Mariners who are [B]N[/B]ot [B]F[/B]it [B]F[/B]or [B]D[/B]uty can no longer just hang at the pool. If you are NFFD and all your leave is exhausted you go into a [B]L[/B]eave [B]W[/B]ith[B]O[/B]ut [B]P[/B]ay status. How many study groups did it take to figure out the obvious? This is what they did twenty years ago before the Command moved to Norfolk and under the influence of the brain dead Navy. The new regime was in such a rush and power struggle to get the old regime out that they threw away the baby with the bath water. I’m sure this moment of sanity will be eclipsed soon enough by some other bone headed move.
Yep, msc was always famous for reinventing the wheel about every fifteen years. I remember when I started there was no contract hotel, and no subsistence paid. I personally think they should go back to that time frame. At least then people were trying to get out of the pool. Now it’s a resort paid for by tax payers.
When I started in 1980, I stayed in a rooming house on Pomona Ave in JC and took two buses to get to Bldg 42. Then in '83-84 They converted part of the movie theatre into a flophouse for us. That place was known as the doghouse and it was a zoo!
Damn I hated sitting around in the Pool. I remember begging to be allowed to leave and go sit at home where they could call me and then dispatch me to a ship. Other people in the Pool looked at me like I had lost my mind for wanting to leave that Nirvana… I did everything I could to avoid that place.
It wasn’t a study group or survey. It was the law that had to be overcome. Those that were NFFD were placed on enforced leave. If they refused, which they routinely did, they were subject to disciplinary action. After generating the proposal, they had 30 days to respond during which, by law, they could remain in a duty status. but no S+Q. Those not from Norfolk or Sandog couldn’t work the system like this, so you didn’t see them there. it was always the Norfolk No-Load Knuckleheads that could milk it because they lived there. On day 29, they would miraculously become FFD and the whole game would start over. The law is in USC and CFR, not naval regs or MSC policy. One suggestion that N00H came up with was to take the NFFD’s and put them in “medical isolation” for their own protection and health. A room with no TV, no entertainment, just chairs with hourly muster for vital signs. After all, if they are NFFD, they have to be looked after, right? Office liked it, unions were OK with it, but the Medical types shot it down because it was actual work.