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Things My Yeoman Taught Me
Why Officers Need Handlers
Petty Officer First Class Pam Mitchell Guy was my yeoman when I was Director, Information Resources Division (Code 73) for Commander, Navy Recruiting Command (CNRC) in the mid-80s. Her purpose in life was to keep me in line, although I initially had this strange idea she was supposed to handle the multitude of administrative tasks in my division. Pam got assigned to us shortly after I accidentally staged a coup and got my former boss fired.
In the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Coast Guard, the enlisted rating of yeoman describes an enlisted service member who performs administrative and clerical work ashore and embarked aboard vessels at sea. They deal with protocol, naval instructions, enlisted evaluations, commissioned officer fitness reports, naval messages, visitors, telephone calls and mail (both conventional and electronic). They organize files and operate office equipment and order and distribute office supplies. They write and type business and social letters, notices, directives, forms and reports. -Wikipedia
“Ah like officers, Lieutenant,” she once told me in her western Maryland mountain twang. “If this Navy didn’t have officers, Ah wouldn’t have a job. And sometimes, Ah get to make their life a livin’ hell, and it’s all part of mah job description.” She grinned. “Ah love mah job.”
Before Pam showed up, I had done my own correspondence, because: Computers! Laser printers! How hard could a memo be?
So I was confused when I got back to the office, soon after she started, to find myself getting the evil eye from someone who supposedly worked for me. “Lieutenant! Did you write this memo?”
I glanced at the paper in her hand. To: Commander, Navy Recruiting Command, From: me, et cetera. “Yes.”
“Do you know who I just got off the phone with? The admiral’s secretary. Do you know why I was on the phone with the admiral’s secretary? Who is normally a very nice lady? Because she could not believe that this office had sent this piece of shit memo to the admiral! And by ‘this office’ I mean me, because any time you send anything out of this office it reflects on me as the department yeoman. Have you never sent memos before?”
