JO tour rotations...

Milestones of a Junior Officer's Career:

1. Finding out what boat/port he got. Can be as sweet as hardpack and chocolate chip cookies, or as bitter (and sour) as the navy's version of collard greens and that trash malt vinegar we have in the wardroom.
2. Getting your fish
3. PNEO. The promise land. Succeed gloriously or fail miserably and endure the few options you have, all of them painful and humiliating. Classic submarine force style.
4. Playing the slate!

Due to some training pipeline issues, the JO supply to the fleet was inconsistent, and caused some hiccups in rotation times, tour lengths, etc. etc. This resulted in some hate and discontent (i.e. sea tours that were anywhere from 40-46 months) by many a JO. Now, mention this to a senior officer, and of course you'll get the "RAMBLE RAMBLE back in MY day, JO tours were 45 months STANDARD and we did it UPHILL and in the SNOW, RAMBLE RAMBLE. JO tour's need to be longer so that JO's can learn the ship better, RAMBLE RAMBLE."

My reply to that is: go f-yourself. Back in the day, submarines were way freakin sweeter, with much less admin, red tape, politics, and general pussy-footing. Back in the day, you CPA'd closer, turned harder, and pulled into sweet ass ports like Thailand, India, France, Spain, Norway, etc., on a regular basis. Now, it's almost as if one boat per squadron gets that squadron's quota of "sweet port call." Obviously, it's budgeting, but either way, I know how it affects the life of a submariner.

So end tangent/rant. Back to the slate. Apparently, the PERS42 dude has a twitter page. That's freakin lame. I looked at it, and it might as well have updates such as "totally ate two hotdogs today for lunch - considering a third tomorrow" or "sorry I haven't gotten to your emails, because honestly, I didn't want this job either - my detailer screwed me! LOL!"
They should invest in a webpage that tracks, in real time, the size of the bonejob that the JO playing the slate is about to get.

http://twitter.com/PERS421C

Regardless of the issues with playing the slate, the real issue at hand is the way that CO's can control your tour length, and totally throw your life off track. This remains to be seen with my career, however seeing the direct affect of such puppeteering on other JO's left a sour taste in my mouth, and a sinking feeling when I think about the end of my sea tour (spoken: no end in sight).

SUB IC joke:
A guy walks into a bar, and spots a hot blond. She's surrounded by her dickhating girlfriends.
She makes clear advances towards him, but he doesn't know what to do.
She says: "I'll do anything you want, but you have to say right here, right now"
He says: " I want you to close me"

Terrible joke. Terrible...