cultures

I've been thinking for a long time that I should blog a couple of the more amusing culture clash exchanges that my sailor and I have shared. Let's be serious, the dotcom world and the military are... um... different. Vast chasms of different. We've gotten a lot of humor out of how each of us lives in opposite worlds over the last several years.

My favorite of all time was in August 2004, when I was sitting on the floor of the bridge of a boat that he was XO on, wearing jeans and flip flops, and working on my laptop. There were a couple sailors visiting from a nearby station and I chatted with them for a while. They were talking about how sad it was that I was usually stuck in an office on land during the day. I countered with 'yes, but I go to work in flip flops all summer.' Sadly that didn't sell them on the wonders of dotcom civilian life. I think they must have been imaging slipping on the deck wearing flip flops during a big storm and falling into the water- not something I worry so much about in my job.

This morning Brian and I were talking about annual reviews and how our career goals could kind of be summed up as 'write a lot of interesting code.' My sailor is also writing his version of annual reviews, for the LTJGs who work for him, and he didn't think 'write interesting code' was a valid career goal. I think his exact words were 'honestly, if you were in the CG, you would be kicked out for that. it doesn't show leadership.' Yes, because leadership is exactly what you need when you have a crashing webserver. Well, ok, you need some leadership, but you have a more pressing need for super sharp nerds.