The lack of sleep was the worst part of the long extended deployment period that I was on. Our work center had like three people doing rotating shifts standing watch, keeping equipment running. I’d be up all night and in the morning we couldn’t go to bed until after quarters and the XOs inspection of berthing, which was like 11am. But then it was lunchtime and after that we couldn’t sleep because of GQ drills in the afternoon. Basically when all that was done and over I had to go back on watch. There would be times I’d be awake for several days straight. When the stars aligned perfectly and I could get 8 hours straight, oh man it was the best sleep I ever had.
Yeah, I barely have memories from that time I was so sleep deprived.
“You’re gonna reenlist, right? You’re a great sailor! Civilian life sucks, you just don’t even know.”
“I was a civilian for a decade before I signed up. I know what’s it’s like. You don’t. No, I got the GI Bill now. I’m going to Colorado, to hike deep into the mountains without telling anyone where I’m going, and smoke myself into a coma.”
I’d be up all night and in the morning we couldn’t go to bed until after quarters and the XOs inspection of berthing, which was like 11am.
Seems like a command staff seriously out to lunch. A good commander would recognize that letting your people get sleep they need is more important than making sure every bed is made correctly.
Given that the oversight and operation of nuclear reactors is a fairly simple and straightforward process with few consequences for mistakes and benign failure modes, I’m sure that operator error incidents due to sleep deprivation would have few consequences and are generally not worth preventing.
You don’t want to know about the number of times a fast recovery has been done asleep or a full plant startup is done by an RO who is actively blackout drunk.
The lack of sleep was the worst part of the long extended deployment period that I was on. Our work center had like three people doing rotating shifts standing watch, keeping equipment running. I’d be up all night and in the morning we couldn’t go to bed until after quarters and the XOs inspection of berthing, which was like 11am. But then it was lunchtime and after that we couldn’t sleep because of GQ drills in the afternoon. Basically when all that was done and over I had to go back on watch. There would be times I’d be awake for several days straight. When the stars aligned perfectly and I could get 8 hours straight, oh man it was the best sleep I ever had.
Yeah, I barely have memories from that time I was so sleep deprived.
“You’re gonna reenlist, right? You’re a great sailor! Civilian life sucks, you just don’t even know.”
“I was a civilian for a decade before I signed up. I know what’s it’s like. You don’t. No, I got the GI Bill now. I’m going to Colorado, to hike deep into the mountains without telling anyone where I’m going, and smoke myself into a coma.”
And I did.
Was it a restful coma?
Seems like a command staff seriously out to lunch. A good commander would recognize that letting your people get sleep they need is more important than making sure every bed is made correctly.
This is a very Low-T comment
Yeah that’s… Not how the Navy does things.
Sleep deprivation is the norm across the Navy, particularly in the engineering community and particularly in nuclear engineering.
I would commonly go 36 hours without sleep, generally a few times a month. People keep this up for decades.
Given that the oversight and operation of nuclear reactors is a fairly simple and straightforward process with few consequences for mistakes and benign failure modes, I’m sure that operator error incidents due to sleep deprivation would have few consequences and are generally not worth preventing.
You don’t want to know about the number of times a fast recovery has been done asleep or a full plant startup is done by an RO who is actively blackout drunk.
We all have, at least, one of those stories.
That can only lead to excellent results and will never result in any mistakes whatsoever, I’m absolutely sure.