A Day In the Shipyards. Just for Fun!

I thought for sheer entertainment value I would run you through one or our typical shipyard days. The day REALLY starts the night before if you are any sort of smart, which after about day three of shipyard life you start to pick up on. Before you totally crash at the late party hour of 1900 you will need to lay out your uniform and pack tomorrow's lunch if you cannot stand ship food and are getting too broke to by roach coach cuisine (or too chubby), however it is only day two and you forget to pack lunch. 0400 rolls around, you pry yourself from the bed, brush teeth, get dressed, kiss your hubby hello and goodbye (he worked late and you were out cold when he came in last night) and march out into the freezing VA morning. Next, LOVE the hell out this 1998 BMW with heated seats and heated steering wheel and drive off to work trying to wake up along the way. It takes 20-25 minutes to get the shipyard parking lot. This is frustrating since your morning commute USED to be 10-15 minutes, 5 if the stars were aligned right. Now you are in the lot staring at the gate and the LONG walk you must mentally prepare for. You see, it took 20-25 minutes to drive here and now it will take 15-20 minutes to walk to the ship. Maybe by month three you will be sprinting it faster, but not week one. So pep talk time over, you peel yourself off your cushy warm seat and lock your doors, heave a sigh and buckle in for the cold walk. Minute 22, (you are especially sore and tired this morning and the extra two minutes are needed to reach the steps to the ship) Now you are at the base of these stairs....let's talk about the stairs. There are 4 flights if you will. They are laid out much like a typical set of house stairs, up one, sharp turn to the right up one ect. Here is the BIG difference, there are signs reminding you to treat these stairs as vertical ladders....yeah there is a slant but not much of one. Also there is about a two to three inch difference in the width of these stairs. That sure doesn't sound like much, but when you are going down, 2-3 inches can be a huge difference. But we cannot go down until we go up....By flight two you are starting to get winded, let's face it, you bought a treadmill not a stairmaster, this sucks! Flight 3....only one more left! You have discovered a pattern in the stairs...you were counting to distract yourself from your burning legs and lungs...flight 1, 15 steps, flight 2, 20 steps, flight 3, 15 steps....crap! Flight 4, 20!!! Finally you are at the top and NO rest for the weary because the young whipper snapper on your heels is wondering why you are doubled over in the one way lane and for some reason is in a big hurry to start his day....so you march on through this twisty turny weird mess of....wtf!! 3 more steps up! Are you kidding me!! Ok that is over, off to the plank as I call it and now we are finally on board! Your shop is all the way in the back and of course up the ramp, yes more up! By the time you reach the shop you are sweaty and exhausted and it is only 0515! The shop of course is freezing cold because they have shut down all ventilation and heaters so in about five minutes you will be shivering! You FALL into a chair and sit for a few minutes (cue shivering)....now it is time to check tools. Look at every single one in every single drawer of every single box. The next two hours are as follows: Meeting, training, cleaning stations. And finally at 0800 you can start the day. I will run through our maintenance day. Check your list of maintenance for the day (aka the 13 week), try to get into the locked shop NO one wants to man but the maintenance books are kept in. Find out your maintenance has no MRC card and you must walk to the barge to print one out.....WHAT!!!!??? CRAP! Sigh, back across the ship, down the ramp, across the plank, windy passage way, down 4 flights of "treat like a vertical ladder" staircase, across the pier a ways up a plank, into the barge, up a ladder well and into the office where all of AIMD (your department) has 5 computers to share amongst 50 people....wait because everyone else's stuff is way more important that your maintenance. After about 30 minutes of waiting get yelled at for sitting in the office not doing anything...finally a computer! As soon as you sit down, get asked "how long are you going to be?" Give the evil death glare to the asshat who poses this really irritating question and do what you have to do. So now you have your MRC printed out, guess what is next.....YAY! That trek back to the ship! This time you are too annoyed to count stairs and are thinking instead that if you don't lose at least 20 more pounds in the next 4 months of this hell, you and Uncle Sam are going to box...Back in your shop you now are armed with what you need to do. Look over your MRC (this is a step by step list of how to do your maintenance....there is going to be "test" so read it carefully!) You need hazmat....back to the front of the ship, at least it is not on the barge! OK, now you can DO the maintenance! 5 whole minutes, that is all that takes! Take hazmat back, sign off the 13 week, guess what is next....jump on the computer to sign off the work in SKED....where are the computers? $#*! back to the barge....wait for a computer, or cry a lot and AS1 Awesome will let you sign it off in his log in...Did I mention it is a duty day and you have watch at 1130? It is now 1030, you haven't eaten or even been to the head and you have to be back on the ship in 45 minutes (if you are not early you are late). Go get in line for food and get told they are not going to serve you until 1045! That leaves you 15 minutes to get through the line, sit down and scarf this weird stuff they call food (really wish you had packed that lunch) bus your tray, drag yourself back to the ship...literally drag. Just in time you are at the quarterdeck were you are going to stand for the next 5 hours. Believe it or not, you are excited about this because at least you know you will not have to go back to the barge! After 5 long hours of watch, you are sore, tired and especially cranky but your day is not over. it is 1630 and sweepers is in 1 hour. You have 30 minutes before they close the chow line...so back up the ramp to the shop where you have stashed your sleeping bag, pillow and everything else you will need for the night then off down the ramp, across the plank, windy passageway, stairs of death and to the barge. Put your bedding in a bed, not just, for you OH NO! We are hot racking as it is called, everyone shares....pray the girl who slept here last night isn't totally gross. Run off to dinner (again wish you had packed some real food) and then it is time for sweepers....the best part of 1730 sweepers is that the day is almost over. Go clean a bathroom or hallway or whatever silly thing you are told to do and thank the Gods of legs that they didn't make you go back to the ship to clean! TRAINING, this is just another way for them to keep you away from your rack a little longer than necessary. Training is at 1830 remember your new pass the hell out time is 1900 so this is pushing it guys! Fortunately no one really wants to be here so training is short and sweet, plus you have strategically placed yourself to get a muster sheet early on so you don't have to wait around after training for it. smile emoticon good girl! Can't go to bed just yet since now the only people here are duty section personnel and you can finally get on a computer and check your three weeks worth of emails and do some online training. It is an hour past your bedtime and you are finally ready to go to berthing. You jump into a shower that for a change has just the right amount of water pressure AND is warm...double prizes! You make up your rack which is weird in comparison to what you are used to....How is it even possible to make a rack WORSE than what you are used to??? Who thinks that it is a great idea to put a three inch space between a rack and the wall? Now you have to worry about everything falling out of the rack, plus you feel unsafe yourself and while you know you cannot fit in the three inches of death space, it makes you feel like you have NO support. Needless to say that even with the pain killers you took for your legs and feet and back, and the NYQUIL for the cold you are fighting, you sleep like a cranky baby with gas. It is that fitful kind of sleep where you are technically sleeping but you are awake. Every little noise of everyone coming and going wakes you up and since you share this berthing with 15 other girls....sleep aint happening much. CRAP!! It is 0500! Time to get up and do this all over! (At least you got an extra hour of sleep huh?! (Only 4.5 more months Jodie.....)