonald’s, when the toilet clogs, you don’t rig pressurized air to the head.
85) You don’t have to shut everything off and call in the last shift to start the grill.
86) Early in the morning, you don’t cycle the drink machine on and off just for practice.
87) You scrub the floors because it’s dirty, not because it’s Wednesday.
88) Cool There is almost always plenty of parking. If not, drive through.
89) Don’t like what you got? Take it back.
90) You don’t have to take a turbidity prior to putting a new catsup dispenser on service.
91) Failure of the warming oven door to open is not a panic causing event. It will also not preclude you from starting another fryer or pulling the fries out of the vat due to interlock.
92) No Mc-HPACs.
93) No one hates it so bad they refer to it simply as “The Mac”.
94) No 16 hour days at McDonald’s prototype making burgers in the middle of the desert for no one.
95) If you wipe up a ketchup spill at McDonald’s, you don’t have to let it dry before you throw it away.
96) They won’t secure one of the register operators to keep track of the people going into Burger King.
97) You don’t have to have permission from the Manager, Assistant Manager, and Register Operator before going into the freezer.
98) Cool At McDonald’s, the toilet paper stays in the bathroom, not on the dinner table.
99) You don’t have to completely undress to pinch a loaf.
100) ALL of the articles of the Constitution apply to you at McDonald’s.