Duty on April 1

Well, I was actually offgoing. Interestingly enough, the Master Chief relieved me on a Saturday, an April Fool's Day (he came down about 30 minutes early, without a turnover at all said "I relieve you", when I said "really" he said "nope, April Fool's" and went back to his pre-shift brief).

Best joke of the morning...I'm doing my 0300 tour, and remember that Friday (3/31) had been an engineering department holiday (we just finished a major evolution in shiftwork, the Eng and Bull were trying to give guys a good deal this weekend). So my section, who had duty Friday (i.e., didn't get the good deal) are taking Monday off (a very good deal). Now the guys with duty Saturday and Sunday didn't make out so well.

So I'm thinking about this as I head to Maneuvering. Once there I tell the Shutdown Reactor Operator and Shutdown Electrical Operator "hey, I forgot to tell you, but Master Chief is letting Saturday's section relieve at noon instead of the normal 0900".

They bought it...and proceeded to spread the word to a) the Shutdown Roving Watch, then their reliefs. Oh, and on to the Engineering Duty Officer at his 0600 tour. By the time reville rolled around (0700 on weekends), the EDO had gone complaining to the Duty Officer (as luck would have it, the Engineer). He played along.

So 0800 rolls around, and who comes bopping down the hatch? The Master Chief, who is the oncoming Engineering Duty Petty Officer (my relief). And everyone is looking at him like "what are you doing here?" It quickly comes out that there was now "relieve at noon" plan, and as Master Chief is saying "who put that word out" I'm staring at the overhead above the turbines and whistling. Next words out of his mouth were "ET1, I'm gonna kick ya in the junk..."

posted by Robert Schumacher @ 8:09 PM