JELLICO: Will.
RIKER: Captain. Captain.
JELLICO: I believe we're scheduled to arrive at the Cardassian border during delta shift. Please inform the delta tactical officer that I want to launch a class five probe just before we drop out of warp.
RIKER: I was actually going to talk to you about delta shift a little later, sir. Right now, gamma shift will be on duty when we arrive and I will tell Lieutenant McDowell about the probe.
JELLICO: Is there a problem with delta shift, Will?
RIKER: There is no delta shift yet, sir. I have spoken to the department heads about changing from three shifts to four, and they assure me it's going to cause us significant personnel problems.
JELLICO: So you have not changed the watch rotation.
RIKER: I was going to explain this to you after the ceremony, sir.
JELLICO: You will tell the department heads that as of now the Enterprise is on a four shift rotation. I don't want to talk about it. Get it done. Now that means delta shift will be due to come on duty in two hours. I expect you to have it fully manned and ready when it does. Is that clear?
RIKER: Yes, sir. And sir?
JELLICO: What is it now??
RIKER: What would you like me to do with the bodies, sir? Of the 4th shift crew that will be flooded with plasma radiation because of the now-overlapping engineering maintenance and security cycles?
JELLICO: NOT MY PROBLEM, RIKER!
RIKER: No sir. Not until tomorrow's Emergency Board of Inquiry, anyway sir. If it's not too insignificant for you to attend, Your Majesty.
Well
Mojochi, and others, thanks for getting through my posts. I really find all the opinions in this thread very interesting (and not unlike actual work experience in my career). If you'll forgive my piecework riposte....
Except it was, ultimately.
While you are certainly right about the uncertain duration of his stay, Jellico still seemed to employ the "microwave a turkey" school of cooking.
That's a bit of a stretch. Making everyone work extra hard, (because it's a crisis) & adding an additional shift is hardly redesigning the whole organizational culture. It's just altering the workflow. The main complaint against it was that it would cause unspecified interim staffing issues. (i.e. some folks might have to stay up past their bedtime, which was going to be happening anyway)
Oh, I liked my little Close Encounters riff. I was going to say "white whale" but I felt it was too "on the nose".
Riker said the department chiefs said the switch would cause "significant personnel problems." What concerns me is that work "significant", when uttered by an experienced Commander, is probably something, I don't know,
significant? As in, not achievable without other costs the Captain may
not be aware of? I'm sure Jellico would agree with you, that they were whining about staying up past their bedtime. It was his decision to value their experienced feedback or not - and chose not to - without knowing the details, and not factoring the costs. Leadership? Kind of sounds like the opposite, doesn't it? Something more like...being in denial about consequences? Defeat that Borg cube, Will. Get it done, Will. Fix that engineer's eyes, Will. Recreate the Traveler Effect, Will. Get it done.
Picard's never gotten lucky? Never made unreasonable demands? Hardly. He just gets the benefit of the doubt, because we've come to respect & sympathize with him. Jellico was afforded no such luxury by his superiors. He was always going to be the replacement no one wanted, in a mission few or none could complete, under the circumstances.
The general concensus against Jellico seems to be that if he'd just let everyone keep doing things their way, the mission could go smoother, because we'd not dislike him as much. That's not how any of this works at all.
I agree with your point here; and you are right about Picard, who has had the benefit of earning the crew's loyalty throughout his ups and downs. Jellico did not have the luxury of rapport afforded by experience and time. And he obviously decided to account for that lack by embracing it and adding more bricks to the wall of his office. Riker also held that unfavorable position of having to replace Picard - and he did so without making the crew hate his personality - not his orders, his
personality - and frank contempt for the crew he obviously saw as an indistinct blur. Had Jellico had time to earn their respect, things may have been very different, sure, absolutely. Obviously as a Starfleet Captain, he must be competent, right? But there is a fine line between command and belligerence. That line is made of cheese - sorry, trust. Not only did Jellico not have the luxury of trust - he let them know he didn't value their trust. And that is lethal in a leader of any tenure. Particularly as Troi knew of Jellico - he was not, in fact, even sure of himself. While Picard, um, was being tortured to death. A mere footnote to the Cardassian threat, of course. Never minding all that stuff Picard would fix later, like the past assimilation of the Earth, or anything. Some footnote, Admiral Jellico.
Also here, the issue is not the crew's willingness nor ability to adapt, to hustle, to get the job done. Their concerns were very clearly that the Captain was not utilizing them to the best of their abilities. Now that is something a board of inquiry can come to assess quantitatively - and with no bias of opinion at all.
I'd like to know what data you're basing that on.
No data, only the feedback of a crew who seem to know their jobs and are directly responsible for the execution of the mission. Not the old feedback of the other ships and crews the Captain was grafting onto a completely new ship and crew - of the best of the best, I might add, not a lot of underachievers who needed to be told when to swab the deck and shine their boots. There's a time and a place for that kind of shakedown - and the current crisis wasn't it. Jellico was sent in to command the
flagship in a time of possible war; not to clean up Animal House. He didn't have the luxury or time for a blind paint-by-numbers leadership, but that is exactly what he decided to employ. "Give me the facts, you tools, and shut the hell up." To be followed by "So, you play trombone?" Like you give a crap. Spare us the same rapport-building machiavellianism that Gul Madred is, as we speak, employing on Captain Picard. Do you like long walks on the beach Captain?
It's entirely possible that everything he ordered was absolutely necessary, to the successful completion of his unpleasant & unusual mission. I'd like to believe he briefed his superiors on how he'd proceed before he even took command, & they approved. He certainly knew everything he needed to know, the minute he stepped on board.
He's very likely not there doing these things because he asked for it. Wouldn't it make sense that he'd prefer this mission went to his seasoned ship & crew? They tell this man that this is his job & this is stuff he says needs to be done to do it. Being he's the captain, you are expected to assume he knows why it's required. You don't have to know why. Often you won't. It may not be as nice, but you just have to do. If you're truly the best crew there is, it's incumbent upon you to "make it so"
I tend to agree with you here about the Starfleet Command situation. And yes, I firmly place ultimate responsibility for the results at their decision-making (and Necheyev's power tripping Picard envy). Though admittedly it's been a while since viewing this one. But being as how this is potentially a war situation, it is also time to affirm for the crew that the stranger now in charge actually knows his aft from a hole in the ground. If the Captain says "jump", a competent crew says "how high!" But if the Captain says "Flamethrow those orphans" does a competent crew say "what color!" In case any readers are wondering, the answer is no. No they do not. Fuel is expensive.
Heck, his whole attitude might just be because he knew no one would like being ordered around in unfamiliar ways. So he knew his only avenue (in a crisis) was to just play it strict. We don't even really know if that's the type of man he normally is. Put yourself in his place, really... in every aspect of his place. The chain of command is ALL he has going for him here. He has to push it. He knows no one personally, at all.
IMHO, He is a very good captain, who won the day, against every obstacle imaginable. If it's less than palatable for people, blame the administration that handed it down, not the line officer that took a verkakte job & did it. That guy you praise, like a miracle worker, especially if he saved your French ass
He may be a very good captain, but in this mission, he got results
in spite of getting in his own way. That's not the same thing as giving the ship the
best chance of success and survival. I daresay
Commander Riker could have done better than
Captain Jellico for this mission.
And again, in the end, Starfleet Command returned
Picard 's French ass to the command seat of the Enterprise. Now, that says something too, about their tacit assessment of Jellico's revolving-door command of the D. Given the choice, as far as the flagship was concerned, Starfleet Command gave the man his walking papers.
Except it isn't, ultimately.
