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Personal Log
Commander John van Leigh, TSN
Stardate 291016.2237Today was interesting.
Recruitment is going fine, and our numbers are rising. It does mean some extra work, but we can live with it. There’s talk of opening a new ship, and it’s part of my duties to study how can we make that happen. Also, Aramond and I started working on a new project, so my plate is full for now.
The first simulation could have gone better. The crew of Phoenix is highly experienced, and the pace at which we do things can be tough for some people. One of our cadets decided he’d be one of them, and left his post on the middle of operations. I can’t tolerate that, so I’ll have to think of a suitable way to deal with it.
After the second sim, which went rather smoothly, we headed straight to sector 18. Phoenix had to pick where to deploy a sensor net. Turns out I misunderstood the briefing and assumed Horizon had six or five relays, when the truth was they had three. As our placements were meant for more relays than we had, the sector wasn’t properly covered at all. I just hope this doesn’t become an issue in the future.
I wasn’t there for the last set of simulations. Dante and I interviewed some officers to screen command candidates. There were some interesting answers. I’m glad we did this.
//The Cadet leaving is a twofold problem: how to deal with people leaving because they don’t like playing with us and how to deal with it in RP terms. In RP terms, it’s easy to punish them, but then again we cannot really do that if we want them to return and play with us again.
//Yep! But also it is something that can’t be overlooked. What I get from other people is positive, which means this doesn’t warrant an extremely severe punishment. My other interactions with the same cadet tell me he can do his job. But he did also leave a console locked. That’s unprofessional. That’s an insult to the way we try to welcome everyone into the group.
//This isn’t an unprecedented situation, but on it’s three-and-a-half-years history the TSN doesn’t have many records of disciplinary actions, except for faults commited in character. I remember a citation on an officer’s record and a hearing into something that never actually happened. It’s also good that almost everyone that comes is able to deal with our community standards (keeping some appearance of character, doing your station as well as you can, don’t openly rebel, generally speaking don’t be an asshole…) so that those instances are rare. But things like this break the inmersion (or, even if you’re not into RP, the damned game) for everyone involved.
//But really, don’t mind me. This is something that has to be studied by the senior staff, and I wouldn’t want to pick a punishment on my own end without reviewing it with them, as this impacts on the entire group. I’m just angry at this, and frustrated that I let it happen on my ship.
//I agree that the first shift as a cadet can be overwhelming (I freaked out completely on my first shift – made worse by hardware problems, and if Matsiyan hadn’t been there to sort them out I would never have come back), especially on an unfamiliar station or as a complete beginner; but you say this guy knew what he was doing, so leaving the station locked is a deliberate action. It sounds petty and childish.
I don’t see how you could blame yourself, though. No, I can, because I do that too; and since I wasn’t there, I can’t comment on the actual events. But from my experience of you as a commanding officer, your orders are clear, your manner is calm, and you do follow cadets more closely than experienced officers so that they can ask questions if they need. So maybe this is just one of those things that happen, and it’s probably best to discuss it among senior officers to decide what to do about it.
//My guess is that what triggered him to leave was the sheer ammount of orders he was receiving. This cadet in particular had to receive them (even though I despise micromanaging stations) because he failed to perform any of the weapons officer duties on his own initiative. He didn’t target, he didn’t raise shields, couldn’t target Kralien ships within 3-4 k… The weird thing, when the same cadet (he left, then conencted, changed his name, waited in the lobby, then joined back with a different name after the mission) took over helm he started to work just fine.
//Thank you for your words!
//Perhaps it really was a case of an unfamiliar station, if he’d always taken helm and had no idea how weapons works, so he went to pieces. And perhaps he needed to calm down and get himself together again, and once he did that, he was fine.
//Well, you’ve encouraged me plenty of times.
//I think for the most part our community has been self-selecting, as anyone who doesn’t fit our culture tends not to return after seeing how it works. I think we all had stressful or embarrassing cadet shifts (I’ll never let Blaze live down his reverse mine incident :P) but we enjoyed the style of play and wanted to get better at both our stations and our discipline.
//I think it’s easy to forget when we get a new player who has experience with Artemis from playing outside the TSN that our style of discipline takes a lot of getting used to. I wasn’t there for the cadet in question, but the fact that he wanted to come back as another character and give it another go makes me think this is something he’d like to get better at, in which case perhaps we should go easy on him. Van Leigh’s debriefs are always constructive and rarely personal, though, so I’m not too worried.
//Of course if you feel that someone is abusing the patience they’re receiving and not even *attempting* to grow as an officer, I would hope a senior officer would pull them aside and ask them to straighten up and fly right before they cause any additional friction.
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