"- and nothing to prove or lose in "trouble" -"
I take huge issue with this statement with regard to the situation. If you're an Ensign and you're going to completely defer to experience without your own two cents, there's a term for you: unqualified. You should never be asking the question "what do I do now," but instead stating "Senior, I'm going to need some help on this one." There's a difference between being inexperienced and sounding incompetent.
That being said, listen to your non-coms, because they've done this before. But junior officers should always be trying to be more than just the legal bottom line to a tricky situation...while it's true that part of our job is to take complete and total responsibility if things go wrong, it's not our real calling. If Ensigns are truly worthless, there wouldn't be Ensigns; don't fall into this trap.
If a warrant officer or senior enlisted truly feels they have nothing to lose or prove, their experience isn't worth the asking...better to read the manual. A good, competent senior enlisted person cares deeply about the consequences and rewards of how their junior people are trained, and while it's their prerogative to hang a jackass Ensign out to dry, it doesn't get anyone anywhere. Anyone can be incompetent, but there's a fun element of schadenfreude when it's the inexperienced guy who gets paid more and went to college.
So: it might be fun to let the new guy screw himself to prove a point, but if I found anyone I'm working with doing that in wartime, I'd kick them off the crew. There's a time and a place, and JOs should take care of our own, whether it's correcting an arrogant asshole or letting a competent "new guy" have some extra responsibility. Don't further an already negative view of junior officers by letting funny anecdotes become the expectation.
I take huge issue with this statement with regard to the situation. If you're an Ensign and you're going to completely defer to experience without your own two cents, there's a term for you: unqualified. You should never be asking the question "what do I do now," but instead stating "Senior, I'm going to need some help on this one." There's a difference between being inexperienced and sounding incompetent.
That being said, listen to your non-coms, because they've done this before. But junior officers should always be trying to be more than just the legal bottom line to a tricky situation...while it's true that part of our job is to take complete and total responsibility if things go wrong, it's not our real calling. If Ensigns are truly worthless, there wouldn't be Ensigns; don't fall into this trap.
If a warrant officer or senior enlisted truly feels they have nothing to lose or prove, their experience isn't worth the asking...better to read the manual. A good, competent senior enlisted person cares deeply about the consequences and rewards of how their junior people are trained, and while it's their prerogative to hang a jackass Ensign out to dry, it doesn't get anyone anywhere. Anyone can be incompetent, but there's a fun element of schadenfreude when it's the inexperienced guy who gets paid more and went to college.
So: it might be fun to let the new guy screw himself to prove a point, but if I found anyone I'm working with doing that in wartime, I'd kick them off the crew. There's a time and a place, and JOs should take care of our own, whether it's correcting an arrogant asshole or letting a competent "new guy" have some extra responsibility. Don't further an already negative view of junior officers by letting funny anecdotes become the expectation.
