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Navy rating system change (1 Viewer)

roguenuke

roguenuke

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So this is a huge change for us. And here are a couple of stories about it.

Hello, Seaman: Navy Ditches Ratings After Review | Military.com

The military site makes this seem like something that is so complicated it had to be changed. Just to be clear, it really wasn't. The only people that found our titles complicated were Army guys trying to utilize our skills in land based combat zones because they are too lazy to actually look it as they would have to look up our new Naval Occupational Specialty code.

Navy Announces Enlisted Rating Modernization Plan

This one sticks a little more to the info being put out without so much of the positive spin of the other.

This is not being well accepted from what I've seen and heard. We didn't have any clue this was coming until literally this past Wednesday. Our rating is part of who we are, how we refer to people. Even the flexibility in titles such as "fireman" or "airman" or "seaman" was good because it gave people a good idea of where a person worked on a ship and what sort of jobs they could be training to do. Along with this, "seaman" is not exactly the best title to have with a last name such as "Sampler", "Guzzler", "Tester", or some others (the three mentioned names are actual names of sailors I've known, at least one of which requested a rating change so that she would have the title "fireman" rather than "seaman" in front of her name). Plus, our rating is on most of our paperwork, which means this will have to all be updated to reflect this highly unnecessary change.

I realize that many might not understand this, but it really isn't something that was needed, but is more of a change for the sake of change or "conformity" rather than necessity.
 
roguenuke said:
So this is a huge change for us. And here are a couple of stories about it.

Hello, Seaman: Navy Ditches Ratings After Review | Military.com

The military site makes this seem like something that is so complicated it had to be changed. Just to be clear, it really wasn't. The only people that found our titles complicated were Army guys trying to utilize our skills in land based combat zones because they are too lazy to actually look it as they would have to look up our new Naval Occupational Specialty code.

Navy Announces Enlisted Rating Modernization Plan

This one sticks a little more to the info being put out without so much of the positive spin of the other.

This is not being well accepted from what I've seen and heard. We didn't have any clue this was coming until literally this past Wednesday. Our rating is part of who we are, how we refer to people. Even the flexibility in titles such as "fireman" or "airman" or "seaman" was good because it gave people a good idea of where a person worked on a ship and what sort of jobs they could be training to do. Along with this, "seaman" is not exactly the best title to have with a last name such as "Sampler", "Guzzler", "Tester", or some others (the three mentioned names are actual names of sailors I've known, at least one of which requested a rating change so that she would have the title "fireman" rather than "seaman" in front of her name). Plus, our rating is on most of our paperwork, which means this will have to all be updated to reflect this highly unnecessary change.

I realize that many might not understand this, but it really isn't something that was needed, but is more of a change for the sake of change or "conformity" rather than necessity.
Click to expand...

From your second source:

"Sailors would no longer be called, 'yeoman second class' or YN2, for example," he said. "Instead they will be 'second class petty officer, or 'petty officer.'
Click to expand...

No no no **** no no no no ****ing way no no no ****

That is just wrong. No branch is more respectful of tradition, and the tradition of being called by your rate was a damn good one. There is exactly zero ****ing need to change it. **** **** **** ****...

Yeah, I am a little pissed, and I have been out for over 20 years...
 
Presumably it will offend people less and less as others age out and retirees die; change tends to conquer all given enough time. But I can understand why it would be frustrating to someone who lived with these traditions.
 
Why change something that was working?

I worked as a mechanic/machinist most of my life and I've always thought: If it ain't broke,don't fix it.

IOW: Leave well enough alone.

:lol:
 
I was an Army officer but I spent nearly my whole career working in a joint environment. I had Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine enlisted personnel working for me. Even worked with some Coasties. I have to admit, I wasn't crazy about the Navy enlisted ranks. Part of that was all the enlisted people who worked for and with me were in special duty assignments having little or nothing to do with their MOS/Rating. It got to be an alphabet soup to me. Still, appeasing non-Navy people seems a stupid reason to break with a tradition that most sailors like.
 
BrewerBob said:
I was an Army officer but I spent nearly my whole career working in a joint environment. I had Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marine enlisted personnel working for me. Even worked with some Coasties. I have to admit, I wasn't crazy about the Navy enlisted ranks. Part of that was all the enlisted people who worked for and with me were in special duty assignments having little or nothing to do with their MOS/Rating. It got to be an alphabet soup to me. Still, appeasing non-Navy people seems a stupid reason to break with a tradition that most sailors like.
Click to expand...

Just to clarify, ranks are different than rates. Our ranks are still and have always been E1-E9. Our ratings are what is different, which only describe what we are to mainly each other, our job. There was nothing wrong with a person from another service calling us "Petty Officer" or Seaman or by our rate, such as "MM1", if they knew it. Even someone in the Navy calling someone they didn't know the rating of "Petty Officer" was completely acceptable. And almost everyone just calls Chiefs "Chief", "Sr. Chief", or "Master Chief". The exceptions are really only in our interactions with each other, or identifying our job on paperwork or in writing.


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Being a bit old school, when I was in the Navy we had a RATE and a RATING, then we also had our NECs (job codes similar to MOSs), then if this was not foggy enough, we also throw in your paygrade...E-1 through E-9 for enlisted and O-1 through O-11 for officers, and W1 through W-4 for Warrant Officers, which ALL services have.

That is why a Navy Captain outranks an Army or Marine Captain, and a Navy Lieutenant outranks an Army or Marine Lieutenant.

My RATE was Petty Officer First Class, my RATING was Aviation Antisubmarine Warfare Technician (AX), and I will have to go to my DD-214 to tell you what my many NECs were.

You see in the Navy we do not use NECs all that much.

We even incorrectly refer to our RATE as AX, MM, YN...ect... which are really RATINGS, but we all know what the other guys means, even if incorrect. Don't argue semantics, Squid!

Now, how it is really done is a mix of RATE and RATING. I was referred to as an AX1. Which is a mix of the two, and that is how it is done.

YN2, BMSN, AT3, or AX1. This is how we all do it.

or at least used to do it.
 
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What this is going to do is destroy the pride a squid had in their rating.

If I knew a person (male or female) was an OS, that told me a whole lot already. Same if they were a BM, AT or PN.

I say leave it alone. Nothing is broken.

But then again, I am from a Navy that had crossing the line Shellback initiations, Blue nose initiations, and other similar NAUTICAL traditions observed. If you were a "non-participant", you were a ***** and a wuss.
 
RetiredNSmilin said:
Being a bit old school, when I was in the Navy we had a RATE and a RATING, then we also had our NECs (job codes similar to MOSs), then if this was not foggy enough, we also throw in your paygrade...E-1 through E-9 for enlisted and O-1 through O-11 for officers, and W1 through W-4 for Warrant Officers, which ALL services have.

That is why a Navy Captain outranks an Army or Marine Captain, and a Navy Lieutenant outranks an Army or Marine Lieutenant.

My RATE was Petty Officer First Class, my RATING was Aviation Antisubmarine Warfare Technician (AX), and I will have to go to my DD-214 to tell you what my many NECs were.

You see in the Navy we do not use NECs all that much.

We even incorrectly refer to our RATE as AX, MM, YN...ect... which are really RATINGS, but we all know what the other guys means, even if incorrect. Don't argue semantics, Squid!

Now, how it is really done is a mix of RATE and RATING. I was referred to as an AX1. Which is a mix of the two, and that is how it is done.

YN2, BMSN, AT3, or AX1. This is how we all do it.

or at least used to do it.
Click to expand...

Rate has been your two or three letter rating designator as well as your number or letter designation of rank since I joined in '98. The rates in my field were MM, EM, and ET. Whenever someone asked "what's your rate", you answered with your job initials, not rank, which would be "First Class Petty Officer" or "Fireman" or "Chief" (although Chief is more often a Chiefs title than their rate unless talking with a bunch of other Chiefs), as examples.

That is why at one point a group of supply girls referred to us reactor girls as "ratists", because they felt we felt we were superior to them due to our rate being different than theirs. In reality we felt we were superior to some of them due to not finding putting on makeup to be a priority at 5-7 am on an aircraft carrier with over 70 people (our berthing plus theirs, we shared a head) sharing 3 sinks. And we didn't think being nice and sisterly to each other was something offensive and must indicate someone is a lesbian.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
roguenuke said:
Rate has been your two or three letter rating designator as well as your number or letter designation of rank since I joined in '98. The rates in my field were MM, EM, and ET. Whenever someone asked "what's your rate", you answered with your job initials, not rank, which would be "First Class Petty Officer" or "Fireman" or "Chief" (although Chief is more often a Chiefs title than their rate unless talking with a bunch of other Chiefs), as examples.

That is why at one point a group of supply girls referred to us reactor girls as "ratists", because they felt we felt we were superior to them due to our rate being different than theirs. In reality we felt we were superior to some of them due to not finding putting on makeup to be a priority at 5-7 am on an aircraft carrier with over 70 people (our berthing plus theirs, we shared a head) sharing 3 sinks. And we didn't think being nice and sisterly to each other was something offensive and must indicate someone is a lesbian.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

Nope. Your RATING was your job specialty, like BM, AX, YN, ect. Those are RATINGS, not RATES.

Look it up in any Bluejacket's manual, or BMR.

I have an old book Naval Orientation I found in a junk store that even says so.

Page 160 & 161...Petty Officer RATINGS are listed in their groupings and specific RATINGS.

as an example, the RATINGS in the DECK Group are BM, QM, SM, ect...

RATINGS are your job specialty and the funny little symbol beneath your crow and above your chevrons.

It is a common mistake almost all squids make. Don't feel alone.

Just like calling a watertight door a hatch.

I know what you are talking about, and am only saying this for accuracy's sake.

Name, RANK, & Serial number + DOB?

RetiredNSmilin, Rank would be Petty Officer First Class, and serial number would be my SSN.

So many squids would make the mistake of saying their RATING mixed in with their RANK and say OS2 or STG3 or something stupid like that. Doing so tells the enemy your job specialty. That is why RANK and RATE are the same thing. PO1 in my case.
 
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roguenuke said:
Rate has been your two or three letter rating designator as well as your number or letter designation of rank since I joined in '98. The rates in my field were MM, EM, and ET. Whenever someone asked "what's your rate", you answered with your job initials, not rank, which would be "First Class Petty Officer" or "Fireman" or "Chief" (although Chief is more often a Chiefs title than their rate unless talking with a bunch of other Chiefs), as examples.

That is why at one point a group of supply girls referred to us reactor girls as "ratists", because they felt we felt we were superior to them due to our rate being different than theirs. In reality we felt we were superior to some of them due to not finding putting on makeup to be a priority at 5-7 am on an aircraft carrier with over 70 people (our berthing plus theirs, we shared a head) sharing 3 sinks. And we didn't think being nice and sisterly to each other was something offensive and must indicate someone is a lesbian.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
Click to expand...

I would LOVE to talk with you about your experiences on carriers.

I was on the Connie and the America, and would enjoy listening to what you had to deal with as a woman on those bird farms.
 
roguenuke said:
So this is a huge change for us. And here are a couple of stories about it.

Hello, Seaman: Navy Ditches Ratings After Review | Military.com

The military site makes this seem like something that is so complicated it had to be changed. Just to be clear, it really wasn't. The only people that found our titles complicated were Army guys trying to utilize our skills in land based combat zones because they are too lazy to actually look it as they would have to look up our new Naval Occupational Specialty code.

Navy Announces Enlisted Rating Modernization Plan

This one sticks a little more to the info being put out without so much of the positive spin of the other.

This is not being well accepted from what I've seen and heard. We didn't have any clue this was coming until literally this past Wednesday. Our rating is part of who we are, how we refer to people. Even the flexibility in titles such as "fireman" or "airman" or "seaman" was good because it gave people a good idea of where a person worked on a ship and what sort of jobs they could be training to do. Along with this, "seaman" is not exactly the best title to have with a last name such as "Sampler", "Guzzler", "Tester", or some others (the three mentioned names are actual names of sailors I've known, at least one of which requested a rating change so that she would have the title "fireman" rather than "seaman" in front of her name). Plus, our rating is on most of our paperwork, which means this will have to all be updated to reflect this highly unnecessary change.

I realize that many might not understand this, but it really isn't something that was needed, but is more of a change for the sake of change or "conformity" rather than necessity.
Click to expand...


For those interested you can sign a petition to try and stop the change:

https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/pe...ating-specialty-titles-disestablished-9292016
 
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