Starfleet Academy, the bottom half of graduates.

Not really my interpretation at all. It really does seem as though Barclay was tossed from assignment to assignment with his former crews giving him favorable reviews to make him seem more enticing for the next ship he's assigned to. Hell, it's what Riker wanted to do with Barclay.

Where I work we did something similar years back. There was a guy none of us could tolerate so when we learned of a job opening that would mean a promotion and a transfer, we all recommended him for it just to get rid of him. And he got the job.

 

Thanks. That makes me happier about my job.

 

Lets take Laforge, he probably has his share of paper work, and delegating the assighnments, but as a persion who was in charge of a shop that rebuilt jet engines, there is plenty of paper work, but not enough to fill a day, and deligating takes up the first 30 minutes of a shift or so. My day was filled being a quality assurance person, looking over others repairs, making sure there doing it right. completing some paperwork, ordering parts, but I still had plenty of time to work on the engines myself, it depended on the day mind you, but in an 8 hour day, maybe 4-6 hours of actuall engine work.
So to me, Laforge can cherry pick what assignemnts he wants to supervise or do himself, if he's not busy on a myriad of tasks. Some days he might be in his office looking over paper work, or reading tech journals, while others he's helping in waste reclamation.. >_<

On a personal story, I was O level engine repair, but I went out on deployments with the squadrons, and I usually just sat in a tent or van and read a book until and engine went tits up, then I'm working 35 hour days to get it back up. And yes, there's plenty of people on ships that work 3hours and just sit.. or clean something 5 times a day.. Boring alot of time..

 

Speaking of department heads, I wonder who would be the busiest? Or more accurately, has the least amount of time to sit and read updates/manuals/technical journals?

Engineering has been talked about a lot.

Medical probably is similar in that unless a contagion or emergency happens, it's just routine checkups and some lab work.

Sciences... probably all they do is jysg go over sensor scans and reports, unless they are charting a new region.

Security probably has to constantly be on guard, but unless something attacks, it's just drills and guard duty.

I suppose it ultimately depends on where we are taking about... a starship, starbase, or planetside facility.

A place like DS9 probably has nothing but work for Security and Engineering, based on it being an open port and dialogue from Odo to Worf in "BAR ASSOCIATION". O'Brien is working all the time, whether on the station, the Defiant, or another ship.

I would imagine Medical and Science be the same everywhere.

 

There's nothing wrong with nepotism SO LONG AS IT IS OPEN, HONEST, AND ABOVE BOARD, SO LONG AS IT DOES NOT TRUMP QUALIFICATION, AND SO LONG AS IT DOES NOT RESULT IN UNQUALIFIED OR NON-PRODUCING EMPLOYEES BEING RETAINED.

I've had a number of jobs through nepotism myself, but it was always open and honest, they were always jobs I was at least qualified for, and usually grossly overqualified, and I would not have lasted (or wanted to last) so much as a week in a "make work" job, regardless of whether nepotism had any part in my being hired. (Indeed, a little over two decades ago, I resigned from a part-time job I'd had for nearly a decade, when company politics changed in such a way that I was effectively being paid to sit around and NOT DO the job.)

 

You have to imagine it would be off-putting for the civilian population as well. What kind of connection would 'normal' people feel for an organization made up only of the best of the best of the best? I can see how it would end up being perceived as elitist and out of touch. It would be like how 'normal' people today view the Ivy League or Oxbridge, multiplied to an enormous degree.

 

Like most employers, they need to realize it's all well and good to focus on rising stars and leaders, but not everyone can fill that role, or *wants* to fill that role, and the leaders can't do jackshit without an army of 'little people' keeping the wheels turning underneath them. My boss comes up with the Grand Design, but God help him if he didn't have me and my co-workers around to implement it...

 

Platonic guardians or Smith’s Lensmen come to mind. Not a comfortable co-existence, perhaps, but the people would be safe.

 

There is a VERY BIG difference between being elite and being elitist. And most of the latter have very shaky claims to the former.

 

It's sometimes a not uncommon fixture, to the point where Dilbert parodies the phenomenon as 'Pointy Haired Boss Syndrome' or whatever. Ie, in every organizator workplace, there are these people who've been promoted up the ladder beyond their reasonable usefulness, because it was easier for whatever reason than to fire them

Barclay was promoted all the way up to Pathfinder and beyond, even though he's got basically the same neuroses the last time we see him than he did at the start

 

But did we really ever see Barclay promoted to a position which was above his skill level?

What can happen is that because a person does well in a certain position they are promoted to the next position up which they aren't suited to.

 

I have to disagree about nepotism, if you have a vested interest in seeing someone hired you should recuse yourself from the decision process. Even if the person is qualified, you're taking an earned opportunity from somebody who may not have the privilege of powerful connections.

I think the engineering department head has the most busywork. On a starship there's a thousand systems that have to be constantly monitored and kept perfectly within spec.

 

That's two separate issues, though. Consider the viewpoint of the employee-hopeful: why should he be punished for the fact that Mommy sits in the Board? Yet if he does get in, Mommy still sits in the Board, even if she has dutifully abstained from the selection process. The privilege and the connections will always be there, as will the vested interests (especially in small circles, such as automatically in small countries). They need not affect meritocratic considerations, though.

I'd think Sciences Dept would have busy time in deep space, too. Engineering just has to deal with the unexpected of the expected, that is, malfunctions in the existing systems. Sciences deals with the unexpected of the unexpected every day! This on top of the expected in both the expected and the unexpected.

Timo Saloniemi

 

I real life nepotism is a real problem though as incompetent people get hired all the time because of it and screw things up on sometimes a large scale, and I am not even talking about corruption.

 

True enough. But another inescapable fact of life is that the children of the privileged are likely to be on top of the competence list, too, having had the means to get educated. It used to be worse earlier on, with incompetence at factory management (or pottery) absolutely inevitable for anybody who wasn't the son of the factory manager (or potter). Today we have the theoretically universally available training; we just don't have the universal wealth to allow people to get the training in non-nepotist ways.

Timo Saloniemi

 

To an extent, but remember Federation technology is meant to be extremely reliable, to the point that several times in the show Geordi had to explain how multiple monitoring systems and safeguards had to fail in order that X engineering issue of the week could have occurred. The engineers aren't out each day testing every single optical chip or plasma relay - the automated level one and two diagnostics do all that. The level 3-5 diagnostics are probably on a schedule, with the need for any unexpected repairs that might crop up in a routine check actually being fairly rare.

O'Brien was so busy on DS9 because the station was trashed by the Cardassians on the way out, their systems aren't as reliable anyway, and what Fed tech WAS onboard didn't always mesh with it well. Plus, his team is quite small for a station that size - he's got Bajoran personnel to help, but they may not be as broadly trained (the Cardassians wouldn't want a subjugated people knowing too many of their systems, if they used them as techs at all, and the rest probably field-trained in sabotage or repairing stolen tech during the Resistance).

 

Wasn't a Level 1 diagnostic the most intense one, where they pull things apart to find a problem? Level 4 and 5 were like quick scans, and 2 and 3 were more detailed.

 

Beats me! I thought it was the other way around, IE the higher the level number the most intense the diagnostic.

 

Thinking about it now, I am right.

I remember Picard ordering a Level 1 diagnostic to Geordi, I think it was. Maybe O'Brien, I think he was kneeling at the transporter pad. "Hollow Pursuits", maybe? And it sure seemed he emphasized the 'Level 1' part... that part I am certain of.