On the Water

Don’t take anything for granted

One of the big challenges of training new personnel and assimilating them into a functioning crew is dealing with the unknown. Thus, taking anything for granted regarding their knowledge and abilities is likely to backfire in small and large ways.

Big cultural changes occur over the years as new generations cycle through the workforce, overlapping one another. No longer can it be safely assumed that young (or not-so-young) adults who arrive on board, new to the environment and now entirely under the watchful eye of the crew, possess what in the past would have been considered universal basic life skills covering a broad range of daily activities. Nor can it be assumed that they will readily adapt and apply whatever knowledge and skills they have arrived with.

To leave them to their own devices is to court disaster.

I’m referring, at least initially, to the simplest