STF

Question regarding the requirements to serve as Fcomm or AFcomm

Posted May 6, 2019, 8:52 p.m. by Admiral Joe P (Librarian / TECH Chairman) (Joe P)

Posted by Rear Admiral Daniel Lerner (Personnel Director, EGO) in Question regarding the requirements to serve as Fcomm or AFcomm
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I’m generally in agreement with the original proposal to remove the fleet restrictions for FComms and AFComms.

However, I’m not on board right now with the additional proposal to create new restrictions on who can be FComm and AFComm (i.e. the six-month rule, or the fact that the CO or XO was removed from their position). My concerns are as follows:


  • The impetus that led to the original proposal was the ongoing difficulty in finding qualified FComms and AFComms - to the extent that we need to remove mandatory restrictions that no long need to be mandatory (and keep in mind, nothing is stopping a potential President from using his or her own discretion about what criteria they want in an FComm - they may feel they want an FComm familiar with the ships in that specific fleet - it is just no longer a mandatory restriction). So I’m having difficulty thinking why this “returning member” issue has become such a signficiant problem that we need to outright ban all future Presidents from hiring FComms who have not been active for more than six months before their appointment - such that we create a new issue in finding qualified members. I would note that this term to members with less than six months activity level were put into assistant or second assistant positions. At least in the appointment I made a large factor was only one person even applied for the spot! And that person was extremely qualified and has already made improvements to my department. So why should I hurt my department by not being allowed to hire the only person available for that position?

There’s a lot here to unpack, so here’s my own list of bullet points.

  • Exactly what is the evidence that there is a shortage in qualified FComms and/or AFComms? I asked a similar question to Cale privately before she made this proposal and didn’t exactly get a clear answer (“similar” because, it was about another idea that she has not actually proposed, and thus phrased rather differently).
  • The fact that people actually were put into assistant positions (I wouldn’t count second assistant positions because they aren’t typically as vital) means that having a rule about this practice isn’t hypothetical, unlike other things that might be.

  • Related to the above (maybe the same issue from a different viewpoint), why are we so worried about how a future President will use their discretion. The President is specifically elected to make these calls about who will be on their cabinet, to use their experience and discretion and plans for the term to make the right call. If they want to take a risk (I’m not sure how much of a risk it actually is) in picking someone who may be a more recent arrival such that the person may step down before the term is over, it is the President who has to take on the responsibility of finding a new FComm. That’s the President’s prerogative in how they make their cabinet decisions. Maybe the President will have Joe’s philosophy and rule out anyone who doesn’t have at least six months of activity. But not every potential President will share that concern and I remain unclear over why we are forcing that on future Presidents. I became an FComm approximately 2-3 months after I returned to STF (maybe 4 months), and the new President and I had a lengthy discussion about the reason I returned and why i could be be counted on - and it was that President’s call to make.
    • The same new President who appointed you an FComm after you were only back for 2 months also went AWOL himself shortly thereafter, and exhibited lots of bad judgment throughout his entire term. Like, by running for President in the first place instead of finishing the replacement of the core piece of software that was necessary to replace in order to maintain our continuity of existence, which we only managed to replace in the nick of time after having a lot of big public drama nobody wanted after his term ended and starting the whole project all over again. So, you know what, yes, with your example I’d say there’s ample reason to challenge the assumption that we can and should trust the President to make good judgments. That’s a really bad assumption in practice, and it’s only an accident that his poor judgment worked out well in your individual case, when it worked out poorly in many other cases just with that one particular President.
    • Let’s not even list all of the other Presidents who have managed to win an election yet still exercise horribly bad judgment when it comes to personnel. I know you and I would agree about at least one in particular.
    • Let’s also not assume that winning an election automatically means that the President has earned the club’s trust. Elections aren’t exactly as competitive as they used to be.
    • This rule would apply to assistants also. We don’t give the President any discretion at all over assistants, and Fleet Commanders are limited in the amount of discretion they have. What is the argument for allowing Fleet Commanders to have more discretion than they do now, considering they aren’t really trusted to have it now?
    • This idea of “we could trust the President (or some designate) to make judgment calls” can be used to criticize any rule requirement that the club has for any position. Yet, nobody is talking about removing the rank requirement for GM, or even more basic membership requirements. Why is this one rule so special? Or are you actually advocating for a system in which everyone can pick anyone to do anything no matter how important it is or who the candidate is?

  • Even if the consensus is against me on the above points (and I hope it is not), where did six months comes from? It seems arbitrary, and it is a bit long in how things work in STF in my opinion. Even if have to have a set minimum active period (and I hope we leave it up to the individual Presidents), I would set three months - that is usually a good gauge to see if a person is sticking around in my opinion.
  • I think six is better. Longer is better than shorter because we want people who are capable of sticking around for ideally 8 months. The best indicator for if you’re capable of sticking around that long is if you’ve already managed to do that much without issues. Plus, if you’re frequently AWOL and your fleet staff isn’t paying close attention (e.g. they only look at the master roster at report time), it’s going to take at least 2 months for them to notice that you have a recurring activity problem.

  • Why are AFComms being included here? Okay, yes it can be disruptive when a new FComm has to be filled (although not nearly as disruptive as when we need a new CO). But an AFComm? So what if an FComm has to replace an AFComm mid-term - it is not an unusual occurrence, and nothing falls apart in the interim. In fact, I would say an assistant position is the best place to test how committed a person is before putting them in the cabinet position.
  • I just proposed this as a simple modification to Cale’s suggestion, and Cale wrote her change to include assistants. However, I would make the case that exactly because the AFComm may have to step in to be a cabinet member, we should know that they’re going to be at least capable of being around to do that if they have to. That said, I don’t think it’s a bad idea to have 6 months be the rule for the FComm and 3 months for the AFComm, since the requirements are lower for the AFComm anyway (they aren’t required to be a CO, but the FComm is).

    So for those reasons, I do not support adding this additional, mandated restrictions into the bylaw. We should leave this for the President’s discretion rather than fettering their discretion.

    Daniel

    I think failures in Presidential discretion have been rampant for the past decade, so unfettered discretion is overdue for a review itself.

    – Joe


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